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start daydreaming so much? Damn, Lucy. As much as I hate Jake after what he did to you, the poor guy will be having a one-sided conversation if you continue to do this all night long.” Ellen stops talking to unplug the curling iron from the wall. “So, do you think you’ll be all right?”
    “You know what? I think out of anyone out there, even if it is Jake, he might just be the one person to help put everything back together for me.” I check myself out in the mirror before standing up from the seat. “I don’t know how to explain it. Yeah, things weren’t left in the best of places years ago. After seeing him the other day… I don’t know… something just clicked again.” I turn to check out my new outfit in the mirror. “It’s as though we’re back where we used to be, and nothing has changed, but yet everything has changed.” I continue to stare at my outfit Ellen had me change into. “I know you hate Jake and all, but seriously, by you making me wear this, I might just hate you.”

    I finish buttoning my dress shirt, leaving open the button closest to my neck. I can’t help but wonder what it is about Lucy that still drives me to become a nervous wreck even after all this time apart. I have no idea what I’m doing. I just know that Lucy Wyatt still sets my body on fire, and despite every other screw I’ve had since her, I want her and only her.
    Quickly making my way down the stairs of the home I grew up in, I grab my keys from the granite kitchen island along with the flowers right next to them. I hope they’re still her favorite flowers. Sunflowers and purple lupine were what Lucy always brought back after we’d take the horses out for a ride from the ranch when we were growing up. The minute we’d hit the open fields of nothing but purple and yellow, her face would light up. That’s when I knew it. I knew when I was sixteen that I was head over heels in love with Lucy.
    I should have listened to my heart rather than my head the day I let her leave this very same kitchen in tears and never come back. As I quickly make my way out the front door, I shut off the lights before closing the door behind me.
    Checking the time on my phone, I make sure I’m not running too late. I hop into my truck and carefully place the flowers onto the passenger seat. I swiftly make my way through the packed streets of downtown, thrumming my fingers on my steering wheel to the sounds of Nonpoint’s “In The Air Tonight”. As I pull up to the front of her parents’ house, I turn down the radio before grabbing the flowers and hopping out of the truck. I allow a couple of older women to pass in front of me as they walk their dogs down the street. While I stand there waiting for them to pass, I notice the light on in the upstairs bedroom of the house. I can barely make out the silhouette of what I believe is Ellen.
    That crazy ass sister of Lucy’s has literally put the fear of death in me. Whenever she told me to stay far away from Lucy because she had been through enough recently, I didn’t listen and ended up on Lucy’s doorstep the other day. I still don’t know the whole story about what happened to Lucy back in Massachusetts, but when I noticed the raised scar on her neck, I knew it was more than I ever imagined. No scar would ever deter me from her, ever. What’s that old saying? ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.’ Lucy’s bright blue eyes and wavy blonde hair coupled with her attitude and laughter are enough for me to forget about everything else going on.
    After the women pass with their dogs, I make my way up the front steps of the house and ring the doorbell. Moments later, the door swings open, and Lucy’s father stands before me. I eye him cautiously since we haven’t exactly spoken over the years. At least not since he accused me of driving his daughter out of town.
    I remember that week as though it was yesterday. I had the whole fuckin’ world ahead of me. I was cocky as all shit. I