Chapter 21
Steph barely managed to notice the low murmur of voices from the room beyond her sweet little reading nook. The others, probably, getting back together to discuss whatever they’d found.
She then promptly returned her full attention to the life she was living vicariously in a late 1990s October. A life worlds away from what her own had been back then—five years old and happily enjoying her last year of pre-school before she went to first grade with all the big kids.
The young women and men in this story were much older then, and they had a much rougher life. Growing up tough and flinty in small-town Ohio, getting kicked out of high school for good before they made it through their junior years.
Deciding to reject everything their families and their school district and the sta
