Chapter 1
"Where the flying crap is Echo Village anyway?" I sighed to myself.
I was supposed to be visiting my brother Henry. He kept going on and on about how he literally built a village out of a farm over the last 2 years during Christmas break last year and was trying to encourage my Mom and I to come and visit. To be honest, my Mom and I love the city, and we would never trade it for grass, mud and the lack of air-conditioning. Unfortunately, I'm traveling alone today.
I sighed as I looked at my surroundings. The bus only took me to a bus stop and there was this seemingly endless walk in. I clutched onto my pumpkin-spiced latte in one hand, luggage in the other and walked in my heels to the village. I know, heels, why would I wear that? Well, I actually thought that the village would be a town, and not actually, you know, a village, but I can't do anything about that now.
After an eternity of a fifteen minute walk, I spotted a carriage up ahead. Was this a blessing? Was this a nightmare? It's time to find out.
"Hey, sorry for bothering, I'm looking for Echo Village, do you know how to get there?" I asked, trying to sound as polite and nice as possible even though I was annoyed as heck.
The man carrying the carriage turned towards me. He had blonde hair, piercing red eyes, and a maroon trench coat covering his well built body. Definitely a ten out of ten in my books, but that certainly went down to a zero in no time.
He glared at me. "Follow me." He said sternly, seemingly irritated that his morning routine got disturbed by a probable dumb platinum blonde wearing branded outfits and drinking a 'white girl' drink. He continued to the front of the carriage and continued leading the way. "Stupid visitors." He muttered under his breath.
"Attitude problem." I mumbled to myself. "Thank you!" I said a lot louder and nicer. I couldn't decide if he was rude or obnoxious, but I can't complain since he offered to help right.
After another ten minutes, we finally arrived at the village. "Here you go." He said and immediately walked off, without saying a single word.
"Hey! Can you point me towards the farm?" I asked towards a back that just continued walking further and further away.
"Whatever." I rolled my eyes. I took a good look around the town. My brother had bragged about how many houses there are now, but I didn't see too many. On the bright side, it was really clear which direction the farm was in.
"Faye!" A familiar voice shouted at me from behind.
I turned around and saw my brother Henry, looking as cheery as usual. I smiled and gave him a hug.
"So, did my spoilt brat of a sister have any trouble getting here? It's way different from the city you know." He did a little laugh.
I rolled my eyes. "I'm more than capable, thank you very much. Anyway, do you know where the inn is? Since I met you already, I thought I would throw my stuff down before we went to this amazing diner you keep talking about for lunch."
"Sure! I'll walk you there." Henry said.
…
After quickly getting a room and throwing my things down, we headed to the diner. I managed to take a look at the village. Although I was negative towards my brother, I had to admit, it was impressive that he did most of this by himself. It was shaping up to look like a cute village. We arrived at the diner. The setup wasn't like the retro red kind like I expected. It was fairly simple. There were 3 long tables and benches and the diner was hardly filled up even though it was lunchtime.
"This place is great. Never crowded and it has good food, I come here at least once a week." Henry said.
"Once? Like do the people here do a lot of cooking or something?" I asked. Henry made it sound like coming to the diner once a week was a lot, so I can imagine how many times the rest of the town came here.
"Well, the village is still developing and a lot of people aren't too well off, so it is cheaper to cook, but nobody can resist coming here after too long, the food is really amazing." Henry said cheerfully.
We ordered our food from a waitress girl. She had orange hair and a cute outfit. She seemed happy to serve my brother and introduced herself as Felicity. Henry and I both ordered fried chicken with fries, which he claimed was the best thing on the menu so I had to appease him. While we were waiting for our food, we started to catch up. He was my only brother after all, and we were close since my dad passed away from cancer when we were young.
"So, what really brings you to Echo Village? I know you and Mom would never come here, you guys are way too city." Henry asked, with an inquisitive look on his face.
He was right. This village is something I would have never come close to a month ago. I sighed. "Long story."
"Well, I'm all ears." Henry leaned back in his seat.
"Well, two weeks ago, I caught Drew cheating on me with another girl." I said.
"WHAT?!" He shouted. I gestured him to let me finish and he nodded.
"Well, I walked in on them doing some… things. Anyway, Drew's family is like really wealthy, so his mom paid me $5 million to not leak anything to the press since they have like a reputation or whatever. Moving on, I spent some money shopping and buying stuff for Mom, my friends and I, but I decided to just come here and take my mind off things for awhile. Mom even encouraged me to come." I finished.
Drew was my boyfriend, ex-boyfriend. We met in college. Both of us did Business. He sat next to me on our very first lecture and since then, we started hanging out and begun dating. Flash forward 3 years later, we've both graduated and he's apparently graduated from this relationship too. I was okay with it, I had already sensed something was amiss, but I just decided that I needed to get my head out of the game for awhile, so I headed to this village.
"Tch. I told you he was bad for you. I already told you to be careful of him before I left. Look what happened." Henry began to grumble.
Don't be mistaken. I love my brother and all, but sometimes he can really be so damn annoying. I don't even think he knows he says the wrong things. Anyway, after a quick comfort, I told him about my earlier experience.
"Oh, the guy you met is Neil, an animal trader. He's a really introverted guy. Really nice on the inside though he'll never show it. We became really close as we were the only 2 young guys in the village for awhile. Now, we have a whole guy clique with some others, I'll introduce you to them another time." Henry said. Henry continued to babble on about the village and all, but only one thing was on my mind really.
Should I have even come?
Author's Note: Thanks for reading! I'll try to update regularly and please follow, favorite and review! Thank you so much!