"What did you say to him? Why did he suddenly decide to move to Wellington Village?" Vale demanded, his voice thick with accusation.
Audrey let out a long sigh. She was exhausted—not just by the barrage of questions from the tall, perpetually disheveled man who always looked one step away from being mistaken for a drifter—but mentally drained, too. The questions Vale had just thrown at her were the same ones she kept asking herself.
The United States was massive. There were countless small towns, cozy and already a little overpopulated, where someone like Zavier could've chosen to settle down. So why—out of all the possible places—did he have to come here?
Even though they'd accidentally bumped into each other two months ago, couldn't he have just…pretended it never happened? Couldn't Zavier have wiped Wellington Village off his mind entirely? Taken it off the table as a place worth living in?
Zavier Lawrence still had so many options. Dozens, maybe hundreds. Audrey was sure of it—if he wanted, he could pack up and move to another continent without even blinking. With his skills, his family background, and all the right connections, it would be as easy for him as snapping his fingers.
But for Audrey? Wellington Village was her only option. There was nowhere else to go. All she could do was return to her hometown in the mountains. Back to the little inn her late mother had left behind. There was no moving elsewhere. No big reset button.
Besides, it's not like she had the money to go gallivanting off somewhere new just to fix a broken heart.
She understood, deep down, that the real problem wasn't the scenery laced with memories. It was what those memories did to her every day, making her feel like she needed to run away for a while—just to breathe again.
The problem was all in her head. In her heart. No matter how far she ran, if those memories refused to leave her mind, nothing would really change.
It would've been better if she could bury that heartbreak by working herself into the ground—eighteen-hour days, no breaks. But Audrey didn't have a job back then, not when she decided to run away from it all.
She had just finished school. No clear direction. No plans. And the heartbreak had only sent her further into a downward spiral.
Luckily, when her apartment lease was nearing its end and her world felt like it was coming undone, an unexpected lifeline appeared.
While tidying up, lost in the haze of "what now?" Audrey stumbled across an old childhood photo—her and her mother, standing in front of their little inn. For a long moment, she just stared. In all the chaos of surviving in cutthroat California, she'd somehow forgotten that she even had a home.
She'd been so busy trying to stay afloat—juggling school, part-time jobs, scraping by—that there was hardly any space left in her brain for childhood memories. There was no room for nostalgia. No time to remember where she came from.
By the end of that clean-up session, her things were already packed into moving boxes. There was still a week left on the lease, but Audrey had mentally checked out. She left California for good.
She moved to Wellington Village—ran from reality. From the ache in her chest. From the dark, intrusive thoughts that crept in more often than she cared to admit.
No, she never acted on them. The thoughts just looped endlessly in her mind but never crossed into real life. Not because Audrey was strong. But because she was scared.
"I don't even have the guts to die," she once whispered to herself, a bitter laugh escaping as she stood in the middle of her mess of a life. She was drifting, without a plan. And her savings were quickly running dry.
Yes, she was anxious. But not anxious enough to kick her survival instincts into gear—at least, not yet.
One late afternoon, just back from the beach, Audrey ran into that annoying man. Vale Sigourney. The strange neighbor with an unhealthy need to meddle in other people's business.
"So, are you planning to reopen Aunt Rose's inn?"
Audrey had really wanted to say no. But something about hearing her mom's nickname—spoken by the first person to actually talk to her since she'd arrived—snuck past her defenses. Before she knew it, she'd nodded without thinking.
A weird moment, really—but one that ended up solving her financial problem. And one she later regretted deeply.
She shouldn't have agreed that easily. She should've brushed him off, like people do when they ignore a ghost. Because, just like a ghost who realizes they've been seen, Vale started appearing almost every day, haunting Audrey's once-peaceful existence.
"What's with the silence? Thinking of stealing Zavier from his wife?"
Case in point. Audrey let out a weary sigh. Wasn't one heartbreak enough to deal with? Two whole years and the feeling still hadn't gone away. She was tired.
"Hey, answer me. You didn't even do anything, so why the dramatic sigh? My grandma says sighing like that shortens your lifespan, you know," Vale scolded.
Instead of listening, Audrey just sighed louder. Longer. And again. Enough times for Vale to shoot her an irritated look.
"Oh no, I sighed too many times! Does that mean I'm about to drop dead?" Audrey said in a mock-panic voice, but her face remained completely blank.
Wide eyes. Emotionless expression. Purely for the sake of messing with Vale's nerves.
"You're just sitting there doing absolutely nothing, but acting like you hauled crates of beer all afternoon," he grumbled under his breath—still loud enough for Audrey to hear.
She shot him a sharp glare as he stood in front of her, pretending he hadn't said anything. Typical.
Audrey didn't have the energy to argue. Especially not mentally. Her mind was far too drained to go toe-to-toe with someone like Vale, who never knew how to quit. She adjusted her posture, sitting cross-legged, then held up the pastel-colored box of Black Forest cake directly in front of her eyes.
Her gaze was fixed on the cake box, but Vale could tell—her mind was miles away.
An idea flickered across Vale's face.
"Want me to toss it for you?" he asked, reaching out his hand toward the box.
But Audrey quickly snapped back to reality, hugging the cake to her chest like it was an adorable kitten. She drew her hair around her like a curtain, letting it fall over both arms and shield the cake—as if she were protecting something precious.
Vale froze. There was no way he could follow through with his offer now. It would be weird. Worse, if some random villager happened to walk by and caught sight of this oddly intimate scene, things could get seriously awkward.
So instead, he slowly retracted his hand, stuffing it into the pocket of his worn-out black track pants—his favorite, despite the fading seams.
Audrey spoke softly.
"What do you think I should do?"