The beginning of a story is the set up for the ending. A story starts somewhere, but the middle is more important because it determines the direction of the ending.

Samantha blinked back tears, she couldn't believe it. What had she done to deserve it? She stood in the middle of an office that was once called hers. One mistake and she was kicked out...and fired. First, being kicked out of HER apartment, then getting fired from her job. She was once a respected architect, her own office in the middle of the city overlooking the many buildings she had designed.

She sighed, looking around her mostly cleared office. Walking towards the back wall filled with ceiling to floor windows, Samantha started to finish putting her things into boxes from the table that rested along the windows.

Picking a few items up to place into the box, she froze. Stuck between the table and window, a piece of paper was sticking up.

Setting the things in her arms into the box, Samantha moved towards the paper, hand reaching out to pick it up. For a moment, her thoughts strayed to her ex-boyfriend, the one who got her fired (well, more like the girl he had used to cheat on Samantha did that), then took her apartment away from her. His dad just had to be rich and make her look like the bad guy.

Samantha sighed, it wasn't really Mr. Harrison's fault that his son had played them both. After meeting him in college, and then almost ten years of dating (because he said he wasn't ready for that yet, Samantha hates herself for believing it the way she did), he cheated on her with a girl (she was going to use another word...) who Samantha had caught in her bed, doing...it...with her boyfriend. It was Samantha's bed first.

She sighed for the tenth time in the past half hour. Shaking herself away from those thoughts (especially the ones that result in her ex's head on a stick), she picked up the paper. She was about to put in the box when a graduation cap caught her eye.

Bringing the paper closer to her, Samantha gasped with a sob crawling up her throat. It wasn't just paper, it was a picture of her and Derek at their high school graduation.

She couldn't stop the sobs that shook her body. She fell to the ground, picture in hand.

~MsPenguingirl1234.

Published: July 22, 2017.