Untitled chapter 1
MEG
I grew up in Kentucky, the product of a mistake my father didn’t stick around to fix. My mother spent most of my first fifteen years lost in a bottle, nursing a resentment toward me that I suspect belonged to him. When I was fifteen, she drove herself off the road and died.
I only met my father twice. The first time was when I was eight, when he took me to McDonald’s, bought me an ice cream, and let me snap a photo—the only picture I have of him. The second time was after the crash. I was completely broke and had no way to bury my mother, but a neighbor tracked him down. He showed up just long enough to hand me an envelope with five hundred dollars in cash for her cremation, then vanished again.
With no family left and no money to my name, I packed up and headed for the East Coast. I built a life from nothing but raw grit, youthful energy, and a desperate kind of hope.
When you are young, you can’t help but look at the world through the lens of promise. You convince yourself there is a grand plan, a guaranteed destiny of love and happiness. You believe you are whole, and you trust blindly. Even if your parents were neglectful, or cruel, or dead, you still believe your own story will be clean and pure. Because you feel pure.
So you give your heart away. Completely. Without hesitation, because your soul tells you it’s exactly what you were made to do.
And then you get shattered.
Yet, despite the agony, and despite the space that was once full now feeling a little more hollow, you look at the world, and you choose to do it all over again.
And again.
And again.
Until you are no longer the same. Distrustful. Afraid. But mostly just sad. Broken in a way that can never be fixed.
You are close to empty.
So, you hold on to the fragment of your heart that survived—the piece that wasn’t burned, crushed, or shredded to ribbons.
It is a tiny thing. Yet, sitting in the hollow of your chest, it feels heavier than it ever did when it was whole, back when it was so bursting with love you could barely breathe. You know it belongs in someone else’s hands. But fear wins. You clutch it and hide it away, protecting a tarnished, fragmented scrap as if it were the most precious thing you own. Because it is.
You don’t want to withdraw. You don’t want to run or keep the world at bay. You want to feel. You desperately do. But a quiet rot has set in.
Knowing the agony of being abandoned, you swear you will never be the architect of someone else’s despair. So, you say yes to a man you do not love. You commit to a phantom life, feeling absolutely nothing, and you stay. When others left you, they eroded you to the bone. You refuse to inflict that bleeding wound on anyone else. Instead, you wait in the quiet, hoping he will eventually leave you, so you can finally be alone again.
And then, the years blur. You are no longer as young, as beautiful, or as soft as you once were. When he finally packs his bags for someone who is all of those things, your only emotion is relief.
After my ex left, I moved back to Kentucky, settling about twenty miles from my hometown. I bought a fixer-upper with cash and immediately hired a crew to replace the leaking roof. The rest of the renovations I kept for myself. I needed to stay busy. I needed to see proof that I could still rebuild things.
For the first few months, my early mornings were a blur of Home Depot, Lowe’s, and local plumbing supply shops. I relied on YouTube tutorials, logic, and pure repetition to figure things out as I went. Before long, I had retiled the bathrooms, replaced the toilets, and installed new kitchen cabinets completely on my own, feeling an immense sense of pride in every milestone.
Then came a hiccup. The flooring was rotted and needed to be completely gutted. It was a massive undertaking, the kind I knew would require far more than a video tutorial. But after the overpriced home repair company I hired left me with a roof that was already leaking again, I refused to call another corporate contractor. I would do my best on my own, and if I truly hit a wall, I’d find an independent local professional.
On a rainy Saturday morning in April, I headed to Home Depot for lumber.
As I walked into the lumber section, I noticed a tiny, pale girl with raven hair spinning in circles on an old, ripped office chair in the corner. Her beat-up sneakers dragged paths through the sawdust on the floor. When she looked up and flashed a wide, gap-toothed smile, I gave her a quick wink and started loading framing wood onto my cart.
Behind me, the soft scuff of her shoes caught my attention. I smiled to myself as she darted all the way to the far end of the aisle—fast and quiet, like a little bunny.
A minute later, a massive man walked over. He wasn’t heavy—just toweringly tall and built like a brick wall. He was handsome, too, in a weathered, blue-collar kind of way, with raven-black hair streaked with white at the right temple and dark blue eyes. A nose that had clearly been broken once or twice gave his face a rugged edge. The little girl in the corner was undeniable proof of his genetics.
Without a word, he grabbed a stack of planks and began loading them into my flatbed cart.
Startled, I looked up. “Oh, thank you,” I mumbled, offering a shy smile.
He froze mid-lift, his gaze locking onto mine for a beat. Then, his features softened into a polite, quiet smile before he went right back to work.
Up close, the exhaustion rolled off him in waves. His bright orange Home Depot apron looked comically small strapped across his broad chest, instantly reminding me of a low-budget Magic Mike costume. A laugh bubbled up in my throat, and I choked it back a second too late.
He glanced up at the sound, an eyebrow slightly raised, but remained silent.
“I think this should do it for now,” I said, meeting his eyes to clear the sudden awkwardness. “Thank you, I really appreciate the help.” I caught the faded Sharpie scrawl on his nametag. “Thank you, Brett.”
As I pushed my cart toward the exit, I waved to the little girl. Settled back into her chair in the corner, she flashed me a dazzling, familiar smile.
I paid and went straight to my truck, clumsily wrestling the heavy lumber over the tailgate. The rain was coming down in sheets now, soaking both me and the wood. A sudden movement caught my eye, and I looked up to see Brett heading right for me. I groaned internally, utterly embarrassed by my total lack of technique.
“Ma’am, let me help with that. Please. Allow me.” His voice was low, carrying a deep, gravelly rasp that cut through the sound of the downpour.
I leaned over to grip another slick plank. “You really don’t have to. It’s pouring out here, and I don’t want you getting soaked. Really, I’ve got it.”
“I insist.” He stepped in, his large hand gripping the other end of the board. “It’s my job.”
He hoisted the remaining pieces into the truck bed with effortless ease, barely seeming to notice the weight. “Home improvement project?”
I let out a heavy sigh, wiping a mix of rain and hair from my forehead. “Something like that. To be honest, it’s more of a catastrophe.”
A low chuckle escaped him, and I couldn’t help but smile. “I know how that goes,” he said.
“Truthfully, I completely overestimated my capabilities,” I admitted, looking at the wet pile of wood. “I think I may just have to bite the bullet and hire someone to install the new flooring. Can you recommend anyone?”
He looked down for a moment, hesitating. I bit my lower lip, instantly regretting the question. I should have just reached out to standard contractors again, but my “brand new” roof was already leaking and I couldn’t face another disaster.
“I do side work,” he said, looking up to meet my eyes.
The rain began to fall harder, sending a sharp chill straight to my bones. Without a jacket, a sudden shiver wrecked through me, my teeth starting to chatter against the cold.
“Well, okay, great!” I said, trying to mask the shaking in my voice. “Do you want to come take a look? Survey the damage I’ve already caused before you commit to anything?” I pulled out my phone, my fingers slick with rain. “I’ll pay for a consultation. Do you want my number, or should I just give you my address? I’m not entirely sure how this works.”
“Number and address,” he said. “But I’ll need to bring my daughter, Katie. Is that a problem?”
I smiled, shaking my head. “Not at all. The more the merrier! I’m Meg, by the way.” I held out my hand.
His massive hand completely swallowed mine, and a single, powerful shake nearly pulled me off balance. As he typed my info into his phone, I told him he could swing by whenever worked best for him and his daughter, since I worked from home anyway.
“Nice to meet you, Brett!”
“Nice to meet you too, Meg,” he said gruffly. “I’ll be there tomorrow after my shift.”
After throwing a heavy tarp over the wet wood, I climbed into the cab of my truck. As I drove home, blasting the heater, I felt a little better about the state of my non-existent floor.
