Underestimated (Underestimated, #1) by Jettie Woodruff
Chapter 1
Of all of the thirty-six alternatives, running away is best.
I couldn’t hold my eyes open for one more second.
I had just driven two thousand nine hundred and fifty four miles, fifty seven hours, not including the six hours that I tried to sleep at the Motel 6, twice. Thirty four more miles, according to the robotic voice coming from the box stuck to the windshield of my not so new, used car.
The closer I got, the more my nerves began to stand on end. What the hell was I doing? Who does this?
Who walks away from their life to start all over? And when I say all over, I truly mean all over. My entire existence had been nothing but an illusion.
My name is no longer Morgan Kelley. That one would take some getting used to. I spent hours of my long drive going over the aspects of my new life with my invisible friend in the passenger seat. We actually had hours of conversations, okay, so they were one sided, but they were without doubt, conversations. I had even given my new friend a name and called him slash, after the three inch gash in the cheap vinyl seat.
My name is Riley Murphy. I moved to Misty Bay, Maine from Carson, Indiana when my company downsized, and I lost my job as an advertising rep. The small two bedroom cottage was a gift from my late grandmother. “Wow, a small cottage in Misty Bay, population, one thousand seventy five.” I interrupted my life studies when reality sat in for the millionth time since I had left Las Vegas. I mean Indiana. “Dammit Morg...
Shit, I mean Riley.” I need to sleep. I just need sleep. I can’t function. I know this. I have it all embedded in my brain. I am going to be fine, and there is nobody from Misty Bay, Maine looking for me. I had to stop. I couldn’t repeat my new life out loud or to myself, one more time.
Not if I intended to keep my sanity in tack. It was already on the verge of toppling over.
“Turn right in one point seven miles,” the robotic voice instructed. I turned right and was on a curvy blacktop road barely wide enough for two vehicles. The coast was absolutely breath taking, and did wonders for my nerves. I reached over and cranked the handle, rolling down the passenger side window. My nerves calmed even more when I heard the waves crashing to the rock walls below me. I couldn’t believe it. I was going to be living by the ocean. I could walk along the beach anytime I wanted, and I would too, I promised myself.
‘Welcome to Misty Bay,’ I finally read the homemade wooden sign, situated in the fresh spring, green leafed trees off the side of the road. I drove through the small town, looking out every window in the car. My head spun around until it wouldn’t rotate any further. One bank, one post office, one grocery store, one small library which looked like it would fit in the one that I use to go to in Las, I mean Indiana, at least ten times.
‘Reminiscent,’ I read as I pulled to the curb. This was where I would be working. Me, working in a coffee shop slash, hippy store. I had never had a job in my life. I felt a little whinsical thinking about it. I looked into my rearview mirror. I still had the bruise just below my right eye, but I had four days to get settled before I started work. It should be gone by then.
I waited for the school bus to pass and continued on my journey, excited to finally reach my destination.
“Turn right,” the voice instructed again. I made a right and was on a one lane graveled road. It was a quaint little neighborhood, and an older gentleman waved as I passed him retrieving his mail. “Arriving at destination, on right,”
I was informed. It wasn’t what I was expecting at all. The cottage was sort of by the beach, and I hoped there was a strategy to get off of the mountaintop to enjoy it. The aqua blue color of the house had to go. Who in their right mind would paint a house that color? It was the ugliest blue I had ever seen. I actually had a sundress pretty close to that color. I wouldn’t be wearing that, I decided when I got out of my car. It was the beginning of May and the temperature might have been sixty. When I left Las, I mean Indiana, it was ninety nine.