Emily

I have things I want to do in the future that don’t begin and end in Ellensburg, Washington where I was born, raised, and doomed to live out the rest of my life. My whole existence is already set and planned, right up until the exact moment when I’m to walk down the aisle. But I run. I flee and hide in a car, which is how I first meet Ramiro Vasquez. Now he’s the only one I’m willing to trust and be honest with.

Having just graduated from college with a journalism major, I know how to tell other people’s stories, but the one I want to tell most of all is my mother’s. With nothing to go on and even less information, the more I inquire about it, the less she’s willing to share. My parents would lock me in my room if they suspected what I really want to do. Which is why I’ve never done it. And also why I almost abandoned my dreams by marrying the wrong man.

Perhaps now, my family’s wishes will no longer stop me. I am beginning to understand some of Ramiro’s secrets, which bind his family to mine. But the greatest, harshest lesson of my life might still be ahead of me when I realize that sometimes, the past is never really dead. Now and then, the past can manage to destroy you and the ones you love the most. No matter how much you try to stop or avoid it, and don’t mean to hurt anyone, sometimes, nothing can undo the damage after it’s already been unwittingly unleashed.