Nancy Drew walked away from her house swiftly, she was tired and angry and just needed to get away. She wondered how she let things get so bad, and when they did they actually began to get bad. Sighing, she slid into her blue mustang, which had been her friend for many years. She called it vintage, her husband called it trash. But it really wasn't that old, she had it since she was 18, and she was only 26. She slowly put her key in the ignition, and drove away from her house, her home. She turned the radio on and cried softly.
flashback (4 years before . . .)
"I'm sick and tired of taking second place to your detective work! Why don't you love me as much as I love you? I've stuck by you no matter what, now I'm pretty much fed up with it."
"You don't Ned! I love you more than anything, it's just that detective work is my calling, I love it. Without it I would fill incomplete . . . without you I would feel incomplete."
Ned looked at her with a sinister look in his eyes. "Frank Hardy sure seems to make you happy, you're always with him and never with me. I know you like him, I can see it in your eyes and don't lie because I know you better than anybody"
"I have told you a million times that Frank Hardy and I are only friends and I am sick and tired of having this fight over and over again. Real love is trusting. Don't you love me, Ned? Don't you trust me? Because I love you, I do, with all my heart. It hurts that you are so distrustful of me, I really wish you could have faith in me."
After Nancy said this she collapsed onto the couch and cried. She was physically and emotionally drained. She had just come back from a case in Europe that she was on with the Hardys. She had been near death several times during this case and did not need this emotional drainage. She felt the couch sink an Ned sat next to her. He rubbed her back and mumbled apologies. He told her he always loved her and trusted her; it was just that he was always so worried. Worried that someone more interesting would steal her away, or that she would get hurt in a case. Nancy slowly relaxed, knowing that he really did just care about her and he didn't mean to be a jerk (even though he could be sometimes . . .). The truth was though, she was really mad at him for being right about Frank Hardy. She was attracted to him, who wouldn't be? He was handsome, intelligent, and sensitive. Before she met him she didn't think anyone could rival her love for Ned, and it scared her.
"Nancy," Ned began quietly "I have been thinking for a long time about something and I really need to know what you think about it."
After he said that he pulled a ring box out of his pocket and kneeled down in front of the couch. He looked down for a moment, smiled, then opened the ring box. The ring was beautiful, and Nancy gasped. He was asking her to marry him. She should've been more excited, she had been expecting and dreaming about this moment forever. Yet, she was just a placate sort of happy, the kind of happy you are when you don't exactly get what you want, but what you get isn't a bad trade-in. She was quite for a few seconds, then smiled and took his hands.
"Of course I'll marry you Nickerson, I've only ever wanted you." As he hugged her, she really wondered about how true her statement really was.
end of flash back
Nancy drove silently with tears rolling down her face. She was trying to figure out where she was going to go, what she was going to do, and how she was going to get through this mess. The song on the radio, Carrie Underwood's "Jesus Take the Wheel", reminded her so much of her situation. She realized she needed help. She couldn't always be the hero; she needed a shoulder to cry on. No matter how many times she prayed for the situation to change, it didn't. She knew it wasn't meant to be; prayer couldn't change someone who didn't want to be changed. She needed to go to a friend's house; she needed to see Bess or George. The only problem was George was out of town on a business trip and Bess had just had a baby girl, whom Nancy was the godmother of by the way, and had enough to deal with. Then, on a sudden impulse, Nancy turned her car around and headed straight for the airport. This wasn't like her, she didn't usually run away from her problems, but she felt that in this case she really needed to leave. She knew she wasn't escaping her problem, but she was taking a vacation from it.
flashback
There were only two weeks left until Nancy and Ned were married. The invitation had been sent out and everything that needed to be done was done. As the wedding got closer, Nancy became more and more unsure. Was she ready for this? Was she ready to be tied down? Was she ready to forget about Frank? If she was totally truthful to herself, she would've known that she loved him, all of him. But since she wasn't, she was just really confused. Frank and Joe had both been invited to the wedding and both said they would come. She was kind of hoping Frank would refuse to come, she wasn't sure what would happen if she saw him on her wedding day. She needed to be fair to both Ned and Frank, she didn't want to break Ned's heart. She didn't want to break her own heart. Frank was unattached, he had broken up with his longtime girlfriend Callie Shaw recently. When she had heard that news, she couldn't deny the joy it brought her. She remembered all those times that she and Frank worked together and how well they fit. They were a perfect team. She remembered the time they had to pretend to be married for a case in Egypt and how easy it was to pretend they were a married couple. She remembered how many times they came close to kissing, and the times they actually had kissed. Ned was right to worry about Frank Hardy, because she had fallen for him.
end of flashback
Nancy couldn't believe she was actually on a plane on her way to see him. She hadn't seen him in so long. What if he had changed? What if he didn't want to se her? She knew doubting him was silly, he would want to see her as much as she wanted to see im. She just had to sit back and relax until she reached Bayport . . .