My Long Lost Love

Prologue

I shivered as the cold winter's wind brushed against my flushed cheeks. Trying to drown out the coldness, I rub my arms with my now-numb hands and bring my knees up into an embrace, desperate for warmth.

    "Why'd I have to get kicked out today of all days?" I whispered to myself. Seeing my own breath made me shiver again. I sighed as I buried my head into my arms, recalling the day.

    As usual, my heartbroken mother would come home drunk, yelling "I'm home honey!" with a gleeful expression on her face. I, of course, would respond back with a simple "Welcome back." She would run over, hug me, sometimes even give me a small kiss on the cheek. And then, everything would be just like how it used to be.. My mother and I would smile and laugh together as we tell each other about how our day was, we would gossip about the boys at my school, and talk about how cute they were. And then.. She would ask, mainly to herself, "where's your father?"

    That's when everything would crumble.. When reality decides it's best to seep in through the small cracks in our dreams and ruin life. Our life. Her life.

    Sooner or later, we would start arguing. Arguing about where my father is, and what he's doing with God knows who. Normally, after arguing, that would be it. She would stomp away and into her room, and me, into mines. But this time, it was different.. In a good way I guess.

    "You're lying! Stop lying! Michael would never do that to us! To me!" She desperately yelled out with her eyebrows furrowed together in disbelief.

    "Mom wake up!" I pleaded. "Dad left us over a year ago. We do this same thing day after day! Yes, Dad left us for another woman. A woman who might be younger and prettier.. Just face it already! He never loved-"

Before I could finish, my voice broke off, and the sound of a slap lingered in the air for a moment. My hand lay on top of my left cheek, hot and stinging. I looked back at my mother with tears in my eyes, and we both stood there in shock.

"L-leave. Now." She quickly turned the other way. "I don't want to see you."

My hand dropped back to my side, and I silently walked over to my room to pack a few changes of clothes. While packing my things, I hear a sudden thud in the living room and the loud cries that my mother tried so hard to hide.

I grimaced as I zipped my bag, put the straps around my shoulders, and walked out of my room, past my broken mother, and to the front door.

"I'll be down the street.. at Noah's. Let me know when you wake up from this crappy dream." I announced without looking back and left.

"Jessie? What're you doing here, it's freezing!" At the sound of his voice, my head shot up. "Come on.. let's go inside."

"Thanks, Noah.." I whispered as he picked up my bag and turned around to go open the door.

I tried to force myself to stand up, but my legs refused to listen. The next thing I know, I'm falling down towards the ground.

"Whoa, careful." A deep husky voice called out to me.

I looked up to see a young man around my age, whom I've never seen before. He had dark brown hair and broad shoulders, beautiful hazel eyes with long eyelashes, a narrow nose, dimples, and a smile that could kill.

"Oh-uh.. sorry." I panicked and looked down, embarrassed after realizing that I'd been staring at him for a long time.

"It's fine." He chuckled as he kept his hands firm on my waist. "You okay?"

"Yeah.. thanks," I replied back shyly and looked up at him again.

"Ahem.." Noah walked over and coughed. "Are we going to go inside? Or are you two lovebirds going to keep flirting on my porch?"

We both backed away from each other immediately, embarrassed.

"I'm Elijah. You can call me Eli though." He introduced himself and stuck his hand forward.

"Hey, I'm Jessica. You can call me Jess.. or Jessie, either is fine." I smiled while taking his hand and shaking it.

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A/N: Hey guys!! BaboPanda here (\^o^/) I'm so excited for this story!! I hope you guys liked it so far. This is my first piece of work, and I've actually been struggling a lot with trying to type up this first chapter. If you guys don't already know from my little intro on my profile, for years, I've been brainstorming up a lot of story ideas, but sadly, I've never really been able to actually type one up and publish it. Anyways, just to let you know, I'm a student so I might not be able to update new chapters that fast, so please hang on!! ~~