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During the night, she had a horrible nightmare, and she woke up screaming. David showed up at her bedside trying to calm her down. When she was calm enough, and she assured him she was okay, he went back to his room. She hadn’t had a nightmare in over four years. This one was the worst. She was attending Xander’s funeral after he had died in some kind of accident. The dream was so vivid with her seeing his face as she walked by his casket. She had laid herself across it telling him not to leave her. She didn’t sleep for the rest of the night.
The second morning she was there, she met David coming back from an early morning run as she was starting hers. After that, they took their runs together. She lagged behind several times, but by the end of the week, she was back to her usual stamina. She avoided alcohol the entire time she was at her father’s home, and she started to eat better. The day before she was to leave she weighed herself and was back to one hundred ten pounds.
She was sitting on the couch relaxing when David came back from an interview with a local law firm.
“How did it go?”
“I’m not sure. There were several people waiting to be interviewed while I was there.”
“When are they going to let you know?”
“They said in a couple of weeks.”
“You could ask my father for a position.”
David furrowed his forehead, “I don’t want to do that. I know he would hire me immediately, but I want to do this myself.”
“I understand, but you should consider it.”
“Are you leaving tomorrow?”
“Why, are you going to miss me?”
“Yeah, you’re a pain in the ass, but I’ve gotten used to you being around.”
“I’ve been considering staying here another week.”
She saw his face brighten and decided that she would. He made her feel good when they were together. There was no pressure to impress him.
“That would be great. Then I will have a partner for another week to go on runs with and watch the Braves.”
She went up to the main house to let her father and Felice know that she decided to stay another week. Her father grew suspicious that she was taking time off when she had to go back to work. She lied and told him that she took a leave of absence for a month to study and relax. She had been so busy the last three years with school and work that she needed the rest. He seemed satisfied with her explanation and left to go back to the office.
She made a couple of phone calls, one to Gage to ask if he could take care of Boomer and Riley for one more week and another to Sam, though she had to leave a voicemail to tell her she was doing much better, but wouldn’t be home for another week.
It was true; she did feel much better. She was back to her daily routine. The last thing she did was call Tim and let him know where she was. She had not told anyone but Sam and her family that she was coming down. She had avoided his texts and calls until she got her head together. He told her that he missed her, and he understood that she needed time to herself. She didn’t know that he knew exactly where she was by the GPS tracking he had put on her phone.
Tim had also noticed that she had been texting a new person, David. Who was this David? When was he going to get his chance to be with her? He couldn’t wait for her to come home so he could start pressing her to date him again. He had changed his hair style from a crew cut that he normally wore to parted down the side. As it grew longer, it looked more stylish. He also started to grow a thin beard and mustache. He changed his glasses from the thick dark square frames to frameless, thinking it made him look more distinguished.
He found that this school was much better than the old one he had previously taught (for dealing anyway). Security wasn’t as tight as he had anticipated and his business was growing. From the first week of school to the third week, his business had increased fivefold. He started stacking wads of cash under a floorboard in his apartment. It wasn’t like he could go to the bank with all that cash. But he also started spending some of it. He purchased a couple of Brooks Brothers suits and several expensive dress shirts and ties.
On a whim, he bought Ava a gold locket that he would eventually give to her. With all the money he was making, he could afford to take her out in style. She would see the changes in him when she came home, and he was sure that she would like what she saw.
