Redesigning Fate (Revive #1) - A. M. Wilson Page 0,7

her close again at a time in my life where it feels like I have nothing left. Starting out new isn’t nearly as frightening with my best friend close enough to have my back.

“Are you sure you don’t have other plans? Midterms to study? It’s just a job. We can celebrate it another day.”

Not that I didn’t want to go out, because I did. Getting lost in the loud body rocking music with a drink in my hand sounded good right about now. But seeing as I haven’t lived here long, I know she has a clique she parties with regularly. I don’t want her to break plans on my account.

“Nope! I finished my last midterm today. It’s spring break, silly. We are going out. There is nothing I’d rather do than go clubbing with you.”

I have zero hope of winning against her insistence. She’s going out with or without me, but when Carly wants something, she gets it. So I give in but mask the relief in my voice. I’ve missed her, but I don’t want to let her know how much. I don’t want her to worry. “All right! All right. You win. Come over at nine. We can get ready here and take a cab from my place.”

Carly giggles a light, lyrical sound. “Sure thing, doll. See you then.”

“Later.”

The call disconnects, and I stare at my cell for a moment. It’s just after five o’clock yet it feels much later. I reflect on my day, my thoughts drifting to the mysterious man I pressed up against in the elevator…

Oh God, I have to stop this. I need to hit the gym before a long night out downtown. A long run on the treadmill will give my head a chance to rid the dirty thoughts, and my body could use a good workout. A night of binge drinking is definitely not a productive intake of my daily allotted calories. I didn’t used to care about my weight or watch what I put in my mouth. But ever since my ex told me my thighs were getting bigger than his, I started to care. A lot. Up until we broke up, I worked out religiously. After, well, I suspect my lack of appetite took care of the extra weight for me. Now, I run as a way to relieve stress.

***

My feet pound the treadmill, following the rapid beat of the techno song pouring out of my iPod’s headphones. Sweat runs down my face as the stress from the last few weeks leaks out of my system. The internet searching, resume writing, job hunting monotony added an unwanted load of stress to my life, but it needed to be done.

I had to get out of the place where he still visited. The blatant stares from my coworkers that they cast my way whenever he showed up were a mixture of sympathy and denial. Our old mutual friends were now only his friends. They left me. I was alone in my workplace with the devil himself as my boss and near constant reminders of the life I was forced to leave. The only way to cleanse the past from my life was to make it nothing more than a memory.

David—also known as dad— had left us when I was five. David walked out to save his own sorry ass, and even though his destruction was out of our lives, it only led the rest of the family down a path of desolation. At five years old, it couldn’t have possibly been my fault, but in my mother’s mind, I was still to blame. Or maybe I was just the easiest target. She claimed the now open title of family aggressor and took out her anger of David leaving on me. She wasn’t physical, but her verbal abuse could slice through even the thickest confidence. Since I grew up with virtually no self-esteem, her words strongly affected me.

My brother, DJ, wasn’t much better.

I looked up to my brother since as far back as I can remember. Only two years older than myself, I still saw him as my defender. Whether it was a scary bug, a bad dream, or the mean kid down the street, DJ was always there ready to rescue me from the evilest of villains—except David. He couldn’t have done anything to spare me the pain.

I like to believe that his withdrawal was because of his own guilt, not because he blames me, too. DJ walked out shortly before