The Crossing (Book 1)

Chapter 1

     Deep breath, one...two...three, exhale, four...five...six, deep breath, seven...eight...nine, exhale, ten. Tension filled the air and everyone was completely oblivious to it. Everyone except for Cera. She was the one that carried all the tension within her as she sat silently, knees under her chin on the couch in her one-bedroom apartment, trying to concentrate on the song lightly playing on the radio. The melodious words of Hozier floated across the room to her, urging on her wishful thoughts for a piano's smooth black and white keys her fingers could glide over as she attempted to play her tension away. Her keen copper-colored eyes moved back and forth as she watched her fiancé Tom walk back and forth from the bedroom to the bathroom, grabbing her things and handing them over to his mother to pack for her as if she couldn't pack for herself. Cera had made it abundantly clear why she hadn't packed for another expensive trip that she absolutely did not want to go on.

     As she twirled a strand of the long brown hair she kept pinned back from her face, she couldn't help but feel annoyed that Tom had ignored her semi-polite refusal to join him on his business trip. Telling him for the umpteenth time that she was still not the type of person that wanted to spend her time window shopping, or eating at fancy restaurants, and looking out windows in a hotel room made no difference. She could practically see her words floating in one ear and out the other. Tom had grown up doing those things so it was second nature to him and it was also what he loved to do, so naturally, he was trying to get Cera to like it as well. The only downside to his persistency was that it wasn't working in the slightest bit. Try as she might, Cera couldn't enjoy doing the same things with Tom time and time again.

     She was thinking, as she did on many occasions, about who she had once been and who she was now. Cera had been a down to earth, non-materialistic, free-spirited girl. She loved the newness of doing something she had never done before. Variety and the ability to choose from a list of things to do was fun to her. She never wore expensive clothes or jewelry, she never went to overpriced salons to have her long brown wavy hair shaped and cut every six weeks, and she never let anyone tell her what to do. Sometime after she and Tom had become serious in their relationship, she changed. Cera was trying very hard to remember the point in time when she let Tom take over, knowing she had started out being herself with him. He had fallen in love with who she was, or at least that was what she had thought. Although now she did what she was used to doing which was sit back and watch things go by. Cera was doing it right now. She sat silently watching and listening to Tom and his mother as they walked around her apartment packing her bags like she was a child.

     Trips seemed to be the only real time she spent with Tom these days since he was always working or on his phone talking about work. Tom was the ultimate workaholic. The upside to that was that it showed in the success of his business. The downside was that Cera was the exact opposite. She would rather have spent her time outdoors in parks or in any wooded areas exploring nature and its surroundings, smelling the fresh air, and sleeping next to a small fire under the stars that wouldn't be drowned out from sight by all the city lights. Cera used to tell Tom all the time about the things she did before they met. Unfortunately, that was something that she hardly ever told Tom anymore because he refused to believe that he couldn't change her. What he didn't realize was that he had changed her and she couldn't help wondering more and more these days where her old self was hiding. Cera grabbed a pillow that was lying next to her and hugged it to her stomach while she crossed her legs and let out a loud, frustrated, tension-filled sigh that she hoped Tom and his mother would hear. She thought of the one time she talked of hiking in the woods the last time his mother had been with them and rolled her eyes as she remembered being completely bombarded by them both. They tried to convince her that she would get too dirty and most likely hurt herself, but Cera really thought that they were talking more about themselves than her.