CHAPTER ONE: AN ADMISSION OF LOVE

"I love you. I'll always love you."

His words from two days ago were still echoing inside her head. It was a chilly winter morning, very typical mid-January weather in that part of Illinois, when he'd uttered them to her. Still, any influence that this extremely cold temperature would have normally had on her sensitive physicality was a complete non-factor given the circumstances that had unfolded as she stood there with him. They were standing in the midst of their place…well, the site upon which their special place once stood: the boathouse. That boathouse had held a plethora of memories of their relationship from years past, both good and bad. It had seen them through many intimate embraces, bitter arguments, ardent kisses, angst-ridden tears, passionate love-making, and several fervent proclamations of love. The boathouse itself might've been gone courtesy of a deranged woman, but those memories that they had created within it's confines while it had still existed would always remain. That place would forever be a reminder of their hopes, their dreams, and their love. Reflecting back almost thirteen years later, it was amazing how much had changed, and yet, although more subtle, how much had stayed the same. One would've thought that with everything that they'd been through with each other over the past few years, that the declarations of love would've long ceased, but still, here they were, nearly a decade and a quarter later; still flirting with those same damn words.

His eyes were moist, his voice thick with emotion, as he looked at her with an undeterred intensity and made the heartfelt declaration. Even now, she got that fluttery feeling in her stomach every time she replayed it in her mind. Sure, she wasn't expecting it and had definitely been caught off-guard, but what was it about those eyes and that voice that could still literally take her breath away? Over the course of the past two days since their encounter, she must've relived those moments at least a few hundred times. Everyday activities she'd performed since then were mostly a blur, and the combination of a lack of concentration over routine tasks, and the bad case of insomnia, made her feel more like a zombie than a human. A unique zombie with selective brain functionality nonetheless, given that her mind had been working overtime to recreate that solitary place by the lake, where two people with a long, complicated history stood, reminiscing on the site where their boathouse had once stood.

Carly sat cross-legged on her bed and glanced down at the small, round, gold-plated object she was cradling in her hands. A compass. Their compass. Much like the boathouse was a marker of their storied past, so was this compass. Carly glanced down at it again and observed the position of the needle- it pointed south. The needle that once firmly pointed north—true north, at that—now stubbornly pointed in the opposite direction. Suddenly, Carly came to a sobering realization that made her grimace deeply. Their marriage- over. Their boathouse- gone. Their compass- broken. Their future? - unattainable, she decided, even as a small voice inside her spoke to the contrary.

"Snap out of it, Carly," she told herself firmly. "You did the right thing."

Yet, why wasn't she completely convinced?

Across town, a lone figure sat at the edge of a bed in a hotel room at the Lakeview and aimlessly glanced around at his surroundings. He once again looked down at the cell phone in his hand and paused. He had been brooding over a decision for some time now. After finally making some sort of a resolve, he finally flipped the phone open and pressed his thumb down on a button to enable speed dial to the person whose number was associated with it. Then, suddenly, just as quickly as he'd flipped it open, he slammed it shut, making sure to do so before the phone at the other end of the line could ring. He sighed frustratedly and ran the palm of his hand over his face. This was probably his tenth attempt at placing that call, but so far, all his efforts had been futile; cut short by his own conflicted volitions. Finally he gave up and tossed the phone behind him on the bed. He rested his elbows on his thighs, clasped his hands together, and placed his forehead against them, wrestling with his emotions. Maybe it really was done. Maybe there was no point in talking or even trying anymore.

He thought back to two days ago when he'd had that intense exchange with her by the lake where their boathouse had once stood. It had consumed his mind ever since, almost entirely depriving him of two decent nights' worth of sleep. He'd told her he loved her, that he'd always love her. He'd meant it, every word of it, with every fiber of his being. Still, he hadn't received the response he had been hoping for—far from it, in fact. There were a lot of things in his life that he was still unclear about, but if there was one beacon that shone through all the clouds of uncertainty and doubt that continued to plague him, it was the depth of his love for her. She, however, had chosen to walk away from his honest admission. The only question that remained now was what he would do about it.