Together Head and Heart Saga - Coming of Age Romance (Boxed Set)

Together Head and Heart

How it Started

Book 1

Coming of Age Romance

By: Paula Breen & Third Cousins

A SYNOPSIS...

Melisa hasn’t seen her father since he moved to England. She hasn’t wanted to. He broke her mother’s heart and left them to pick up the pieces of their fractured lives. He’s getting married, though, and he’s insisting that she’s there for his special day.

Melisa is sure that the nightmare will begin from the moment she gets on the plane. She doesn’t even like flying. Things aren’t quite as dark as they seem, though, when the hottest guy she’s ever seen sits down next to her with a book in his hand.

They’ve got ten hours before they land. They’re perfect strangers. They’re taking off on an unplanned adventure together, but when turbulence strikes will they find themselves suffering through a crash landing?

INSPIRING WORDS

"My family is my strength and my weakness.

"

- Aishwarya Rai Bachchan

CHAPTER 1

Have you ever been in a position where you really want to do something, but you know that if you do it, then you’re going to have to give up something that makes you the person you are? I was in that position. I was in that position on the last day of school, before summer break, well, broke.

My body was buzzing. I was standing on the edge of an event which would mark my transition from being a kid to me being an adult.

The hours trickled by faster than I had expected. The general law of time is that it passes much more quickly when you are having fun, but I learned that day that the law isn’t always strictly observed. The truth is, sometimes time passes quickly because you don’t want it to, and sometimes it passes quickly because you’re trying desperately to stop it.

This was one of those times. The harder I tried to hold onto the passing seconds, the faster they seemed to slip between my fingers until the school bell rang shrilly, marking the end of the day and the beginning of my long night to come.

I walked slowly through the hallways that had become familiar to me. It seemed sad that I wouldn’t be returning to them the next year. I would be going somewhere new. I would be starting college and moving on with my life.

I didn’t have time to do everything I’d always planned to do on my last day. I’d always thought that I’d walk around the building, checking out each and every room for the last time. I always thought that I’d sit by the old pond and watch the frogs bouncing around their hunting grounds for one last time, but I couldn’t. My mom was waiting outside for me. I could already feel her impatience growing, even though I wasn’t anywhere near the entrance.

My mom wasn’t the kind of woman you kept waiting. She was the kind of woman who ran to a schedule and you either kept up with her or you fell behind. I headed out the front doors and turned one last time to look at my school, before I walked over to my mom’s car and pulled open the passenger door.

You know your flight leaves in six hours, she scolded me.

Mom, school has just finished, I said as I threw my beaten, dirty rucksack to the floor in front of me.

My mom glanced over at me, as she pulled out from the pickup area and into the road. I could feel her carefully inspecting me. I shifted.

You’re going to need to change before you set off, she told me in a matter-of-fact way. Your dad will expect you to be looking smart when you touch down in England.

My mom’s stiff expression faltered slightly over the mention of my father. I knew that his impending wedding was getting to her. I knew that, even though she wouldn’t admit it, she was hurting inside.

I looked down at my oversized shirt and tight, black skinny jeans. There was nothing wrong with my clothes. I was only getting on a plane. What was she expecting?

To be honest, I was just going to travel in something comfy, I said quickly to keep her from suggesting outfits out of the large and mostly unused collection of clothes which she had picked out for me, or for some stranger who was about my size, over the past year or so.

She sighed. I don’t want your father thinking that it’s on me, she said, as she pulled up at the lights and waited for them to change.

Mom, I’m eighteen years old. I think dad knows that I pick out my own clothes.

She didn’t say anything. The light turned green and she pulled away from the line of cars behind her. Have you packed everything that you need? Her eyebrows pulled together in a fretful way and I could see the thousands of other tiny details that her mind was micromanaging.

I packed last week.

Yes, but did you pack everything? she emphasized the word everything, as though perhaps I hadn’t quite understood it before.

I looked at her with a hard stare to attract her attention. She glanced over at me and then I rolled my eyes in an overly dramatic way. She gave me a mechanical smile.

If I don’t have everything, then it’s my own problem, isn’t it? I said. Stop worrying, mom, I’m going to be fine.

She nodded quietly and I noticed her grip on the steering wheel softened a little, so that the white in her knuckles starting to drop back to pink. It’s just, she started slowly, well, I know that you’re moving away to college in a few months and I know that I can trust you. But this is different. It’s just a scary thought for a mom to know her baby is going to a different country on her own.

I’m not a baby.

Maybe not to the world, but you’re always going to be my baby, she said and I cringed. She smiled at my reaction and turned the car into our driveway. I know you don’t get it now, but you will one day, she said in an all-knowing way.

When I have my own kids, right?

The car came to a stop and I stepped out. The sun had been shining brightly all day and it was pretty hot. The grass on our lawn, and on the lawns all down our street, was turning a dead brown color because of the drought. There was a watering ban, so the lawns were turning to powder, but the trees were still full of leafy green leaves. They rustled in the slight breeze, as if they could care less about what the grass was suffering, as I walked over to my front porch and into the home I’d been born in.

We don’t have long, so go and get your bags and we’ll set off to the airport, my mom said as she walked in and put her keys down in the small glass dish which was next to the front door.

You know you don’t actually have to be there four hours before the flight, right? I said, because she seemed to think that all guidelines had to be followed to the letter.

"It’s always better