Shattered Reflections

Chapter 3

Ava

"Ava!!!!!!!" Mom shouted from downstairs. "It's breakfast, darling. Come eat with us!"

"Thanks, Mama, but I'm not hungry right now," I replied.

"You can't keep locking yourself in your room all day," she urged through the door. "Honey, please come talk to me or your father. We're really worried about you."

"I'm fine, Mama. I just don't want to eat now. I'll come down for lunch, but please let me be," I insisted.

"Fine, sweetheart."

Anne George was my mother. Once a model, she was known for her beauty and grace in her twenties, and even now, her looks were striking. I inherited her metallic blue eyes. Raised in a royal family, she walked away from that life when they refused to accept my father as her husband. To this day, I knew little about my grandparents.

My father, Adam Warner, was a chef at a prestigious restaurant. He had always been protective of me, particularly after my older sister married and moved to California. He insisted I not work after finishing university, worried for my safety as the youngest daughter.

I opened my journal to write down my thoughts.

"Hello, dear diary. Today is the first day since I left work yesterday. I felt so angry writing this, but now I just want to disappear. Everything that happened yesterday—from the patient who died to that stranger I collided with—has consumed me. Speaking of which, he was the creepiest person I've ever met. I can't shake his features: black hair, grey eyes, a muscular build. He must work out constantly. His name was Aaron Addison. He was both handsome and unsettling, yet there was something..."

"Penny for your thoughts," my older sister, Lily, chimed in.

"Lily!!!!!!!" I exclaimed. "How did you get in? When did you come back from California?"

"Ava, darling, I have a key to the room. I arrived just an hour ago."

"Why are you here? Did something happen there?"

"No, I came for you. Mom told me what happened at work, so I wanted to check on you."

"Check on me! I'm 25 years old!"

"That just means you're still my little sister, and I care about you. What happened?"

Those two words could crush anyone.

"Nothing. Dad was right. I shouldn't have worked."

Why couldn't I open up? I wanted to cry in her arms like I used to when we were kids.

"Babe, just tell me what you—"

"Let's change the subject, please," I interrupted.

"Okay, what about Jon, your boyfriend?"

"My ex-boyfriend," I corrected. "I broke up with him yesterday."

"Oh, honey! I'm so sorry."

"It's alright. I'm fine."

"How about we go to dinner together?"

"Sounds good."

"Okay, I'll leave you to change, but hurry up!"

"Okay."

I needed fresh air, or I felt like I would suffocate