Chapter 1

Another night alone. The reality was getting harder and harder for Brendan to face. Microwave dinners and stale TV shows were not his idea of an exciting evening, but they were all he had. He never intended to stay a bachelor so long, time had just seemed to pass by. He had enjoyed his freedom and the great pay at his job, nothing to worry about or tie him down. But as he looked around his cluttered apartment that lacked even a trace of feminine influence he began to rethink his life. Twenty-eight years of living and this was all he had to show for it. He went to the fridge and grabbed a moutain dew. "Maybe I should get a dog," he thought. Coming home had become a disappointment, just a reminder of everything his life was without. All of his coworkers at the Good Year plant had their desks scattered with pictures of family, a wife and kids. All Bredan had was an outdated calendar and a chipped Starbucks coffee mug. With his parents long since dead and no other family to speak of Bredan was alone.

He plopped down on his leather sofa and began to flip through the channels on his TV ......news...sports....sitcom.....cooking show..."Hey!" Bredan sat up and starred at the channel where he had stopped. A woman was cooking an Italian dish, but it wasn't the food he was focused on. "I know her," he said aloud. Meticulously he thought back through college and high school trying to place the face. Finally he remembered. Stacie Peterson. She was a skinny girl in his old church youth group that everyone including himself had made fun of. She had always been shy and gangly, with braces and big glasses. That was why is had taken him a minute to place her. She looked nothing like he remembered and he was quickly wishing he had been more friendly to her. He was positive it was her though and as the show ended he saw her name appear in the credits to confirm it, Miss Stacie Peterson. He didn't now why he cared, but he found himself paying particular notice to the "miss" part of her name. He changed the channel trying to consentrate on something else,but her face kept appearing in his mind. "I wonder why she isn't married," he thought to himself.
She had been a nice girl and if it hadn't been for her awkward looks he might have given her more thought. Now nearly 10 years later, she had a smile that engraved her face in your memory and eyes the color of the evening sky. He had never really noticed her eyes before behind those thick glasses. Now they seemed to still stare at him in his thoughts. He tried to dismiss the thoughts of her only to find himself thinking about her again.