Chapter 26
Memory Lane
Suzette wasn't a seventeen year old girl with an obsession with Romeo and Juliet anymore. She no longer lived above Health Mart and hadn't gotten coffee and The Local Creamer in years. She was twenty six and back in St. Augustine for Christmas with her family. Damien had just landed a big time job at a tech company that supplied music scores for movies and her parents were already talking about taking an early retirement. Suzette had been at home with them all morning drinking coffee and frosting sugar cookies, but Ivy had called her up and suggested they go out to lunch. Ivy was someone Suzette still saw regularly, because Ivy was someone Suzette simply couldn't live without. Best friends forever wasn't an exaggeration.
It was after lunch now, and she had gabbed with Ivy so long that she had missed the bus back her her side of town. Ivy, who worked as a fashion director for some big shot boutique in New York, had offered her a ride home, but Suzette wanted to walk. They had eaten lunch at a restaurant only four blocks away from Port Avenue, and Suzette couldn't pass up the chance.
It was strange walking by the remains of Catty Blue's Fight Club. It had stood abandoned since that fateful night in which Suzette and Reed had been given fists to the cheek. Suzette wondered what it looked like on the inside, but it was so boarded up and covered in vines that it was hard to imagine. Some bricks were coming loose, and dirt and grime covered practically every inch of the building. Instead of breaking one of the boards that covered the windows, which she had considered for a moment, Suzette went around to the back of the building. She could still pick out where Pauly had stood and where she had fallen. But something poking out of an old garbage bin was what caught Suzette's eye. She flipped the top open and smoothed out the glossy fabric in front of her that read: "Semi-Finals Celebration!"
Suzette laughed in spite of it. The Semi Finals. The last time she had stepped foot near Catty Blue's. She slammed the garbage shut and walked back up to the front. Catty was still in jail, serving time he deserved. Suzette hadn't heard from Harmony since she was seventeen, so she had no idea where that girl was, but she wished her well.
As Suzette walked away from that building, she felt strength. She looked down at her left hand ring finger, admiring the gold band dotted with diamonds. Even though she'd been married for a year now, she always felt that same rush of giddiness when she looked at her ring. She then placed a hand on her stomach, remembering how happy he'd been when she'd told him she was pregnant. She smiled and plucked her phone out of her pocket, dialling his number. She pictured him waiting for her back at her parent's house so they could go visit his mom and brother. "Hey." She said when he'd picked up. "You'll never guess where I just stopped by." But of course he would guess, because he knew her too well.
After all, she was still that same crazy girl he'd met when she'd busted into his knitting club meeting.
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Punch!
Teen FictionIt all started with curiosity. But as Suzette Kimberly soon learns, curiosity killed the cat. When she bursts into a suspicious after school meeting between four teenage boys, she wants nothing more than to know what they're up to. But when she disc...
