Page 1 of Entangled

Prologue

They say you never forget your first love. That it leaves an imprint on your brain in a way no other love does and that you go through the rest of your life chasing that feeling again and again. Seeking out similar people in a desperate attempt to recapture it. It’s the ghost that haunts you, slipping around the corner and disappearing right when you think you’ve caught a glimpse of it again.

Depressing, isn’t it? The idea that we spend the rest of our lives trying to close the wound of our first love with the stitches we take from those that come after.

And while that may be true, if you agree with the scientists, that is. I’d argue that your second love is just as important, because it’s the love that reminds you that the world didn’t end with the first. That what was broken can be made new and that our capacity for love is endless. In some ways, the second can shine even brighter than the first, because it brings that part of you back to life.

One shapes you and breaks you and one remakes you.

I fell in love with them thirty-five million heartbeats apart and an ocean away.

One at the scratch of a pen and the other with the strum of a note.

I used to think it was the worst kind of bullshit when someone said you could love two people at once, that they were fickle, undeserving of the love they received. I swore I would never be one of those people. Here’s the thing about life though; it has a funny way of shoving the judgments you make of others right back in your face, of forcing growth upon you. The universe really is brilliant that way, pushing us to our limits just to see what cracks open from our depths.

And the truth is that I loved them both. In different ways and the same. At different points in time and in breathtaking synchronicity. Apart and together. For the way one forced me to feel love for the first time and how the other brought that feeling back to life again.

I never foresaw our worlds colliding. How the past and present would crash together and leave us with nothing but a blinding kaleidoscope of pain. How the threads of all of our fates were already so inextricably intertwined from the moment of those first meetings. Our love grew from the roots of a tree I didn’t realize was tainted until it was too late.

But even knowing what I do now… the excruciating pain, the devastating loss. I wouldn’t change it. Not one thing. Because we loved each other in a way that bound us all. Never to be the same again.

And maybe my selfishness is unforgivable, of being unable to choose. But they were both selfish enough to love me too. Even when they shouldn’t have. Even when they knew the secrets they kept would ruin us. Even when we lost each other.

That’s what they don’t tell you about love though.

That it can be a selfish thing, a beast that’s never ending in its demand for more, for the infinity of that one person. Or, in my case, two. And maybe that makes it okay, or maybe it just makes all of our actions all the more unforgivable.

Maybe we all should have been better.

I’ll let you decide.

Chapter 1

Present Day

I remember the moment I became an orphan. The way the stars from my night-light spun on the ceiling when the policeman woke me up in my bed. The pity on the faces of the first responders as I was carried outside. Overhearing someone whisper that it was a miracle I hadn’t woken when it happened. The crack of thunder in the night that bellowed out as if the heavens mourned alongside me. But I didn’t fully grasp what had happened until years later, and by then, I was thousands of miles away.

Long removed from the town that held such tragedy for me.

Pulling into the driveway of my gram’s old house, I take in the small home she left me and frown despite the pretty house staring back at me. I barely remembered the place. The old yellow house, so classically Southern with a wraparound porch and a big oak tree standing proudly in the yard, evoked nothing but a blank emptiness. At least it seemed to be well maintained except for some overgrowth in the bushes abutting the front porch. I’d probably forget to but I really should thank Yvie for that.

Grams had passed about three years ago of a heart attack in her sleep but I hadn’t been to her house since I was six. Since the day of my parents’ funeral. The day after that, Aunt Yvie had put us on a plane to her home in California and I had never been back to Landing Point, Alabama since. Grams had always visited us, neither of them wanting to bring me back here. God only knew why she had left the house to me and even I couldn’t properly formulate a complete answer as to why I was back here today.

I just knew I needed to do this. To find closure for some part of my life at least.

Putting my car into park, I push open the door with a tired sigh and am hit by the wall of humidity that is Southern air. The faint hint of salt in it tingles and makes me freeze up. Gram’s house must be closer to the beach than I realized. Just great. My luck from this past year really was holding strong. I push back against the pull of memories with an internal middle finger salute and walk determinedly to the back of my matte-black Range Rover. Grabbing my suitcase from the trunk, I close it and give the car an affectionate pat.

The car was a college graduation present from Yvie, who had been my father’s older sister, my gram’s daughter, and my saving grace. And while I didn’t need her to buy me a car considering the sizable trust my parents had left me, I wasn’t about to turn it down either. The car was just plain badass. Plus, Yvie was a highly sought after Hollywood entertainment lawyer, so it wasn’t like she couldn’t afford it. She had joked when she’d given it to me that I needed a sturdy SUV considering my penchant for living life full throttle and she wasn’t entirely wrong. I had dubbed the car Franny the Nanny that day and the name had stuck.

I say a quick prayer to whatever gods may be that the thing doesn’t split open along the way before lugging my overly full bag up the driveway and the front porch staircase. Unable to resist the urge to give the staircase a smug look in victory after I make it to the top, because you know, on the inside I’m still a five-year-old. I turn to face the door and come to a halt as my stomach gives a flip of nerves.

It’s just a door. Just a house.

I stare at the white paint that’s faded at the edges from years of use and remind myself that my parents didn’t even live here when it happened.

It’s Gram’s house, El. No ghosts live here.

Steeling myself with a deep breath, I dig into the back pocket of my cutoff shorts and pull out the key that’s been embedding its shape permanently into my ass the whole drive out from California. I quickly unlock the door and push it open, forcing myself forward and ripping the Band-Aid.

---