Romance: Love Left Behind - A Mystery Romance: (Romance, Mystery, Mystery Romance, Romantic Suspense) (3 page)

Mina Gurkiri was, by all means, an aggressive woman, as his roommate had described it to him back in the day.  She was a socialite, a daddy’s girl, and a brilliant investigative journalist with a smile like strawberry lemonade.  She knew exactly what buttons to push to get people to do what she wanted them to do and wasn’t afraid to push them.  Mina was fearless, or at least it seemed that way.  She never backed down from a challenge or a story, sometimes even going to dangerous depths to acquire information for her scoops. 

The fact that she was mind-numbingly gorgeous didn’t hurt either.  She rarely wore her brown, silky hair up, unless it was for a special occasion, but always wore black kohl around her eyes.  She claimed it made them pop.  She even wore a special shade of red lipstick that she had special-ordered.

“It’s not exactly whore red,” she explained to Ben once.  He had been resting his head on her lap.  She was running her fingers absentmindedly through his hair, sending tingles across his scalp.  Her fingertips were like electricity and Ben wanted to get electrocuted every day.  “But it’s not virginal red either.  It’s more of a provocative red.  A red that makes people want to tell me their deepest secrets.”

She was still asleep that morning, though, fresh-faced in bed.  Her hair was strewn across the pillows, her body wrapped nearly completely in the white comforter.  The sight made Ben chuckle, as well as remember that he should probably buy another blanket soon.  While he relished the chance to sleep with that beautiful woman every night, Mina was a notorious cover hog.  She usually tucked a corner of the blanket under her body and then, as she slept, would roll over, completely enveloping herself.  She spent the night being warm and toasty while Ben froze off to the side.  Mina sometimes complained that he kept the temperature in the apartment too high, and Ben repeatedly explained that he wouldn’t need to keep the temperature so high if
someone
understood how to share.

Ben slathered his toast with butter and added a tiny smear of grape jelly, enough so that he’d get the flavor but hopefully not explode his mouth with sweetness.  Holding his plate with one hand, he popped the jelly back into the fridge, being careful to close the door quietly as to not wake up the slumbering princess. 

He broke from his routine again at the breakfast table.  Rather than listening to the outside sounds, he cracked open his laptop.  With one hand, he lifted the toast to his mouth, taking tiny bites.  It was too sweet but he figured he couldn’t change it now.  His other hand typed away, pulling up his favorite websites so he could scroll through the daily posts.  He checked Reddit and Twitter, absentmindedly scrolled through a few news posts on MSN.  Then he brought up Facebook.

As he finished his first slice of toast, he read through all of the status updates.  Most of them were from his colleagues in the city.  They stayed up late, woke up early, and made the most out of their days.  A few statuses were posted by journalists, some of Mina’s friends, trying to draw people to stories they were tracking.

He clicked on one story about a seven-car pile-up in the Bronx, sucking in some air as he took in the pictures of cars crumpled up like pieces of paper.  In one picture, there was a rusty red streak across the pavement – blood from some of the people who didn’t make it.  Out of everyone involved, two escaped unharmed, five – including two children – were in the hospital, and three were killed.

What a shitty start to the morning,
Ben thought.  He picked up his other piece of toast and finished it quickly, trying to override the images with the crunching noise reverberating through his skull.  Swallowing the last piece of crust, he clicked out of the website and went back onto Facebook.

He found himself looking up people that he hadn’t spoken to for years, looking through pictures of old high school friends who still lived in Bellen.  For a little while he scrolled down the page of Katie Winer.  Katie worked at the diner in town.  Growing up, she had been the second closest friend he had in Bellen, following only slightly behind Starla.  She was a rambunctious redhead with a gravelly voice and a heart of steel.  Katie was a frequent tagalong on many of Ben and Starla’s high school escapades.  It made Ben’s insides warm to scan her page and find out that Katie was doing well back home.

In his heart he knew what page and what name he was looking for, but he wanted to pretend that he was over his first love.  He always ended up back on her page though.  Every single time. 

Starla looked even more beautiful at twenty-five than she did at seventeen.  She had grown into herself.  There were curves in all of the right places.  She had grown her hair out so it rolled over her shoulders in long, luscious blonde waves.  Her profile picture hadn’t changed for a few months.  It was her on her front porch, hands planted on her hips, grinning into the camera.  She wore lip gloss so shiny that Ben could see it sparkling through the computer, but had almost no makeup on the rest of her face.  It was refreshing to see someone look so natural, especially when every woman in New York City seemed to paint their faces on daily basis. 

He looked through her page, focusing on menial status updates about the way her life was going, before moving on to check her relationship status.  It hadn’t changed in years so he wasn’t surprised to see that she was still in a relationship with Blair Bexler, who had been in their high school graduating class.  Unwittingly a groan escaped from Ben’s lips.  It wasn’t that he
hated
Blair, it was just … no – it was that he hated Blair.  The guy had always been stuck-up and entitled, thinking that he deserved everything in life simply because he existed.  During his junior year of college, when Ben found out that Starla and Blair had started dating, he had been bewildered.  He couldn’t figure out what Starla saw in the guy.

His cursor moved up to the “Send a message” button and pressed it.  Their past conversations sprung up on the screen.  The last time they spoke had been two weeks before, a short conversation in which Ben wished Starla a happy birthday and asked about her plans for the night.

Despite Ben’s insistence that his leaving New Jersey would be the end of their relationship, they had taken up communication somewhere around his sophomore year of college, after Lisa had passed away.  Starla had been inconsolable and had reached out to Ben as one of the only people who had been involved in that aspect of her life.  He had comforted her to the best of his abilities, leaving inspirational quotes or messages of good will for her on days when he knew she was suffering – the day of Lisa’s funeral, Lisa’s upcoming birthday, Thanksgiving. 

They began speaking a bit more after that, ignoring the awkwardness of Ben’s departure.  They kept up to date on the menial details of their day to day life.  Ben usually talked about his classes, how much there was to do in New York City, and the people that he met.  He wanted to, in a way, prove to Starla that she had missed out on a wonderful opportunity.  All she spoke about was how people in Bellen were doing and some of the people she met at her waitressing job.  They briefly spoke about whether either of them was dating, then dropped the subject, not wanting to delve into it too deeply.

Then Ben met Mina.  The two of them were in a journalism class together.  While Ben was taking the class to fulfill his English minor, Mina was on a mission to become a word-class journalist.  On the first day of class, they sat next to each other.  Ben got lost trying to take notes because the professor was speaking too quickly.  When he asked the quiet-looking ethnic girl next to him if he could copy some of her notes after class, he got a whispered lecture about learning to write in short-hand.  After all, what was a journalist who couldn’t take notes?

It was the start of something new.  Mina eventually let Ben copy her notes on the condition that he take her out for some drinks.  Their conversation had flowed freely and no topic was left behind.  Family, friends, dreams, fears…everything was discussed.  Mina was one of the least judgmental people Ben had ever met.  She lived her life in that New York frame of mind.

They had consummated their relationship on a cold and blustery Friday night in December of Ben’s sophomore year at school.  He found it funny that he could remember the specifics of the night but figured it was because such a momentous occasion was meant to stand out. Mina and he had been out for dinner at Bowery Diner and had then wandered back to her dorm, where she had invited him up to her room to watch movies.  Her roommate was away that weekend.  Her bed had red sheets and a blue comforter, both soft and plush, so when she pressed his chest down, pushed him onto the bed, he felt like he was floating on air.

She had moved her hands down his body, feeling his muscles contract beneath her fingers.  Ben’s pants fit a bit tighter.  He watched as Mina unbuttoned his jeans and slowly drew them off from his body.  As funny as it was, when she dropped them on the floor, he worried about wrinkles and creases.  There was almost nothing that Ben disliked more than creases in his jeans.  But then Mina started using her hands, her fingers, and her hot, hot mouth, and all the worries disappeared from Ben’s head.

She was his first, his last, and every single one in between.  But the sex was good and the care and compassion he felt every day was better, so Ben didn’t really mind that he didn’t have much experience in the way of women.  Mina kept him busy enough.  She took him out on the town, introduced him to all of her contacts.  It was Mina that had helped introduce him to publishers that might be interested in working with him on his story ideas.  Mina was a constant part of his life, the moon to his Earth.  So after college, it just made sense that they would move in together.  Ben would be lying though, if he said that he never thought about what it would be like, to be with another girl.  Just one specific other girl.  Just once.

Hey there pretty lady
, Ben typed to Starla. 
How have you been?  It’s been a few weeks since we talked…thought we could catch up.  Let me know when you’re free!

Before he could change his mind on the message, he hit send, shooting the message off into cyberspace.  He had the same problem every time he went to contact Starla – mainly, should he do it?  Did she still want to talk to him?  Why was he so attached to her still, even after all these years that had passed?

He supposed that everyone meets certain people who are meant, despite it all, to stay in each other’s lives.  Even though he was dating Mina and Starla was dating Blair, even though Ben had left Starla on the ground so many years ago, he was always going to care about her.  Starla Bluff was his childhood, middle school, and high school love.  That kind of love sticks with a person. 

2014 – Starla

An earthquake rippled through the room, shaking her body like a ragdoll.  Her scream caught in her throat and came out patterned in jackhammer gasps.  But when Starla opened her eyes, expecting to see everything around her falling to the ground, she only saw Blair, her boyfriend, standing above her.  His hands were fastened to her shoulders, rattling her down to her very bones.

As she looked up, Blair spoke, exasperated.  “Thank God, babe.  I’ve been waiting for you to wake up but I can’t wait anymore.”

“Is something wrong?” she asked, her voice bleary, still shaky from what she thought had been impending doom.  “Are you okay?”  For a moment, fear seized in her chest, wondering what could have happened for Blair to have had to wake her up so suddenly.

But her boyfriend just chuckled and said, “I’m hungry.  I want a sandwich.”

“So you had to wake me up for that?”

She regretted the words immediately after they left her mouth.  Blair’s eyes narrowed, turning them into hardened emeralds.  He stopped shaking her, though Starla felt his fingers dig into her skin.  It hurt and she knew the pressure would leave bruises.  That happened a lot.  Somewhere in her heart, Starla knew that this wasn’t how she was supposed to be treated.  She just knew, though, that Blair was a good guy at heart.  He had some issues to work out, but didn’t everybody?

His anger hadn’t started when their relationship began.  The two of them had known each other for years and years.  During high school, they hadn’t been very good friends.  But as the teenagers of Bellen began to move away for college, those who stayed began a new repertoire.  Starla had been working and taking care of Lisa, while Blair stayed behind to work as a mechanic at his father’s garage.  One day, Starla’s car had broken down and she couldn’t get to work.  In tears she had called the mechanic.  Blair not only promised to fix the car in record time but drove her to work for the next week so she would get there on time.  At the end of the week, the two had spoken about more and more at length than they ever had in high school, and then Blair had asked Starla on a date. 

Admittedly, they hadn’t worked out at first.  On the date, Blair spent the entire dinner talking about himself and how wonderful he was with his hands.  He ordered their food for them, insisted Starla split the check, and aggressively tried to kiss her at the end of the night.  Starla had gone inside and sat down in Lisa’s bedroom, telling her sister about her travesty of a date. 

They hadn’t reconnected for a solid length of time.  Part of the reason was Lisa’s death.  When her sister passed away, Starla lost her mind for a bit.  She wasn’t crazy by any means, rather just depressed and lonely.  She had reached out to Ben and found solace in her old friend.  It opened up a window of communication that hadn’t been open in a long time.  But when Ben’s messages began to get more and more sporadic, and Starla found out that it was because he was dating someone at school, depression set in again.

In the end, it was Blair who rescued her, who brought food by the Bluff house so that Starla would eat, who helped explain to her manager why she needed some days off.  It was Blair who helped her father find a new job at the garage, and Blair who held her in the middle of the night when the nightmares kept her awake.  He had been so sweet, so caring, and so opposite of what Starla had remembered about him from the first date.  Maybe she had been wrong.