Page 1 of SnowBound

PROLOGUE

ABIGAIL

My eyes hurt from the lack of sleep. I’d been up all night, searching the internet to find the one person on this earth I didn’t know the name of. I rubbed my heavy eyelids with the sleeve of my hoodie, hoping to clear my now cloudy vision. I swore my brain had decided to see everything in dual frames. A thick fog enveloped my mind, making it hard to think straight.

Every social media platform I could think of, I’d checked numerous times.

How many Andrews about my age lived in this country? Way too many. It was a lost cause. A conclusion I came to minutes ago. He could be anywhere around the world right now.

I sighed.

Soon I would have to resign myself to my fate and go through this alone. On. My. Own. I scanned the space around me and took in the pile of boxes my best friend Ellie and I had emptied last week, and my eyes brimmed with hot tears. A wave of sadness washed through me. Exhaustion settled in.

I had promised myself I would find him. And I had failed.

Rivulets of my sadness cascaded down my cheeks, and I let them flow freely, too tired to even patch the broken pieces of my heart and the dam that ruptured.

How did I become such a failure at nineteen? I wasn’t even out of my teen years, yet my life seemed all set to derail. In more ways than I could count. And I was all alone for the ride.

Ellie left before dinner. She took a flight back to campus.

She didn’t have to come all the way to Tennessee for me after I broke the news to my parents that I’d withdrawn from college for now.

She didn’t have to help me set my new life on its tracks either. Or even fly here once more and unpack my stuff when I moved here.

Three months ago, my parents gave me an ultimatum and threw me out without a second look. And for eleven weeks, I had been living someplace I never thought I’d consider home in this lifetime. But what other options did I have? Zero to none. Deciding to not let life have the last word in my future, I worked double-time—even when exhaustion got the best of me—and it paid off because now I had a place to call mine. A home. Or more like the only non-dump I could afford.

Ellie didn't have to fill the refrigerator of my new apartment with healthy options. And she didn’t have to stop by the store to pick up colorful decor items to give this place a little character and make it lovelier than it was. I told her I’d pay her back. Eventually. And she pushed the idea with a flick of her wrist. “My treat,” she had said. Something that she often repeated these days whenever it concerned me. Or my screwups.

No, Ellie didn’t have to do any of those things. But she did. From the selflessness of her heart. And I’d forever be grateful she stuck by my side. Because no one else did.

To add misery to my already complicated existence, I was now failing at the promise I made to myself. To get hold of the one person I had to talk to. To confide in about everything. Be honest. And tell the truth. And yet, he was the one who didn’t seem to exist. As if my brain had created him one night. And he’d evaporated in the morning light.

Fresh tears blurred my vision.

Pulling at the fluffy purple blanket Ellie got for me for the not-so-pretty brown couch that came with the apartment and wrapping it around my heaving shoulders, I curled up on the worn wooden floor that must have looked fancy in its earlier years. Now it just looked old. And sad. Like me.

Even though I tried, I had no more fight left in me.

These days, every effort felt harder than it really was. I was constantly exhausted, but I tried to push a little more because I only had myself to count on. And being tired wasn’t an option.

My body let go first. But even in my dreams, my mind was restless.

Images of our time together waltzed behind my closed lids.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured through the raw lining of my throat. “For everything.”

And that was when my brain lost the fight too.

I would be all right. I had to be. What else could I do?

His name fell from my lips as his handsome face brightened with joy, the sparks in his eyes aimed at me. He smiled and whispered, “I’ll never forget you, Abby.” The last words he had spoken to me.

How I wished it were true. The image dissolved, and there was nothing left of the man I’d been thinking about for months now.

I begged my mind to bring him back. Not a flicker. Nothing. Even the dream version of him had abandoned me.

For the first time, fear made me a prisoner, its steel claws digging into my heart.

I wouldn’t let it win. I had to fight back. To make it work. Somehow.

Oblivion filled my head while my heart was laden with tears.