Prolouge

At midnight, most people had gone home to their families. In fact, barely anyone had been in their office for the last five hours. However, one person was burning the midnight oil on the dark night in December. Having placed the picture of her family face down, she worked through the guilt. Using this as the motivation to finish quicker, she tried to push ahead.

She had a deadline. That deadline was approaching far too quickly. Usually, she would have been done by now. She would have been ready to go home to her family and tuck her children into bed, but this was proving to be harder than she ever could have imagined.

Charlotte Graves had become a household name over the few years she had been writing. For as long as she had been published, her books had hit the hearts and minds of her readers. She had always written the truth.

Her entire life, she had been searching for something that gave her life meaning. When she started writing, she knew she had found it. From that moment writing had been her way of coping. From her nomadic childhood to her battles with grief, she had written to find and understand herself.

Over the years, she had received countless letters from fans who claim that her books had helped them. Along with those were letters from parents who claimed that she had become their child’s hero and inspiration. That was the most rewarding thing she could imagine. Writing was her calling and she was never going to give that up. Not so long as her books were helping people.

However, writing was not only Charlotte’s calling in life, but the hobby that brought with it a disastrous side effect. Her unearthly headaches. So, as the night rolled in, causing her office to become lit only by the gentle glow of her desk lamp, Charlotte’s head was filled with the dull ache she knew so well.

Pulling her glasses off, Charlotte groaned as she rubbed her temples. Following her mind had never been that hard before. Writing had never been that hard. This time was different. This book was her story.

Though, her life had been scrawled across the news headline countless times, this part of it had always remained hers. This story was her self-discovery. Throughout the pages and metaphors, she had shed tears for the memories she had neglected as she grew older.

Flicking through the transcript and her detailed plan, Charlotte knew that she couldn’t give up with this novel. She owed it to everyone to write the truth once more. Most importantly, she owed it to herself.

Unfortunately, this book had meant that she had to remember everything. Remembering was hard, no matter how fond the majority of the memories were. Writing them down didn’t change the most painful fact; they were only memories.

People who had played such an important part in her life had become ghosts to her. The only thing that was keeping them alive were her memories and she was neglecting them. She was shocked and distraught when she realised that she couldn’t entirely remember the years she had spent in Oakton. Those moment that she could remember, she was sure had been tainted by her bias.

What hurt the most was realising that, forever, she would have to settle for remembering Avery.