The Best Mistakes by Elena Monroe

Five years. One month. And three days after the bonfire from hell I made my best mistakes.

SAINT
Post college bliss was actually hell.
I wasn’t using my degree.
I was so lonely I looked for his face in crowded places.
I didn’t have anything figured out, let alone my feelings.
I was stuck between two tall, dangerous, and handsome men – times two.
One showed me how to survive trauma, proved things aren’t what they appear, and no matter how much I didn’t fall head over heels he was always there for me.
The other taught me how live.
But I taught myself how to love.
No one was going to be able to take away my growth, my bravery, or my comfort again. Oliver or not – I was standing on my own.

SINNER
I couldn’t wait to leave Amherst, to only return a few years later as a professor at my Alma Mater.
The barn fire from hell acted like a bomb, detonating and throwing us all different directions.
Lawyer.
Pro baseball player.
Book store manager.
Artist.
Soon to be wife.
We were all struggling to find our way back to each other while juggling life, love, sex, hardship.
I’m sober, a dad, but something was missing – Layla.
She kicked started my heart when we first met in college, lighting it on fire and branding her name until she run away when things got messy. My son, Arsen, stoked the fire in her absence.
She was always mine and it was time to prove it.
Third time is a charm.