Page 39 of The One That Ran Away

What had happened the last time Shannon tried to make something up to her, hm? Something Jess would rather not think about now.

“Tell you what. Next time I see you, I’ll loan you one of the books I carry with me everywhere. And I’ll give you a tarot reading.”

“Tarot? Wow. I’ve never done that before.”

“There’s a first time for everything.”

A few minutes passed before Jess received a reply.“There certainly is.”

Jess finished up her article and hit the shower. While in there, she remembered a time when these conversations would have made her so happy, that she would forget to bathe if it weren’t for social conventions.

It always felt like such a long time. It always felt like yesterday. Today.

She tapped her head against the shower wall. Sometimes, when she was trapped with her own naked body in the bath, she remembered when someone named Shannon Parker ran her hands up and down that skin and kissed those lips.

Jess remembered giving back as readily as she took.

In a perfect world, that would be all she remembered. For a few blessed days her senior year of college, thatwasall she could remember. Life. Love. Happiness and an affair full of sensual kisses that made her open her heart to the world she always knew existed beyond her imagination and innermost fantasies.

An affair. That was all it had ever been. College experimentation gone awry. In the end, heterosexuality always won out when its cold, calculating grip strangled hope long enough.