Title: It's Been Awhile

Author: Wasted21

Rated: PG-13

Classification: Drama / Romance

Plot Summary: At twenty years old, Kristy Thomas is living a lie. Pregnant at seventeen, she panicks and, filled with shame, steals money from her stepfather in order to flee Stoneybrook so nobody will know of her pregnancy. Now, three years later, she is living with her daughter Sarah in New York City. Nobody in Stoneybrook knows where she is, and Kristy is content, relying on her job at a publishing house to pay her bills. But Kristy, who has cut herself off from other human contact, begins to mingle again, she finds that the world may not be a place she's comfortable in. New friends that she makes turn against her, and she hides her attraction to her older, British boss under a layer of contempt. Can Kristy continue to survive on her own, or will she return to Stoneybrook . . . with her daughter?

A/N: A lot of this could be considered out of character for Kristy, and that's the point. So don't tell me she's out of character or you can't see Kristy in this situation, because it can happen to anyone. This isn't about whether she belongs in this situation, but how she deals with it. That said, reviews are welcomed but flames are not tolerated.

Chapter One

It was another rainy day. Kristy Thomas stared out the window of her Manhattan apartment and shook her head. "How gloomy," she murmured to herself, taking a slow sip of scotch from the glass tumbler in her hand. Then she turned away and looked at the pile of papers that were waiting for her on her desk. Her silver laptop was wide open, its blue screen glaring at her from across the room, reminding her of all the work that she still had to do. She started to cross the room towards her work, but then a cry pierced the air. Kristy fought the urge to groan as the crying started, first slow and then faster, begging for her attention.

She stifled a sigh and set her scotch down on a nearby table. "Okay, okay, I'm coming," she said, heading for one of the bedrooms. She walked down the hallway and pushed open the door of Sarah's bedroom, expecting the worst. Instead, she was met by a fairly mild scene. Two-year-old Sarah was sitting on the floor, a pile of knocked-over blocks at her feet. Kristy leaned against the doorframe and twisted her lip into a wry grin. "The building collapsed again, didn't it?" she asked. Sarah looked up at her, her blue eyes wide and tear-filled. Kristy could never resist Sarah when she looked at her that way.

"Don't worry, we'll make it all better," Kristy promised. She went into the room and crouched down, arranging the blocks into a tower. "See? All better?"

"Thanks, Mommy," Sarah said, her tears gone.

"No problem. Listen, Mommy has to get some work done, so can you be a good girl and play quietly for awhile?"

Sarah nodded and returned her attention to her blocks. Kristy sighed and straightened up, returning to the living room.

To say that she liked her life would be stretching the truth. In her wildest dreams, Kristy never would have imagined herself living this way. When she was young, she had big dreams and big ambitions. People told her she was brilliant and would go far. Everyone expected Kristy Thomas to be the first woman president, or to run her own company, making millions in business. But none of those things had come true, and Kristy was beginning to think that they never would. At twenty years old, her life was a wreck.

It had seemed that she would achieve her dreams. She made straight A's in school and had graduated at the top of her class. But she'd graduated with a secret. During her senior year, she'd gone to the prom with her then-boyfriend, Steven James. Steven was one of the most popular guys in the class. He was a star on the football team and Kristy, being a sports nut, felt close to him and felt that they had tons in common. She was also a big name around school. She was smart, beautiful, the star of the softball team, and had tons of friends. And she felt she'd be with Steven forever. So when he wanted to have sex with her on Prom night, it seemed only natural that she give her virginity to him. It was a decision she lived to regret. A few weeks later, she discovered she was pregnant.

At first, Kristy had tried to be reasonable. She was all about taking responsibility for her own actions. She'd had it worked out nicely in her head. She and Steven would just get married and have children, and attend college together, and maybe it was all a little out of order, but who said life was supposed to be nice and tidy?

Unfortunately, Steven couldn't take the pressure of having a child. He promptly dumped her when she told him, and told her to never speak to him again. It had been a harsh slap of reality in Kristy's face. She was hurt, and terrified---and ashamed. Most of all, she was ashamed. Ashamed of her sexuality, ashamed that everyone would think she was some kind of slut. That, like Steven, everyone would think it was her fault that she'd gotten pregnant.

So she didn't tell anybody else.

On the night of her high school graduation, she'd passed on all the parties that her friends were going to. She went home and had a quiet dinner with her parents and family. And late that night, when everyone was asleep, Kristy had done something completely out of character. Completely desperate. She'd broken into her rich stepfather, Watson's, study, into the safe he kept there. The safe was filled with cash, in case of an emergency. Watson, the CEO of his own company, had millions to spare, and apparently a good chunk of that wealth was kept in the family safe. Kristy knew the combination. Everyone in the family did. And this was emergency enough. She'd snuck into the safe and taken money. Not all of it. Not even half of it. Just enough to get her out of Stoneybrook, Connecticut, and enough to live on for awhile afterwards. After she had the money, she packed up a few bags, walked to the Stoneybrook train station, and bought a one-way ticket to New York City. And she didn't look back.

The money she'd stolen was enough to keep her in a reasonably nice apartment, which she'd signed a three-year lease on and paid in advance. Unfortunately, the payment on her apartment had taken all of Watson's stolen money, so Kristy got a job as a secretary at Willow Books, a big-name publishing house. The work was less than glamorous, but the pay was excellent--enough for food and baby supplies and spending cash. When it was time for her baby to be born, Kristy went to a downscaled hospital and used a fake name so nobody from Stoneybrook would be able to track her down. She never called her family or friends in Stoneybrook. Nobody knew where she was. She was too ashamed of her pregnancy, and too guilty about the stolen money. She knew her parents must be worried about her, but for all purposes, Kristy Thomas had vanished.

She supposed she should consider herself lucky. She wasn't living in the streets, and while her stolen money was long gone, she still had her apartment paid for another few months. Her money from her job was able to pay her basic bills. She was making it, and taking care of herself. But she felt so chaotic because she was living a lie. She was so afraid of someone tracking her down that she never went out, except to work and to grocery shop. She didn't have any friends. Sometimes she felt so stressed that she didn't know what to do.

Today was one of those days. When Kristy returned to the living room, she found that her piles of work had not vanished into thin air, like she would have liked. As a full-time secretary, her boss, Clive Brighton, often dumped a lot of work on her, menial tasks such as writing rejection letters to hopeful authors or reading parts of manuscripts. Today Kristy was working from home, but she had to have seventy five rejection letters ready by the next morning. Just thinking about it made her stomach hurt. Why couldn't Clive crush people's dreams on his own? No, Kristy had to do it.

She crossed the room to her bar and poured herself another drink of scotch. Just as she was taking a sip, she felt a tug on her baggy jeans and she turned to see Sarah grinning up at her She was holding a Barbie doll in her hand. "Wanna play Barbies?" Sarah asked.

For the first time that day, Kristy smiled. Even though her life was hard, she had to admit to herself that she loved Sarah more than anything. She was a ray of sunshine, always smiling, always happy in her surroundings. She was the quietest baby Kristy had ever seen, and she was so beautiful--she had blonde hair and blue eyes like Steven.

"I have to work," Kristy explained gently. "But I'll come play with you in a little while."

Sarah looked disappointed for a minute, and then she smiled. "Okay."

She totted off towards her bedroom and Kristy watched her go, sipping her scotch. Then she sighed, went over to her laptop, and began to work.

The next morning, Kristy dropped her seventy-five rejection letters on Clive Brighton's desk. "There you go," she said, forcing a smile onto her face and into her voice. Clive, who was punching away at his computer, turned at her voice.

"Ah, Kristy, thank you," Clive said, smiling his fake smile at her. At least, Kristy assumed that it was fake. Clive was one of the top executives in the publishing company, and he was always nice to everybody. That was why Kristy didn't like him. Someone in such a high position of power couldn't possibly be that nice all the time. It was suspicious. "You didn't have too much trouble, did you?"

"No, not at all," Kristy said, keeping her own fake smile in place.

"Good. I appreciate the help." Clive sat back and shook his head. "I hate turning people down but you should see some of the things that come through here. I guess people think the latest trend is to write a bad book and you'll get published." He laughed. "That may work other places, but certainly not here."

Kristy grinned politely. No wonder he wanted her to do the rejection letters. But she had to admit that even though he was probably as fake as half the blondes in America, there did seem to be something genuine in the way he talked. And everyone liked Clive. He was British and had come to America from one of Britain's top publishing companies, and he was very respected and well-known. Not to mention good-looking. Half of the girls in the office were constantly talking about him, about his dark hair and big blue eyes and sexy British accent. It was enough to make Kristy gag. That was another reason she didn't like Clive. Because everyone else did. Who didn't have any enemies?

"If you don't mind," Clive was saying, searching through his desk, "tell me what you think of this. Now, this is something that I think has potential." He handed her a thin manuscript and when Kristy flipped through it, she saw that it was mostly poems. Kristy's first thought was that there were already plenty of poetry books out there for sale. But then she looked closer and saw that each poem was written by a different person. "Looks interesting," Kristy commented. "What's the deal?"

"It was compiled by a group of people, sort of like those Chicken soup books. But they're poems," Clive said. "I really think that it has the potential to relate to people on a more literary level, don't you?"

"Sure," Kristy said with a shrug. "I mean, you get a lot of different perspectives, I suppose."

"Exactly." Clive grinned at her. "We're on the same wave length."

Kristy glanced up at him and then shrugged again, handing him back the manuscript. Clive grinned and took it, gesturing towards his computer. "Now, these acceptance letters are the ones I like to write," he said.

Kristy nodded and turned to head for the door. "If you need anything else, just ask," she said.

"Kristy?" Clive said just before she reached his office door. Kristy paused and turned to look at him questioningly, expecting him to ask her to bring him some coffee. But what he said was, "Are you planning to attend the office party tomorrow night?"

Kristy had forgotten all about the party. One of the managing editor's was being transferred to Los Angeles and everyone wanted to give her a "going away" party. Kristy didn't know the editor from Adam, and she couldn't care less about the party. But she couldn't exactly say that. Instead, she just shrugged and said, "Oh, probably not. I have to stay home with my daughter."

Clive raised his eyebrows. "Oh? I didn't know you were married," he offered conversationally.

That's because there's a definition of private life, Kristy thought. But she just smiled politely and shook her head. "Not married," she replied, daring him to question the fact that she was a single mother.

But he didn't. He just smiled at her again and said, "Well, if you're able, I hope to see you there."

"Sure," Kristy answered. But when she let herself out of the office, she couldn't help but think, In your dreams, Brighton.