TANNERThe summer before my senior year of college, I made the biggest mistake of my life. It wasn’t falling for my best friend’s little sister when I knew she was off-limits…it was leaving her behind thinking what we had was nothing more than a fling.

Her pained cries as I walked away have played on a loop in my nightmares since that day. In the years that have passed, there hasn’t been a single achievement I’ve celebrated that wasn’t tainted by her absence.

But now, it’s time. I’m going to get my girl back…no matter what it takes.

GRACEFive years ago, I spent a whole summer learning, exploring, and falling in love with my lifelong protector. His future was bright, and as he broke me into a million pieces, he made sure I knew there wasn’t a place for me next to him under the bright, stadium lights.

That girl who waited and hoped for him to come back is gone now, but just when I think I’ve moved on and created a life of my own, a ghost from my past reappears, determined to make things right. Tanner Lake may have once been everything to me, but those days are long over, aren’t they?.