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Chapter One

Life wasn’t supposed to be this way.

Ava Stanford blew a lock of red-blonde hair out of her face and wiped her forearm across her sweaty forehead, narrowly avoiding knocking off her glasses.

It wasn’t as though packing was such hard work. But then, maybe she was just getting old. Maybe this was the price she paid for eating at her desk and skipping runs to grab ice cream and occasionally drinking more wine than was good for her.

“Forty three isn’t old,” Quinn said, putting a cup of coffee on top of a pile of books. “And you don’t have to go.”

“Forty three isn’t exactly young,” Ava said with a sniff. “I mean, statistically speaking, even if I live until my late eighties then I’m already half way done, right?”

“Ever the optimist.”

“As for going, as much as I’d love to sleep on your couch for the rest of my life, it’d be a rough commute, don’t you think?”

Quinn’s nose wrinkled in thought. “I’m not sure Uber does trans-atlantic crossings,” she said finally. She cupped her mug in her hands and perched on the edge of the sofa. “You know what I mean though, don’t you?”

Ava sighed, got her own coffee and joined her best friend on the couch. “I do. And you’re a darling. And I love and adore you. But truthfully, I do need to go. I need to do this. I need to… challenge myself.”

Not to mention the fact that she needed to get away from the shattered remains of what her life was supposed to be like.

“You think teaching English kids is going to be more challenging than teaching American ones?” Quinn said with a snort. “They’re all ties and tea, rather less of the guns and cursing, I’d have thought.”

“It’ll still be a challenge,” Ava said. “It’s a different way of doing things, a whole new bureaucracy to learn.”

Quinn rolled her eyes and grunted in a non-committal way that made Ava laugh.

“It’s for a year, Quinn. Not even a full year, a school year. I’ll be gone all of, what, ten months? It’ll be over in the blink of an eye.”

“You’re leaving me all alone to fend for myself,” pouted Quinn.

Ava laughed again because in the whole time she’d known Quinn, going on a steady twenty five years now, the woman had never technically been alone. Quinn lived by the rule that an empty bed is a waste of space, and with her blonde hair and big blue eyes had no trouble filling the other side of her sleeping quarters when necessary.

“You mean that I’m leaving the male population to fend for themselves against your charms,” Ava said. “You’ll be fine. It’s the twenty first century. We can Skype or Zoom or, hell, you could even come over for a visit.”

“I might do that.” Quinn lay her head back on the couch and looked at Ava.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“No, come on, what?” Ava said. “You can’t give me that look and then not follow it up.”

“What look?”

“You know, the one that makes me feel like I’m wearing a huge ‘Handle With Care’ sign draped around my neck.”

Quinn blew out a breath. “Well excuse me for being worried about you.”

“You don’t need to worry about me.”

“You could have fooled me,” Quinn said. “Your entire life turned upside down, three months of sleeping on my couch having nightmares, weeks of crying that you tried to hide from everyone, and now this.”

“This?” Ava said.

“Yes, this. You going to England. You running away. You thinking that all your problems will disappear if you leave the country. Like you’re some kind of Mafia Don avoiding the cops or something.”

“Well, first, I haven’t committed a crime,” Ava said, patiently. “And second, I’m not running away. I have to come back at some point.” Though what she’d be coming back to was another question. It wasn’t like there was anything here for her other than Quinn and some horrifically painful memories.