Chapter 4

He led her down a wide hallway and up a set of grand stairs, turning down a hallway and stopping at a door about three quarters of the way down a hallway paneled in the same dark wood as the reception room. "Thank you," she smiled at the man, watching as he moved off the way they'd come before unlocking the door and pushing it open.

It smelled lightly of jasmine and was decorated in various shades of green. From a spruce so dark it was nearly black to the palest spring green she'd ever seen. The bed was a huge four poster, hung with spring green gauze curtains and the draperies at the windows were spruce green velvet. It was all very relaxing and peaceful, and she'd look at it more later but for now the bathroom and its shower was calling, loudly.

Siana stripped her clothing mercilessly, wincing as the buttons on her shirt got caught in her crunchy, unravelling braid. She lost some hair but got everything off and tossed in a smelly pile before she dove for the shower. The bath products were lovely, and it took every bit of the shampoo and conditioner to make her hair something approaching clean. She scrubbed every single inch of herself under the fall of scalding water until she was pink and clean, and all the dirt had been scrubbed away.

She tumbled out of the shower and stared at her hair. It fell the length of her back and was thick and heavy and wet. He'd told her she wasn't allowed to cut it, that he liked it long. He used to run his fingers through it and tell her that he loved her. She hated it, hated the lies it represented and dressed quickly before exiting the room again.

One stop at the front desk for directions and a couple hours later and she sailed out of a hair salon with her hair barely to her chin. It felt like she'd lost a couple hundred pounds of hair and useless liar. Siana wandered the main street of the town for a couple of hours. It was a lovely little place, quaint and touristy. She ate a truly magnificent bowl of risotto with asparagus and seared scallops and picking up another outfit before returning to her hotel room.

She wasn't going to cry about it anymore. She wasn't going to mourn what she'd thought she had, she was just going to move past it and keep going. She wasn't going back to Lymburn, she didn't want to put herself in a position that meant she might see him ever again. So, she had to figure out two things. One: where she was currently. Two: where she was going to go. She needed an apartment and a job and luckily, she had her settlement funds so she had enough of a cushion that she could find a place she actually wanted to be.

When she got back to the room, she pulled up a map, quickly finding Lymburn and then Weissville. She'd gone a couple thousand miles, well out of the range of anyone she knew. The cost highway was an easy drive from here, maybe she'd try a coastal town and try to locate a bakery where she could work. That was her dream job, she wanted to make fussy pastries and wedding cakes. Wanted to delight people and give them something that they didn't precisely need but made them happy.

That's what she'd been studying to go back to school for. Lymburn had a well ranked culinary school and a highly regarded pastry program. But that dream was dead since she was never stepping foot in Lymburn again. She had her own skills; she'd had a secret sideline making cakes for people in the apartment building so maybe that tiny portfolio would help her get a job in the field she actually wanted to work in.

She'd drive up the coast until she found a bakery that needed help and that's where she'd stay. Was it the best plan? No, definitely not but it was the one she was going with. She'd leave in the morning. First though, she was going to sleep and not cry about her life.

It worked middlingly well.