Unknown (Unknown Identity #1) Read Free Page A

situation?
    Time felt like it had frozen entirely around her and everything was going so slowly that it all felt so surreal and so nauseating. She didn’t touch the food or anything to drink. She hadn’t been able to keep anything down outside of the bare minimum since Michael finally died. She closed her eyes and kept moving, kept standing and listening to the stories and the compliments people would give her about how well she’s holding up or how amazing Michael was and how lucky they all were to have him in their lives. It made Leslie want to throw up, but eventually people began to leave and the last stragglers were herded out by her family and her in-laws, who were strangely somber and dry-eyed at this point in the misery that had taken over.
    From what they had said, it was a blessing that Michael had finally been freed and released. They thought of his final days and his final hours as something horrible and painful, like fiery bonds keeping him locked in his mortal coil. It was too bad that he was in a coma at that point, completely unaware of what was happening, unaware that death was creeping up.
    Upstairs, Leslie took off her heels and looked at their bedroom, the room that they had decorated together and that they had poured their hopes and dreams into. They were going to live in this house for a very long time. They wanted to make sure that Michael’s career got started on the right foot and San Francisco was where they planned to be for the first ten years of their marriage. It was why they’d bought a house instead of rented. It was why they’d built everything that they had.
    She could hear her family downstairs, talking with Michael’s family. They were all staying here, all suffering the misery of a slow demise. She could tell they were talking about her, about the future that was waiting for her. Everything in her life had evaporated into a smoky question mark. This was her life now, a huge mystery where she was alone, carrying the weight of a life that might have been.
    For the first time since he was hospitalized, Leslie crawled into their bed and curled up. She felt herself weeping uncontrollably.

Chapter 3
    About a Year Later
     
     
    “A t this rate, you’ll never have to work another day in your life,” Grant said with a smile on his lips. It was strange having these conversations in person. His office was nicer than anything Leslie had ever seen before and it was strange being here in person. She had never actually been in Grant’s office. Every time she had met with him he had come out to visit her in San Francisco, which felt like a lifetime ago.
    In fact, when Leslie hailed a cab and headed for the office, it truly felt like she was living a new life.
    “We both know that’s never going to happen.” She smiled politely.
    It was coming up on a year since Michael had died, and it was hard to believe that it had all happened such a short while ago. It was a month after Michael’s passing that Leslie contacted her friend Tessa in New York, asking if she was looking for a roommate or if she had any connections for a real estate agent who was really good at their job. It was a hard decision, but it was an inevitable one that hadn’t really caught anyone off guard when she told her parents and Michael’s parents.
    Clearing out the house had been difficult, but in the end she knew she had to move on. After all, by the time Michael died she was already in the process of moving on, whether she liked it or not. There was nothing she wanted more than to have Michael back, but he was gone. It was time for her to find a new world; shaking off the sorrows of her old house, she sought out her new home.
    She’d cried a lot the past eleven months. It was hard when she was alone, with just a glass of wine and music which only made the tears flow more easily. The freely falling tears were something that made it impossible for her to really focus on what she was doing. Moving gave her the chance to