Never the Right Time

Chapter 40 Sophia's POV

It's been six months since Joel left. It's been miserable for a multitude of reasons. Isabelle stayed with me for a couple weeks, but I finally convinced her that I was fine and that she didn't need to do the extra long commute anymore. After she left, everything felt ridiculously lonely. I was far away from my friends so that it was a hassle for anyone to just drop by to see me or me to see them. For the first couple months I felt like a hermit. Doing things alone with no one at home just felt stupidly unsafe. I finally realized that I needed some way to get me out of the house and keep myself safe, so I went out and got a dog. He is the sweetest three year old black lab, named Vinny. He has just enough of a booming bark that he would deter any would be robbers, or so I would like to assume.

Since getting Vinny, he has been extra attached to me. It's as if he knows that I need to companionship. We've gotten in a routine of going on walks or to the dog park after work and on the weekends. It's made a world of a difference and my life started to feel a lot less lonely.

On top of feeling lonely, Joel has made it his mission to either attempt to get back in my life or just watch me to make sure I wasn't seeing anyone else. It's been dependent on his drinking which he chooses. For the first month and a half he called me constantly. It got to the point that I had to block his calls. He then started calling me from other numbers. I ended up having to change my number. He gave up after a while and it seemed like I had some peace in my life. About three months after the break up he started showing up at places around the office and home. I would just randomly see him from afar before getting out of the area. It got bad to the point where, Vinny would wake me up barking, and me to look outside to find a car leaving the street. I never in my life thought it would come to this. The police couldn't help me either since Joel never approached me and I could never really prove that he was outside the house.

I was constantly in a state of fear. He had never shown me this side, so I was even more confused. I wasn't dating anyone and since he was stalking me, he had to have known that. My final straw was when he would start showing up at my office waiting for me to leave work for lunch of the day. The security guard at work helped by making sure I never had to walk to my car alone, but it only did so much to help the situation and my anxiety. My boss wasn't helpful either, she knew I felt unsafe but did everything to make sure I stayed late or belittled me when I talked to security about my problem with Joel.

After weeks of her acting like this and Joel showing up at the office, I had finally had enough and quit my job, I mentioned to HR about the toxic leadership within her division, but I doubt that it did much to help. I, then, went to my parents. They had known about the break up, but not about the stalking. My dad was furious when I told him about the stalking and lack of police help, but short of breaking other laws he couldn't do much else. I told them about quitting my job. I also told them how I wanted to sell the house and start a business. I showed my dad the business plan I had been working on and all the work I had done into getting the business plan. He helped me flesh bit out some more and told me that he would help get it started if I found a place. This gave me some hope that maybe I would be able to find a solution to this whole ordeal.

I was determined to get started on my new plan in life. My first step was to contact a realtor. We had done a decent amount of work on the house in the short amount of time that we had it, so I was able to list it for more than we paid for it. I then set out to find a location for my bookshop, one that preferably had an attached apartment or something nearby. I knew that, as much as I loved being close to my parents, I needed to find a small town a little farther away. I needed the space and needed to get away from Joel in all ways. So I started driving up the coast in search of a small beach town. A couple hours north of my parents, I stumbled on a small beach towns with the cutest little Main Street that ended with a couple blocks of beach homes and rentals. It seemed like the perfect location, touristy, but out of the way enough that it was still quaint. I immediately fell in love. Taking pictured of the town, I knew that dad would agree with me. Now I knew I needed to keep my fingers crossed for a building to be available.

When I got home that night I couldn't wait to show Dad. He immediately agreed it was the right fit, if it had an open building. That night I reached out to a realtor in the area. The next day she sent back a couple of listings that came close to fitting my criteria and we set up showings to look at a couple of them. Everything was falling into place and I couldn't feel happier.

That weekend, Dad and I went to check out the listings. There was one that stood out to us. It was a large room that was rectangular shape. It felt big enough to have a small bar in the back with bookcases lining the walls and tables scattered throughout the room. On top of the perfect layout, it also had a apartment on the second floor. It was just big enough for Vinny and I without feeling small. It felt like home and I knew this was it. Dad gave me a look thinking the same thing. This was my new start away from the mess.

Within a month and a half, I signing the papers to sell my house and unpacking my things in the new town. We had worked hard to keep my move on the down low. My neighbors had said that they had seen Joel's car around randomly, but that was it. I was hopefully getting away quietly enough for him to finally give up.

Vinny loved the new apartment. I finally felt safe being so far away from Joel. I was ready to get starting renovating the shop to fit my needs. I worked my ass off to get everything ready. I built bookshelves, tables and chairs. I built a bar with a keg system. I decided that we would only ever have two or three beers on tap. We got lucky and became friends with the brewery owners in town and struck up a deal to feature their beers in two of the kegs, leaving the third for whatever I was feeling. I stocked the books with the best sellers in almost every category. I felt as though self help and beer were probably not the best combination so I skipped that one. I had hired someone to work with me and gave her the general run down of how I wanted the shop to be ran. Savannah had recently graduated from college and was an adorable little nerd in the best sense. She loved books almost as much as me and we immediately hit it off. After a couple of months, everything was in place and we were ready to open. It all felt like a dream come true.

My shop became an instant hit. The locals loved the cozy vibe that it had and regularly had every kind of meeting under the sun there. The tourists loved it because of its uniqueness. Vinny quickly became the shop's mascot and everyone loved how friendly he was to everyone. Most times he would stay with me behind the bar, but every now and then he would go explore and make friends. I was beyond happy with its reception and finally felt as though I had found what I was missing in my life.