Page 2 of Never Too Late

It was a normal day, full of laughter as it always was with them.

And it will never again be.

Because they were gone.

“And I promise you, my girl,” she went on, pulling my attention away from the picture. “I will do anything in my power to make your life bright again.”

I didn’t believe her vow, and she knew it.

The only thing she could do was prove it to me.

And that, she did.

Until he destroyed everything and once again, I had to leave home.

1

Sophie

I thought I hated this town.

At one point in my life, I did. With every fiber of my being.

Then for a brief period of time, it became my everything.

Until he took that away from me.

Like he did everything else.

Then I went back to hating it.

I hated it so much, even a passing mention of its name used to make me flinch.

That was because he used to live here.

Even when I learned that he was long gone, I didn’t want to come back.

Not even for a visit.

God, I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Even standing where I was, the occasion was so far off joyous it wasn’t even funny, I couldn’t be blind to the beauty that was Hopeful.

Everywhere you looked, you could see either the mountains, the pines, or grass. And it was all green. That was until the snow covered everything and it became all white.

You could even see how clean the air was.

I knew it sounded stupid, no one could actually see air.

But go down the mountain and into Denver and then come back here, and the difference was evident.

And it held a tranquillity you couldn’t find anywhere in the world. I knew because I did my best at trying to find it. I also failed.

Established in the nineteenth century, at the beginning of the Pikes Peak Gold Rush, it was a mining camp.

As the years went by, the mine stopped operating, but people loved it, so they stayed and adapted. And it grew to what it was now. A town that was put on the map as a place to have a good time, relax, ski, and just enjoy. It was most popular in the Christmas season because the whole town became something right out of a fairy tale.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” a woman I didn’t know who wore a somber look on her face like it was her who lost everything three days ago, muttered.