Those Who Wait

Part I

The airport was at full capacity with all flights delayed because of the severity of the weather, stranded travelers were all over the place. Jo Ann Marshall was one of them. Sprawled on the floor, using her duffel bag as a pillow, she was browsing the internet and watching the latest vlogs from her favorite you tubers on her tablet. She was using only one side of her earphones to be able to listen when she gets called for boarding.

She was a beautiful woman and always drew the attention of people around her; long legs, dark hair and beautiful blue eyes, she looked like a model just out of the cover of a magazine. This time it was not any different. But Jo was oblivious to the stares of both men and women as she had become too engrossed watching the videos to care about anything else. Once she'd finished she checked her flight one more time only to find that she would have to wait another two hours before she could get on the plane that would lead her back to Florida.

"Home"- she thought,

"And here I was thinking that I'd never need to go back there."-Jo had left her home 3 years ago after her cousin's wedding; she had been in love with her best friend and neighbor Francis since they were kids and thought for a while that Francis felt the same way. They had shared a couple of kisses one night after they came home from a night out a little tipsy.

That memory was always present inside Jo's head and many questions remained unanswered, as they never talked about it. She was convinced that Francis did not remember what happened that night, as she never mentioned it.

Still, Jo always hoped for it to happen again.Those nightly adventures had become sparser as they had grown up and Francis had begun dating. It broke Jo's heart but she had never talked about it with Francis; she just stayed there and listened to her friend's stories. She never dated anyone and Fran teased her frequently because of it.

However, she knew that she wasn't into guys and dating a girl was as difficult as hell in the small town she lived in, so, she'd decided to stay single. Not that her heart was ready to let anyone in, she was suffering enough from Fran's antics.

"Fran, you really did a number on me, my friend; I was a fool to think that you might want me the way I have always wanted you. It's been a long time since I thought of you."-Jo was trying to keep her mind occupied so as not to think about how much it had hurt her to be the first to know about Fran's romance with Sam, Jo's womanizer cousin.

She knew that he was bad news for her petite blonde friend but who was she to say anything? She kept quiet once again. However, the final straw that really drove Jo away from her family and her home was Fran's sudden pregnancy and the impromptu wedding that followed. To add to her distress, she had been the maid of honor; she just had not been able to take it anymore; she needed time away from Francis to heal her heart.

The pain she'd felt had been too much to bear, so she had done the only thing she could, run away from the painful vision of the happy newlyweds. The day before the wedding, she'd talked to her mother and broke the news of her departure. She had already her plane ticket to Dallas and had arranged with Betsy and Liz, a couple that she had met at a concert a year ago, to stay with them until she could find a place of her own.All hell had broken loose with the news of Jo's impending departure; her mother had been hysterical, as had her aunt, Sam's mother. They had tried to convince her, but Jo had already decided and wasn't going to change now. Her aunt had brought Sam in to try to persuade Jo about her decision, but that had been the worst thing to do.

(Flashback)

-" So they say you're leaving? Why are you trying to ruin my wedding Jo?" Sam was a very handsome man with blonde hair and blue eyes; they had the same eyes, only Jo's hair was black.