Starlight Secrets – Chapter 1
Helen cradled the warm coffee between her hands as she walked down the street not seeing much of anything in front of her.
The latte had been a gift from her friend Luisa who saw that she needed it. Helen had bought the pastry because it looked so good, but it was long since gone.
The sidewalk moved almost rhythmically beneath her feet, her brain almost turned off. Once again, she found herself entangled in a past she’d like to leave far behind, but she still struggled to forget it.
The cool mountain air brushed against her and she used it to remind herself this was a different place and a different time. She was here now.
When she told a few of her friends in New York that she was moving just outside of Charlottesville, they’d asked her if she really wanted to do that? They warned her about the culture shock. Helen assured them that was exactly why she was moving.
The air felt different, cleaner. Though it was trash day today on this street, the trash was in cans or bins, not piled on the sidewalk, stinking in the summer heat. She’d grown up in a town more like this than like the city. Though Charlottesville was definitely in the modern century, flashing ads didn’t assail her and tourists didn’t clog the walk.
She was safe.
She lifted the paper cup, sniffed at the heavenly aroma and took another sip. It was full of foam and hazelnut and sugar. She loved it.
Still moving forward with no idea where she was going other than just “for a walk” she stepped to one side to avoid a couple coming the other direction. There were enough people to be busy, but the area wasn’t crowded. Some of the people even said hello.
She offered a smile, though it was small and a little tight.
Then one bump sent her whole body on alert in a way she’d not learned how to control. A shoulder brushed against hers a little too harshly: a businessman walking down the street. She’d registered his briefcase, but not that he would move in close to her. Her senses all flared in an overreaction to being jostled.
Then, her breath fled as she felt the touch of his hand too casually sliding down her ass as he passed by.
Helen froze, her system flooding with shock and fear.
It didn’t matter if she wanted to yell out that he was an asshole! Or that she should turn and punch him in the face. She was unable to react. And that might be the scariest thing of all.
No. She told herself. She was overreacting.
But she couldn’t tell anymore.
Maybe she could just turn around, ask him what the hell he’d been thinking. Just yell out on the quiet Charlottesville street, “Hey, asshole. What makes you think it’s okay to grab a woman’s ass?”
But she did none of that. She simply tried to breathe through the flood of hormones that were too much and too pointless. Her shoulders were tense enough that if someone touched her, she might shatter like spun sugar.
“Hey!”
She registered the harsh voice though she couldn’t process it.
“Hey!” it said again, then, “Lady, are you okay? I almost ran into you.”
Her head jerked up, her teeth grinding, the combination of anger and fear too strong to do much of anything else. But this wasn’t the guy.
“I’m okay,” she lied, forcing a smile. She’d been lying about that for a long time now. “I’m sorry.”
Helen pushed her feet, one before the other, down the street, angry because she hadn’t reacted the right way. Whatever that was.
She’d come here to get over it! But she’d been here for months, and the past was still clinging like spiderwebs.
