'Yes, I'd really like to talk with you.'Īmber gave her what she hoped looked like a grateful smile and stepped down. 'Are you sure? I don't want to interrupt your workout.'ĭaphne nodded. What do you say we get out of here and have a nice chat over a cup of coffee?' The woman gave her a long look, as if trying to make a decision, then extended her hand. 'It's still so hard, even after all these years.' 'Are you okay?' she asked.Īmber sniffed and shrugged. The three sisters she did have were alive and well, although she hadn't spoken to them for two years. It took a lot of acting skills to cry about a sister who never existed. 'Charlene was just fourteen.' Slowing her pace, Amber wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. There was pain in the woman's eyes as she stared back at Amber. Do you know someone with cystic fibrosis?' It's none of my business,' the woman said, and stepped back onto the elliptical.Īmber shook her head. My younger sister had CF.' She let the words sit in the space between them. Are you in the medical field?' the woman asked.Īmber cast her eyes to the floor, then back at the woman. 'Yes, it's the Cystic Fibrosis Trust's magazine. 'You're reading is magazine?' the woman said, handing it back to her. Amber watched the woman's brow knit together. 'Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry,' she said, reddening.īefore she could step off, the woman stopped her pedaling and retrieved it for her. Amber reached for her water bottle, deliberately moving her foot to the edge of the machine, and slipped, knocking the magazine to the floor, where it landed beneath the pedal of her neighbor's equipment. She turned and gave the exquisite blond woman a shy smile, which garnered a polite nod in her direction.

Amber straightened her shoulders and pretended to be immersed in the magazine strategically placed on the rack of her own machine. From the corner of her eye, she saw the signature gold Nikes step onto the machine next to her. She was sick to death of the routineday after day, working her ass off, waiting for the moment to make her move. There was one reason and one reason alone that she dragged herself here every day, to this machine, at the precise stroke of eight.

But she didn't carenot about any of them. She was a fixture to themunimportant, not worthy of being noticed. They were so self-absorbed she would have bet her last dollar that not one of them would recognize her on the street even though she was five feet away from them every single day.

She'd been coming to this gym every day for three monthsthree long months of watching these women of leisure working at the only thing they cared about. Amber Patterson was tired of being invisible.

Author of the last mrs parrish