Almost two years ago…

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“What do you mean you don’t know?” Carrie almost screamed the question. She took a few deep breaths and tried to settle her heart and her mind.

“I mean, I don’t know.” Josh’s voice was muffled as several announcements played loudly over a speaker wherever he was. “I guess I’ll be back when I am.”

She took one last deep breath. “So, it’s over then?” The line was silent, and she felt tears building behind her eyes as anger and hurt flooded her. “You could have said goodbye in person.” She waited, but the line stayed silent. Instead of waiting for Josh, the person she’d thought she’d spend the rest of her life with, to say anything else, she hung up. The silence was worse than anything he could have said.

She felt like throwing her phone across the room, but she set it down gently and headed out the front door of her parents’ house. She marched quickly towards the worn path that led away from her childhood home in the hills above Pride, Oregon. She headed towards the cliffs that overlooked the ocean and the small town, needing solace in the view, knowing that the people that filled the quiet town would be there for her when she needed them most.

She was almost twenty-one years old and her boyfriend of the past five years had just hopped on a plane heading to god knows where, for god only knows what reason, without telling her anything.

It was a week before she and Josh were set to move in together. The small apartment above the local grocery store was already rented under both of their names.

What was she supposed to do now? She sat down on her favorite rock next to the steep decline towards the beach. As she looked out over the beauty surrounding her home, she felt slightly defeated. If she wasn’t good enough for Josh, then she wasn’t good enough for any man. Why would he do this to her?

It wasn’t as if she had a long history of dating. She actually sucked at it. Josh had been her first real boyfriend. She’d only gone on a few dates before him.

At five-nine, she had towered over most boys in school until high school. Then some of the boys, like Joshua Williams, had finally outgrown her.

Josh had played all the sports Carrie wished she could play, if she hadn’t been born accident prone. The first day of soccer, she’d landed on her foot wrong and broken two toes. Her first day of volleyball, she’d broken her pinky finger. Then there had been her first day in gymnastics… she cringed, remembering the pain.

Maybe that’s what had drawn her to boys like Joshua. He was good at everything. Not to mention he’d been sexy in his school sports uniforms.

Shortly after turning sixteen, she’d caught his eyes at one of the ball games. She’d known who he was since grade school but doubted he knew who she was until bumping into her after the game. Her friend Sara Jordan had helped her with her makeup and outfit before the game, which is why she’d had the confidence to flirt with him.

It was the first time she’d worn mascara and she was pretty sure she was going to go blind from the black tar substance her friend had caked on her eye lashes.

Still, catching Joshua’s eye had been the best thing that had ever happened to her. She went from awkward tall girl to the girl dating the most popular boy in school. She became a hit overnight and remained so even after Josh graduated a year before her.

She’d planned her entire future around becoming Mrs. Carrie Williams. Now what was she going to do with her life?