Twist Read Online Free Page A

until well, until I was about eleven years old. A friend of mine, actually just an acquaintance named Jack, suggested we meet there. While I loved the music, I usually avoided going to these bars because most of them were dives. Yet, for some reason I agreed to meet him there.”
    “You must have been bored that night.”
    “Probably,” Kevin said. But that wasn’t it. Dives stank of stale beer and played music that was too tinny. That night was no different. But he was different. He found himself toe tapping and singing songs.
    Rose came up to him and said, “Hi cutie.” She was too bold for him. He saw instantly that they had nothing in common. She dressed in skintight pants, and wore an open shirt revealing hefty cleavage. But from the moment she approached, he couldn’t stop staring at her. Her raw sexuality hooked him, he told himself. But there was more. Much more.
    The spaghetti straps over her naked shoulders made him tremble with desire, something he had never done before. And she wasn’t the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. In fact, Sarah Thomas had been more so, and he had dumped her after two dates. Still Rose attracted him like no other, she had an ease about her. The feelings of knowing her from before, some other time, a time that never existed, struck him. He had never believed in love at first sight, but she had changed all that.
    Rose was crude, saying “Let’s get out of this dump,” after only saying hello. He normally would have refused, liking to get to know the women he slept with beforehand. This time, he had gone with Rose. Some feeling of rightness had pervaded everything, so he had done it. That in itself was unlike him, taking a chance like that.
    “Hello?”
    “Oops sorry. I guess I was just remembering how we met.”
    “You old romantic.”
    “Well, we’re planning on getting married next month. Valentine’s Day. Hope you and Dave can make it. That’s why I called in fact. And of course to catch up.”
    “We’ll try. Make sure to send an invite though.”
    “We will.”
    * * *
    Life went on. Rose and Kevin conceived a son, William. They started him in high school the same year that Rose found the nodule on her breast. It was the couple’s thirteenth anniversary.
    Rose, the woman Kevin loved with his entire soul, died two short years after chemotherapy started. They cremated her.
    With Rose’s parents unreachable in Europe for another week, Kevin postponed her funeral until they returned. That entire week his eyes remained fused with tears. Every morning he almost had to pry the eyelids from his face to open them.
    The last hauntingly familiar thing he found out about Rose’s family was they had lived in the same small neighborhood he had for a time. The one where Beth now resided. His family had already moved when Rose’s landed. Eventually she moved away from them. Yet she had such fond memories she insisted upon having her ashes interred there.
    The funeral took Kevin back there. To where Rose’s family resided now. To where he had lived so many years ago.
    Deja vu kept occurring while driving into the area. He knew what was around almost every corner, remembered things he hadn’t remembered in years, and got confused when some major aspect had changed. Many had. His old house no longer stood on Pine Street. Instead, a three-story townhouse of red brick occupied the land. Many stores had come and gone in the years since his last visit.
    His old friend Jimmy Summers still lived there. Beth had told him that some time before. Jimmy attended Rose’s funeral as a sign of respect for Kevin. That was what he believed at least.
    The day after the funeral, Kevin dropped off William at Beth’s house. For some reason, one he did not understand, he needed to be alone. When he finally decided to revisit the graveyard he made a crazy wrong turn, getting himself completely lost. Lost in a town he had once known from alleyway to alleyway. He recognized something finally.