Break Away: A Midwest Small Town Romance Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Note from the Author

  Dedication

  Copyright

  Trigger Warning

  Playlist

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Review

  Dear Reader,

  This book came from a time in my life when I was unsure of a lot of things. I have made the decision that I am going to do something out of my comfort zone, because if by doing so it will help someone else who is struggling, then being real and open is what I need to do.

  From the very moment that I learned how to read; I wanted to be an author. Reading has always been my creative outlet where I could escape to different worlds and fall in love with characters that were nothing more than a figment of an author’s imagination. Every New Year's Eve, my first resolution was to write a book. With every year that came and went, though, this never happened.

  You see, what held me back all those years was self-doubt. How could I ever write a book? Hell, I didn’t even graduate. The last grade that I actually finished was the eighth grade. I have ADHD and rarely follow through with anything that I start. When I do, it’s on to the next project that will quiet my mind. OCD and anxiety are also other things that I struggle with. And let me tell you, writing this book has been one of the biggest challenges that I have ever encountered. It took me a little over two years to write Break Away. But… I did it!

  All because I told those negative voices in my head to sit down and shut up!

  Finally, on January 4th, 2019, in the midst of a battle with depression, I opened up my Google Docs and started typing a story that had been spinning around in my head. I didn’t have an ending or a lot of the in-between, but before I knew it, the characters were writing the story and the ending.

  I am being open about these things that I struggle with because I am ready to own them. They are woven into the very fragments of my soul. They are a part of me. By denying them, I am only allowing my self-doubt to continue to hold me back.

  I hope that you enjoy Sofia, Noah, and sweet Lorenzo’s story. They will forever hold a very special place in my heart.

  Love,

  Vanessa Sheets

  To my mom,

  the strongest woman I know.

  Thank you for always believing in me,

  and all that I do.

  Break Away

  Copyright ©2021 by Vanessa Sheets

  All rights reserved.

  Copyediting & Proofreading by

  E.R. Whyte

  Cover Design by Jake and Jennifer Hartmann

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission, except for use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters, and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  Durand, however, is an actual place in Northern Illinois. I was blessed to have grown up in such a small town, where I spent much of my childhood riding my bike around while making stories up in my head. During my teenage years, many nights were spent hanging out at the town square and I never missed an event during our 4th of July celebration.

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  WARNING:

  This book may be sensitive to some readers.

  Triggers include drug abuse/addiction, rape, suicide, strong language,

  and explicit sex. VERY EXPLICIT SEX!

  18 and up.

  Please read responsibly.

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  Listen Here

  “Because Of You” –– Kelly Clarkson

  “Godspeed” –– The Chicks

  “Headlights” –– Eminem

  “Slow Ride” –– Colt Ford

  “Ridin’ Roads” –– Dustin Lynch

  “Helium” –– Sia

  “Ride” –– Chase Rice

  “Love Me Like You Do” –– Ellie Goulding

  “Someone You Loved” –– Lewis Capaldi

  “Take What You Want” –– Post Malone

  “Mercy” –– Brett Young

  “Everywhere But On” –– Matt Stell

  “Rules Of Breaking Up” –– Brandon Ratcliff

  “Workin’ On It” –– Meghan Trainor

  “Forever After All” –– Luke Combs

  “Mommy.”

  I’m on Mommy’s bed, kneeling over her. I gently shake her. She doesn’t move. She is sleeping. Ick. The smell. Beer. I’m hungry and I have to go to school. I gently brush her blond hair away from her face. She moans and swats at my hand. I jump back. She isn’t getting up. It’s almost time for school. Grrrrr. My tummy makes the hungry sound. Waffles. My tummy wants waffles.

  I leave Mommy in her bed. If Nonna were still here, she would make me waffles. I miss Nonna. I miss how it used to be. Before she died.

  I will make waffles. The freezer is empty. Just a frozen pizza. No waffles today, tummy. I shut the freezer door softly, so that I don’t wake mama. Using my tiny monkey toes, I climb up the cabinets and stand up on the counter. Grrrrr. I know, tummy. I open the cabinet and pull out the only box of cereal we have, along with a bowl. The box slips out of my hand and crashes to the floor. I watch as cereal explodes out of the box. I freeze. Mommy won’t be happy. I jump off the counter and start shoveling it back into the box. I scoop some into the bowl with my hands. Milk. No milk in the fridge. No spoon in the drawer. I sit crisscross applesauce on the floor and eat the rainbow circles out of the bowl with my fingers.

  Tummy is happy.

  I go to my room. No clean clothes. I find
some pants and my favorite unicorn shirt in the hall on the floor. I peek into mommy’s room. Mommy worked late. She is tired. I will go to school all by myself. Then mommy can rest. I grab the faded flower blanket off mommy’s floor. The one that has burn holes from mommy’s cigarettes all over it. I cover her up. I kiss mommy on the cheek. Sleep tight, mommy. Sleep tight.

  The water hits the buckets spread out all over my room.

  TAP. TAP. TAP.

  I am lying in my bed staring at the rain as it blasts our tiny trailer window. I reach for my cell phone and unplug the charger. With a swipe of my finger, 3:50 a.m. lights up on my screen. A bolt of lightning illuminates my naked body. Our tiny trailer is stuffy and has little circulation, so naked is the only way to sleep.

  Was she home yet?

  Did she make it to bed?

  Who did she bring back with her tonight?

  Did she wake up Lorenzo?

  Kind of odd thoughts to run through a nineteen-year-old’s head. Especially about her own mother. Although to me, they were as normal as putting one foot in front of the other. As much as I didn’t want to leave the comfort of my bed, I had no other choice. I had to check on my mom and make sure Enzo was still asleep. It is what I do and what I have done for as long as I can remember.

  I wrap my comforter around my naked body and slide out of bed. As I make my way down our dark hall, I peek in on my little brother, Lorenzo. His Scooby Doo night light illuminates his tiny sleeping face. Messy golden curls cover his head as he sleeps peacefully under his worn-out dinosaur comforter. As I stand there, I am not shocked to hear a man’s voice coming from my mother’s bedroom. The door is shut with just a slit of light peeking out from under it.

  “Mona, that was fucking amazing! That thing you did with your tongue! Wow!”

  “Years of practice honey, years and years of practice.”

  I roll my eyes at the conversation going on behind her closed door. This is who she is and has been since Nonna died thirteen years ago. However, I am the complete opposite of her.

  My mother has short, dirty blond hair and piercing blue eyes. I have long, chocolate brown hair that just barely grazes my waistline. My eyes are dark brown with circles under them from all the worry I constantly carry. She is beautiful. Well, I guess I should say, she was beautiful. Stunningly beautiful. And she knew it. When she walked into a room, people turned and stared. They still do, but not for those reasons. Stunning I am not. My looks are plain, and I am well aware that I can walk into a room and go unnoticed. My mother could not hold a tune if her life depended on it. I however have been singing since before I could talk. One of my fondest memories of my Nonna, was listening to her talk about the day that I was born.

  “Child, I swear to the heavens above that when your sweet little face met this world for the first time, you weren’t crying, you were singing a tune.”

  I was always the go-to whenever we had concerts, recitals or plays at school. I love singing but not in front of people, so most of the time I declined. I wouldn’t even audition. Eventually, the teachers stopped asking me to try out. My mom has not picked up a book since high school, and you very rarely see me without one in my hand. If I am not reading, I am writing short stories and poems. Anything to take me away from this place. She is irrational, with a temper that is hotter than noon on the 4th of July. I am reasonable, calm, and laid back. She lives her life day to day and does not believe in planning for the future. I, however, believe that without a plan, we are all just aimlessly floating around in this world. What she has been doing her whole life.

  As I stand outside her door, I hear the doorknob jiggle. I instinctively turn around, not wanting to make a connection with whoever it is that she brought home. As I head back to my room, I hear the man's voice calling out to me.

  ''Hey, who's there?"

  I quickly turn around, clutching my blanket, and come face to face with the dark shadow of a man. The lightning flashes from behind me through my bedroom window, illuminating his face. His dark brown eyes are just barely open. Bloodshot from a night of drinking and God only knows what. He is wearing a blue flannel button-up that is open, revealing his chest. I glance down and notice his firm; hard body and my stomach does a flip flop. I quickly force my eyes to meet his again.

  “Sofia Lombardi. I’m Mona’s daughter.”

  He tilts his head and gives me a puzzled look.

  “Huh. She never mentioned you. I think I would have remembered her telling me she had such a beautiful daughter.”

  His unawareness of my existence does not faze me. My mother doesn’t like to divulge that she has any children. It may hurt her chances of landing her next fuck. No fuck, no pills. I have had these conversations with all her men, many times over the years. I have grown numb to responses like this. I have also learned to ignore the inappropriate comments and eerie gawking. This is common when it comes to any of my mother’s “friends,” as she likes to call them whenever Enzo is around.

  “I was just going to the bathroom, heading back to bed now.” I turn around, trying to put as much distance as possible between me and this stranger with eyes that linger too long. I am tired and all I want is to be in my bed. As I make my way down the hall, I can hear him stumbling around, bumping into things. Now I am irritated. He is going to wake up Lorenzo.

  Why is this my problem? I just want to be in my bed. I have to get Enzo out the door and get myself to school in less than three hours. But the matter of the fact is that my mother is deep into her coma state and will not reenter our world for another 12 hours.

  I want so badly to ignore this situation, but I don’t have a choice. I don’t even try to stifle the moan that escapes me as I spin around and head back to the living room.

  “Hey, you all right to drive? With this storm, you may want to think about staying over.”

  “This little storm? Nah, I’m fine. And I ain’t driving. No car. One of my work buddies lives in the apartments on East Elm. I’ll just crash there. Plus, your mama said she ain’t a lady that likes to share her bed. Well, not for sleeping, anyways.” He lets out a loud, raspy laugh that triggers a coughing attack—I’m sure from all the cigarettes he chain-smoked at the bar that night. He finally feels his way to the door. Just before he lets himself out, he turns to me and says, “I’m working on that, though. The whole sleeping in your mama’s bed. I really like her.”

  Our flimsy trailer door slams shut, and I head back to my room, laughing out loud to myself.

  Yeah, good luck with that, buddy. Mona Lombardi will never settle down with just one man. It’s just not in her blood.

  I crawl back into my bed and snuggle down under the covers. I am left once again to the tap...tap...tap of the rainwater hitting the buckets and fall into a deep sleep within minutes.

  I wish I had known that it wouldn’t be the last time I saw his shadow staggering around our trailer.

  A FEW HOURS LATER, had I not awoken to the earlier thunderstorm, I would have never known that it had rained. Outside was dry as a bone. The April sun was shining bold and strong in the sky, sending promises of flowers in May, which was just a week away. I am standing in front of the bathroom mirror, trying to make sense of my hair. Class started in less than fifteen minutes, and the walk to school was ten. I had my license, but on my mom’s bartending salary and pill habit, there is no way we can afford an extra car.

  “Oh, fuck it!” I throw it up in a messy bun.

  Lorenzo’s arm reaches around me to grab his toothbrush off the counter. Laying my hand on his head, I ruffle his golden curls.

  “Good morning, sleepy bear! All ready for school?”

  He shrugs his shoulders as he starts to brush his teeth, looking up at me with blue eyes that have always reminded me of the periwinkles that bloom in the spring. They are our mother’s eyes. In certain lighting, they appear violet. We rarely go anywhere without people making a fuss over them.

  “Not feeling it today, little man?”

  He shrugs his shoulde
rs again and scrunches up his face. The same face I make when I am irritated or not feeling it. This is not a rare reaction from him in regard to school. He doesn’t like school because he doesn’t like being away from me.

  Lorenzo Thomas came into our lives when I was thirteen years old. I had so many feelings when my mom told me she was going to have a baby. As I watched her belly swell during those nine months, I was wrecked with dread and fear of the unknown. I would get such an upset stomach that I would get sick several times a week. How was my mom going to care for a baby? She hadn’t cared for me since I was five years old.

  But even with so much doubt, I chose to believe. Believe that this baby was the answer. The answer to the prayers I had prayed, night after night. I’d prayed for mama to stop drinking and taking her “headache” pills. Prayed for our fridge to have food in it. Prayed for her to be present and want to be. No more days wasted with a drugged slumber. This baby in her belly was going to magically change her. Change her into a mother more like my friends’ moms.

  She would soon have to take care of the baby growing in her. That is what a mother does, right? It’s what she had done for me when I was a baby, wasn’t it? Or had my Nonna been such a huge part of raising me the first five years of my life that there wasn’t much hope for this baby?

  Those were the thoughts that consumed me. They filled my tiny head, twisting and turning constantly like a tornado of unanswered questions and concerns. They clouded my young mind as I waited impatiently for the baby to come. I counted the days down with a red marker. My unicorn calendar slowly was covered in big red X’s. Nine months full of them.

  Unfortunately, we sometimes learn at a very young age, that even with all of the hope and prayers in the world, some things are just not meant to be. And my mom…well, she would never be that mom that I had hoped and prayed for.

  The night that my mom brought Lorenzo home from the hospital will forever be burned into my memory.