"This is what she had become."
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Cleopatra Banks' last week in the small town of New Chelsea is nothing like she would have imagined it, but nothing could have prepared her for the stinging betrayal she's faced with and suddenly the prospect of...
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"Cleopatra, wake up." Some annoying creature makes an attempt at waking me up above the sound of the boring nineties music coming out of the speakers.
"Cleopatra!" I feel a finger poking the side of my arm before a hand comes to wrap around it, shaking me vigorously.
I pry my eyes open and come face to face with a pair of amazing blue eyes behind familiar glass lenses.
"Ethan," I whisper his name, my voice groggy. "Ten more minutes," I plead, closing my eyes yet again but he shakes me once more to keep me awake.
"You've been asleep for the past forty minutes," he says.
"Well clearly I haven't been sleeping that long then. Ten more minutes Ethan," I try to bargain. This breakfast of his can wait. I bet he wishes we would have stayed home now.
"Cleopatra, get up." He tries yet again. "I'll kiss you then," he whispers a moment later, his lips hovering too close to my ear.
I find myself pushing his face away with as much force as I can muster and jump out of the car a second later only to step onto a parking lot with a few cars nearby. "Keep your lips away from me," I hiss, pointing a very rigid index finger at him.
He waves a hand in the air dismissively and gets out of the car. "Well, we're here," he nudges his head in the direction of a little shop, one of the few quaint shops in what seems like a tiny sleeping neighborhood in the middle of...here.
Great, Ethan has brought me to the middle of nowhere to kill me, classic move! He definitely knows that this would be the last place my mom would look if I ever went missing.
I take a moment to yawn and stretch before following closely behind him, not bothering to inspect our surroundings because –like I mentioned earlier—I could care less if he drove me to a slaughterhouse.
A bell jingles when Ethan opens one of the glass doors with a green banner painted on it that reads: The Little Apple in a cute cursive font.
I'm instantly hit by the smell of freshly baked bread and coffee the minute I step in through the door and automatically start salivating. On cue, my stomach starts making dying whale noises to remind me that I haven't eaten yet.
Ethan turns around and looks at me with a raised eyebrow.
"That was my feet," I mumble and look away, trying to fight away the stupid blush that creeps into my cheeks.
He mumbles something incoherent under his breath and walks over to the counter of the tiny little restaurant with minimalistic décor. "Ethan, good morning! I haven't seen you in a while, how have you been?" the kind little old lady at the counter beams up at him.
"It's actually good afternoon now Joanne," Ethan smiles at her. I can't help but do a double take to make sure my eyes aren't deceiving me. I find it more fascinating that Ethan is capable of smiling than him being on a first name basis with an old woman in the middle of nowhere.
