What Could Have Been (Lake Lenora Book 1), page 1
what could have been
LAKE LENORA
BOOK 1
HEATHER GUERRE
Copyright © 2022 by Heather Guerre
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
contents
Author’s Note
Before
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Before
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Before
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Before
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Epilogue
Thank you
Also by Heather Guerre
About the Author
author’s note
What Could Have Been touches on topics that may be difficult for some readers, including: child abuse (past, off-page, emotional not physical), neurodivergence struggles (ADHD), alcoholism and unintentional self-medication (related to undiagnosed neurodivergence), and loneliness and social isolation. This story also contains explicit depictions of sexual intimacy.
before
The student parking lot was empty, a field of open pavement. It was way better for skating than the narrow alley behind the post office. It wouldn’t be long before one of the school custodians chased Noah and the others away but, until then, they’d take advantage.
For now, the only thing in the world was the board beneath Noah’s feet and his balance upon it. He glided up to the edge of the lot, pushing himself faster and faster, gaining enough speed to carry his momentum as he ollied up onto the curb. He rode the grind along the rough cement for longer than he expected to. He was distantly aware of his friends cheering him, but when he pressed his weight back and came off the curb, the first person he saw when he looked up was Ashlyn Vandale, standing on the sidewalk, watching him.
Blonde, athletic, smart, pretty, perfect Ashlyn. Her perfection irritated him, but he wasn’t so thick that he couldn’t recognize when he had a crush. An irritating crush. But, still.
Ashlyn was dressed in sports gear—short little soccer shorts with long, striped socks pulled up over her knees. Didn’t she know what she looked like, walking around like that? She might be gorgeous, but Noah’d never gotten the impression that she cared about attracting boys’ attention. If anything, his entire gender seemed to annoy her. Still, she couldn’t be totally oblivious.
He lifted his gaze to meet hers, unable to bite back his smile. “Nice socks.”
She didn’t react to the jibe, except to furrow her brow slightly. She seemed like she was trying to figure out if he was insulting her or not. He wasn’t really sure what he was doing. He never knew what he was doing around Ashlyn Vandale.
Her soft brown eyes traveled over him, taking in his oversized Gorillaz t-shirt, baggy jeans, and dirty DC sneakers. Her focus made him feel squirrelly. He had to force himself to stand still, to keep the confident smirk on his face. He knew his clothes were grubby and that he smelled like pot. He’d just smoked a bowl with Tyler Kemp and Nate Vogel. Ashlyn probably smelled like fresh-cut grass and girl sweat. Which undoubtedly smelled amazing.
“Why do you smell like a skunk?” Ashlyn finally asked, brow still furrowed, doe-like eyes pinning him in place.
He forced himself to grin wider. “A skunk, Ash? Aw. Your naivety is cute.”
Her furrowed brow turned into a scowl. “‘Naivety’? Wow. Don’t strain your brain too hard with so many syllables.”
Instantly, his smile dropped. He couldn’t fake it any longer. Of course she thought he was an idiot. Why wouldn’t she? Everyone else did.
“Thanks for your concern, Princess.” It was an old insult, and completely lame, but it was the only one he had. Ashlyn and all her perfect little friends were called the “Princesses” by envious, burnout losers like Noah.
“Don’t call me—” she cut herself off as her gaze snapped away from him.
He followed her line of sight to the parking lot entrance, where a shiny Crown Victoria was pulling in. That would be Judy Vandale, Ashlyn’s grandma, come to pick her perfect granddaughter up after her wholesome afternoon of high-achieving athletic activity.
“Bye, Noah,” she said distractedly. The hostility completely left her voice and expression as she hurried away from him.
Didn’t want her saintly grandma to see her associating with him?
He couldn’t really blame her there.
one
“Did you hear Ashlyn Vandale is back in town?”
It’d been more than a decade since Noah had last seen Ashlyn Vandale, and she hadn’t crossed his mind much since then, but hearing her name still sparked a frisson of irritation. His brother Wesley knew it, too, judging by the shit-eating smirk on his face. Noah couldn’t give Wes the satisfaction of getting a rise out of him.
“There’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time,” he replied neutrally.
Wes shrugged, turning his attention back to the grout float in his hand. “Her grandma died. Guess she’s come back to settle the estate.”
Noah snorted. “She left town the minute she graduated and never visited that poor old woman even once. But now that there’s money on the table, she finally decides to show her face again?”
Wes's gaze lifted to Noah's. The smirk was back. “You sound a little bitter there, brother.”
He shouldn’t have been. It’s not like Ashlyn Vandale was a traumatic part of his life. She’d been more like a constant irritant. She was perfect. Not worshipful perfection, but rather, suspicious, too-good-to-be-true perfection. She’d been the valedictorian of their graduating class, varsity captain of the girls’ volleyball and soccer teams, first violin in the school orchestra, editor-in-chief of the school newspaper, and had spent every Sunday in church.
Her parents had died when she was two, and she’d been raised by her grandmother. Noah might have felt bad about that if she hadn’t milked that sob story for all it was worth—the sad little orphan bit really added to the adulation everyone heaped on her. On top of all that, the girl had been senselessly beautiful, which was just a waste, because in all the years Noah had known her, not a single person had ever thawed that perfect ice queen.
In contrast, Noah had been the constantly-high delinquent burnout who’d only managed to graduate high school by the skin of his teeth. And he’d had no excuse. He came from a big, loving, supportive family. They weren’t rich, but they weren’t poor. Their parents had happily shuttled them to practices, paid for sports equipment and instruments, cheered them on no matter what their pursuits. Noah had had all the resources to match Ashlyn’s perfection, and instead, he’d been her polar opposite.
In their small Northwoods town, at their small school, there was no avoiding her. When Noah was sentenced to community service at the food pantry after too many underage drinking citations, Ashlyn was there too—except she was a willing volunteer. When his parents found out he was failing trigonometry, he’d been forced into after-school tutoring—and guess who his tutor was. That’s right. Ashlyn Vandale. When he was under the bleachers getting high, Ashlyn was on the field practicing penalty kicks. When he was bringing booze to high school parties, Ashlyn was giving everyone safe rides home.
She was better than Noah. He didn’t deny it. But she’d known it too, and she never let him forget it.
At the end of their first tutoring session, when she’d figured out that he was failing not because he didn’t understand the material, but simply because he wasn’t doing the homework, she looked at him like he was repulsive. “You’re purposely failing? What the hell, Noah?”
She wasn’t wrong to be appalled. But that didn’t mean all her sneers and insults and dirty looks had been justified. Didn’t mean that her self-righteous condemnation hadn’t cut right through him. He wasn’t a fuck-up because he’d wanted to be. He was a fuck-up because his brain wasn’t screwed in right.
After high school, Ashlyn went off to Madison on a scholarship, while Noah spent the next several years sinking even deeper into the pit of his own self-destructiveness. His high-school outlets of alcohol and weed began morphing into more dangerous vices. His brothers and sister all went off to college while he floundered in their little hometown, living with a bunch of other burnouts, working shitty temp construction jobs, barely getting by.
Salvation came in the form he’d have least expected. He’d been twenty-three and working a roofing job when the foreman, Steve Kubiczek, pulled him aside. Like every job, he was constantly turning up late and he’d figured Steve was finally giving him the boot. Instead, Steve told Noah that he reminded him of his nephew—a good kid, a smart kid, but kind of a screw-up. Turned out Steve’s n
It seemed like too much to hope that all Noah's failures were symptoms of a manageable condition, and not just intrinsic to who he was as a person. But, after being badgered by Steve, he went to the doctor. And after jumping through all the hoops, he got a diagnosis—ADHD, just like Steve’s nephew. Noah and his doctor spent nearly a year trying to settle on the right medication and dosage, and in the midst of that, he joined a sobriety group and went to therapy to learn better coping mechanisms, and by the time he hit twenty-four, life had gotten so much better.
And now, here he was, thirty-four years old, clean and sober, the successful owner of his own contracting business, a contributing member of society, and… still angry at Ashlyn Fucking Vandale for making him feel like such a useless piece of shit when he was a teenager.
To be fair, it’s not like this was some kind of ancient blood feud that he couldn’t stop obsessing over. In fact, since she’d left Lenora, Ashlyn Vandale rarely crossed his mind. But now she was back and the insecure resentment that he thought he’d grown out of years ago was suddenly burning in his chest again.
“You okay?”
He glanced over and saw Wes watching him with a frown, all of his smirky amusement gone.
“Fine,” Noah said flatly. “Are we going to finish this tile today or not?”
After securing the financing and buying a portion of the decrepit ruins of the Lake Lenora Resort—once owned by their grandparents, but lost to a bad business partnership when they were little kids—Wes had hired Noah to bring it back to habitability. Noah and his crew did the majority of the labor, but Wes rolled up his sleeves and pitched in when he had time off from his day job.
Noah's crew had gone home for the night, and now it was just him and his brother, finishing the tile floor in the last bathroom in the main lodge. Wes looked at the remaining stretch of floor—maybe an hour or two of work—then at his watch. “Yeah, let’s get it done. Want to swing by the Wooden Nickel after this?”
“I’m tired, Wes.”
“It’s seven o’clock on a Friday, old man.”
“You’re two years older than me, older man.”
“Yeah, but I act my age. You act like you’re eighty.”
He wasn’t entirely wrong. Since getting his company off the ground, Noah spent most of his time working, and when he wasn’t working, he was too tired to do anything but sit at home. He’d been ducking out of invites for too long.
“If you go out, you know Aiden will, too,” Wes pressed.
Aiden, two years younger, was even more reclusive than Noah. He tended to only go out if Noah was there too. Aiden had never said it in so many words, but Noah suspected it was because he was the only one of their brothers who didn’t give him constant shit for being a homebody who still lived with Mom and Dad.
Noah sighed. “Alright. Just one drink.” For him, a drink meant diet coke with a lime twist. Some recovered alcoholics couldn’t set foot in a bar—couldn’t even stand to look at a beer. Noah was fine being around alcohol, watching other people imbibe, he just didn’t let himself partake anymore. So he stuck to soda while others were letting loose, and counted his lucky stars that he wasn’t who he used to be.
two
Ashlyn Vandale stood outside the house where she grew up, clutching the key in one sweaty fist, unable to make herself step up onto the front porch. She hadn’t seen the little white bungalow in over a decade, and she’d been hoping to never see it again. But of course, Grandma went and left Ashlyn her entire estate—saddling her with a chaotic jumble of debts and assets that she hadn’t bothered to account for in at least two decades. Grandma had taken care of her finances about as well as she’d taken care of her only grandchild, and now Ashlyn was frantically trying to piece it all together before the IRS came down on her like the smiting hand of an angry god.
She took another breath, pushing away the anxiety that was making her hands sweat and her shoulders hunch.
She’s gone. They’re both gone. It’s just an empty house. You’re an adult and you’re in control of your life now. There’s nothing to be afraid of.
As true as all that was, it didn’t make the fear go away. But she hadn’t escaped her grandma’s clutches by letting fear paralyze her. She hauled in one more breath, adjusted her grip on her duffel bag, and stepped up onto the porch.
“Hey, that house is empty,” somebody called from behind her.
Ashlyn looked over her shoulder to see a woman on the sidewalk, holding the leash of a dog that looked more like a polar bear.
“Oh, I know. I… I guess I own it now?”
The woman tilted her head, squinting at her. “Ashlyn Vandale?”
Ashlyn turned to face her. “Yeah. You are…?”
“Rose Reznik. I was a year below you in school. We were both on the soccer team.”
“Rose!” She spun around, grateful for the reprieve from the house, and trotted over to where her old friend stood on the sidewalk. “Of course I remember you. I didn’t recognize you at first. You look so different—your hair! And, you know, your clothes—”
Rose held out her arms, glancing down at herself. She was wearing a burgundy colored parka with black jeans, a teal shirt with a white screenprint of a band name Ashlyn vaguely recognized, and a pair of rose-patterned Dr. Martens that appeared to be hand-painted.
“You’re not used to seeing me in color,” Rose said with a smile.
In high school, she’d been an intimidatingly cool emo kid. Her clothes had been black, her hair black, her eye make-up super black. Now her long, wavy hair was a deep, vivid burgundy that made her pale gray eyes stand out like glittering smoke. Her once ultra-skinny brows were now thick and perfectly arched and her eyes were softly lined. In high school, she’d had her tongue and her eyebrow and her lip pierced, but now those were gone and instead she had only a delicate silver septum piercing.
“Well, anyways, you look great.”
“You too,” she said, giving Ashlyn a once over.
Ashlyn hadn’t changed all that much. She still had boring dishwater blonde hair, brown eyes, pale skin. She had a few more freckles than she’d had in high school, and her face wasn’t as youthfully round as it had once been. But she’d never had a distinctive style, and she still didn’t. She was wearing a plain navy peacoat over an ordinary gray sweater and jeans, with a red knit cap pulled over her hair.
“God, I can’t believe how long it’s been,” Rose said. “Where have you been? What have you been up to?”
“I’ve been in Chicago for a while now. I’m an accountant.”
“Oh, right—I think your grandma told my mom about that a few years ago. You’re a CPA, right?”
Ashlyn was surprised to learn that Grandma talked about her to other people. After she left, Grandma had told her never to darken her doorstep again. Then again, she wasn’t totally shocked. Even when she was berating Ashlyn at home for every minuscule failure, Grandma had loved to crow about her granddaughter’s successes to all her church friends—and take credit for them.
“Uh, yeah. I work for a firm that does external audits of other companies.” She tried not to wince as she explained. She didn’t even care about her job, why would other people?
“Awesome. What else you been up to? Married? Kids?”
“No and no,” she said, making her voice light.
“Yeah, me neither. Too much hassle, right?”
Ashlyn laughed in agreement, reaching down to pet the monstrously fluffy beast who was snuffling at her coat. “And who’s this guy?”
