The Road To Forgiveness

The Road To Forgiveness

Justine Elvira

Published by Justine Elvira

Smashwords edition

© 2013 Justine Elvira

[email protected]

All rights reserved. This book contains
material under International and Federal Copyright Laws and
Treaties. Any Unauthorized reprint or use of this material is
prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form without written permission of the author, except by a
reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes only.

This book is a work of fiction and any
resemblance to any person, living or dead, or any events or
occurrences, is purely coincidental. The characters and story lines
are created from the author’s imagination and are used
fictitiously.

Cover image used under license from
shutterstock.com

Table of
Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Epilogue

I’m being pushed in to a cream colored room
with one window. The storm outside is defining and I worry about
the safety of one person. The person I need here with me the most.
The person who is traveling to be here, with me.

I’m not nervous or anxious for what is about
to happen to my body. I’m calm and relaxed. I know the only reason
is because I’m happy.

Truly, sickeningly happy.

The kind of happy you only dream about. The
kind of happy I never thought I’d have again.

My mother walks into the room just as I hear
a crash of thunder vibrate through building. We both look out the
window to see the rain and hail beating on the pavement. It’s
coming down harder than it was earlier.

“
You’re going to have to prepare for the
worst, Mia.”

My mother was always the pessimist.

“
He’ll be here, momma,” I say calmly,
while letting out another deep breath.

“
Honey, I just don’t think you are being
realistic. It’s raining cats and dogs out there. The winds are
blowing around fifty miles per hour. It’s just not going to
happen.”

My frustration is growing. I love my momma
but I need her to be on my side for once. I need her to think
positively for me. If she doesn’t believe it… who cares. All I need
is a false sense of hope then.

“
He said he would be here, so he’ll be
here. I need to believe he’ll be here. Why don’t you get
that?”

Just then, I hear commotion outside the door
while a man’s voice drifts into the room. I would recognize that
voice anywhere. I’m right… He is here.

Chapter One

It’s been four weeks. Four weeks since I’ve
seen Mia. Four weeks since I’ve touched her skin and smelt her on
my body. I miss her smile, her laugh, and the way she’d glance at
me when she thought I wasn’t looking.

I’ve been miserable without her. I flew out
to Riceboro, Georgia two days after she left. The private
investigator that works for me found a lead through the cab driver
that picked her up. She was headed home to Riceboro, or so I
thought.

I’ve been in Riceboro for four weeks and I
can’t fucking stand it here. It’s a cute town, I’ll give it that
much, but it isn’t for me. Riceboro has a population of around
eight hundred people and I’ve spoken to just about every one of
them. Sure, everyone knows Mia but no one can tell me where she
is.

I met her mother the first day I was in town.
It wasn’t the way I had pictured meeting Mia’s mother but desperate
times called for desperate measures. She’s a pleasant woman, much
younger than I expected and good looking too. I know where Mia gets
her looks.

Melanie, this was Mia’s mother’s name, was
also a hard woman. I could see it all over her face. The past year
had gotten to her and gotten to her bad. Melanie told me she had
seen Mia several times over the past several weeks but she didn’t
know where Mia was staying.

So every day I parked my car outside Mia’s
mother’s house, hoping Mia shows up. She never does. I don’t know
if Mia knows I’m in town. Her mother doesn’t seem like the kind of
person to withhold that information from her daughter. I hope she
knows I’m in town but needless to say, it’s been four weeks and
still no Mia.

That’s why today, I’m sitting in my rental
car at the cemetery. This is the cemetery where her son Miles is
buried. It’s a long shot but something tells me I’ll see her today.
She hasn’t been visiting her Mother but I know she is visiting her
son.

It’s just after four in the afternoon and the
cemetery closes at five. I’ve been here for seven hours. Luckily
the temperature is cool this time of year, so I’m not sitting in
unbearable heat in my car. I haven’t had anything to eat today and
I’ve started to get the shakes from all the coffee I’ve drunk.

I start my car and am ready to leave when I
see a car pull up and park a little bit down the road. I see her
brown hair first and am instantly relieved at the sight of her.

Fuck.

She looks tired but she is also
breathtakingly beautiful. She is wearing dark sunglasses on the top
of her head. She raises her hand to lower them to her face. She
closes the car door and starts walking up the grass and past the
gravestones.

My hand turns the key in the vehicle so the
ignition turns off. I just sit and stare at the woman I am madly in
love with. I’ve gone four weeks without seeing her. I started to
think maybe I had imagined her up. I thought maybe she wasn’t real
but fuck me; she was real and right in front of me.

I watch her walk to a stone about two hundred
feet away from her car before she stops. Her fingers lightly graze
the top of the stone before she sits down in front of the
gravestone. This must be her son’s grave. I see her mouth start to
move as her fingers start playing with the grass in front of
her.

I feel like I’m invading her privacy by
watching but I can’t stop looking. She looks so helpless and I want
to save her. I want to help her get past this and move on. I just
don’t know if she wants me to help her. She left me; maybe I should
take that as the sign that she doesn’t want me. That she wants to
be left alone but I can’t. My life was shit before her and now I
know how good life can be. I’m not giving that up without a
fight.

Regardless of how tough she acts I know her
life was shit before me, too. She needs me just as much as I need
her so I’m not leaving. I’m going to be here for her until she
realizes she needs me. I love her and I’m not giving her up.

I continue to watch her even as the sun
starts to set and the cemetery ground’s keeper starts closing the
gates for incoming guests. It will only be a few minutes until
someone comes over here and kicks us out.

My phone starts to ring from inside my jean
pocket. I pull it out and glance at the number before answering.
“Hey, Darcy.”

“Where are you? We had a meeting today and
you blew it off. I have other things I could be doing but we rushed
this for you. You wanted this to happen as soon as possible and
when it is time to sign the documents you don’t show up. Where were
you?”

She is pissed and I can’t blame her. I did
rush this. I needed this to happen as soon as possible. I wanted to
show Mia I was serious about being with her and this meeting was to
finalize everything, and I didn’t show up.

“I’m sorry, Darcy but something came up. I’ve
been distracted. I should have called.”

“Where were you?” She said, again.

“It’s nothing for you to be concerned about.
I’m sorry I didn’t show up.”

“Sebastian, are you still in Georgia?”

I laid all my cards out on the table the
morning after Mia left me. I called Darcy and had her come over to
the estate. She was annoyed at first. Darcy didn’t like being
summoned. I explained to her how I needed a divorce. How our
arrangement wasn’t working for me anymore.

I expected a fight. Darcy was all about
appearance and a high profile divorce could look bad for her image.
Surprisingly, she agreed. She was happy to end the charade. She
even agreed to expedite everything so we could get divorced as soon
as possible.

We had everything settled and the meeting
today was the final step. All I had to do was sign the divorce
papers. I’d loose a lot of money after the divorce was finalized
but it was worth it. Darcy wanted half of everything but I didn’t
care. Money didn’t mean anything to me if I didn’t have Mia.

I hope this will help solve everything. I
don’t know for sure why Mia ran but I’m sure the fact that I’m
married didn’t help. Now I was getting a divorced and I hope this
helps her with any doubts she has.

“Yes, I’m still in Georgia,” I say
drearily.

“Have you found her yet? Is she ready to come
back to Miami?”

I told Darcy why I was here and she has been
supportive. Any anger we had towards each other in the past is
gone. I think we both just want to be happy and life is to short
not to be.

Even though we are on good terms, her
question angers me. If Mia were ready to come back to Miami, we
would be in Fucking Miami. I wouldn’t be sitting in a fucking
cemetery, in a town with the population of Darcy’s apartment
building, waiting for a chance to talk to her.

“I’m working on it, Darcy,” I reply as I look
towards her son’s grave again, but Mia isn’t there.

I start to panic until I spot her opening her
car door and getting in her vehicle.

“Darcy, I have to go. I’ll call you later to
reschedule the signing.”

I click end on my smart phone before I hear
her reply. Mia’s car starts to pull away from the gravesite. I
start my vehicle and follow her out and onto the main road. I make
a quick decision to follow her to her next destination. Once she
stops her car, I will confront her. I will talk to her. I will get
her back.

It’s the beginning of December and the air
has gotten chilly. I’m glad to get a break from the Georgia heat
and humidity. I’ve been back home for a while now, maybe three or
four weeks. The truth is, I don’t know how long I’ve been back. I
stopped caring what day it was as soon as I arrived. I prefer to
just wallow in self-pity.

I’m staying with my friend Jonathon, in his
apartment a few towns over. Its small and only has one bedroom, but
its perfect for him. He lives alone and is hardly ever home so he
doesn’t need some huge elaborate place.

The night I left Sebastian, I called Jonathon
from Miami International Airport. After he got over the initial
shock of hearing from me, he agreed to pick me up from the airport
and let me stay with him. I wasn’t ready to go home and stay with
my mother and I hoped Jonathon’s place would be a place Sebastian
wouldn’t look for me.

I was right too. I haven’t seen or heard from
him since I left Miami. I continue to tell myself this is a good
thing. This is what I want. Every time I tell myself these lies, my
heart breaks a little more.

It only took about five minutes for Jonathon
and I to fall into out old habits. We were back to the relationship
we had before. We spent the first two days catching each other up
on what had happened the past several months.

Jonathon and Cameron broke up in October.
Cameron was offered a job in Seattle and wanted Jonathon to move to
Seattle with him. Jonathon wanted to stay here, God only knows why,
so they broke up. Jonathon was heart broken, still is, but not
enough to make the move. He doesn’t like change and at the end of
the day, Seattle was too big of a change for him.

After a bunch of junk food and some of our
favorite Queen classics, I spill a cliff-notes version of what
happened in Miami. I even tell Jonathon about the pregnancy.

We sit in silence before Jonathon finally
shares with me his two cents.