After I Fall
Authors: Amity Hope
After I Fall
By
Amity Hope
Copyright
©
2014
All rights reserved. This work is protected under the US Copyright Act. It may not be reproduced in any manner without the consent of the publisher. The only exception is for brief quotations that may be used in reviews. Any other use is in direct violation of US copyright laws.
This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities to names, locations or events are coincidental.
Please note: The end of this e book contains an excerpt from Truths and Dares.
Table of Contents
Three weeks ago…
Eric
I parked across the street from the Piedmont Elementary School playground. It wasn’t the first time, but it would probably be the last.
I tried not to slump down in my seat as I readjusted my baseball cap. Even though I felt like a creeper, there was no reason to make myself look the part.
Minutes later a flock of fifth graders poured out of the double doors, headed to recess. Courtney was easy to spot, even though she was one of the last girls out. Her halo of white-blond curls made her hard to miss. The painful way she still limped made her
impossible
to miss. My stomach lurched and nausea slammed into me the way it always did when I caught sight of her.
A group of boys, stragglers, rushed past Courtney. I didn’t think it was intentional but one of them slammed into her. She stumbled, nearly fell, and caught herself. The boys kept running, footballs in hand, as they raced to the field at the far edge. It was all I could do to force myself to stay in my car. I wanted to make sure she was okay, but if I were to be caught lurking at the edges of the playground, that wouldn’t do anyone any good.
Several long, aching minutes later the girl had managed to trudge her way to the swing set. Though she was surrounded by kids, it was clear she was all alone.
I knew how she felt, or at least, it was easy to imagine that I did.
I’d never spoken to this eleven year-old, probably never would. But that didn’t mean that I didn’t feel her pain. Just once, I wanted to see the girl smile. Hell, I’d have settled for seeing her look a little less miserable.
Didn’t look like I was going to get my way.
While the other kids scampered around like ants at a picnic, she perched herself on the edge of the swing. Her gaze never left the ground. The swing didn’t sway. She just sat. Miserable. Alone. Her world shattered.
I couldn’t take any more of it.
I peeled my eyes away from the kid.
Started my car.
Drove on auto-pilot.
I was supposed to be in school too.
Last day of junior year.
Didn’t look like I was going to make it there.
Not that it mattered. Not much in my life mattered anymore. Come this afternoon, my life wasn’t going to be my own.
I was going to be a ward of the state.
Foster kid
…
I grimaced and tried to shove the realization away. It didn’t budge. I could envision a bald man in a stained wife beater. Pot belly. Body odor. Bad temper. Hairy ears and nostrils. My foster mom was probably going to be four-hundred pounds and wear nothing but muumuus. My bedroom was probably going to be in a dank, dark, musty basement.
Whatever.
Wouldn’t be a whole lot worse than I had it now. My bedroom was in a decrepit, mouse infested trailer house. I was pretty sure the funky odor came from mold growing in the walls.
Or dead mice.
Hard to say.
Tonight, this new couple was going to start earning a paycheck for keeping me. I knew I should be grateful that it had been put off as long as it had. My uncle had been staying with me, now that Mom was gone. He’d been willing to readjust his life a bit so that I could finish out the school year. He hadn’t been too happy, but he’d been begrudgingly willing. But now that the year was over, so was his tolerance of me. I was sure that he’d keep living in the piece of crap trailer, though. He wanted me out so he could have that little gem all to himself.
I wasn’t sure why it mattered.
I wasn’t sure why he couldn’t have put up with me for one more year.
It wasn’t like my presence interfered with his…
activities
in any way.
Hell, I’d even chipped in on rent. And groceries.
And he was still kicking me out.
He had the nerve to tell me it was for my own good.
What a lame ass excuse.
A fat raindrop splattered against my windshield. It yanked me back to reality. I glanced around, not surprised to see that I was the only one parked at the cemetery gate. I hadn’t really planned on coming here, yet this is where I usually ended up. I shouldn’t be here, either. But it never stopped me before and it wouldn’t stop me now.
What would happen if I was found out? What worse could they do to me? By the end of the day, I was already going to be entering The System. I couldn’t stop myself from thinking of it that way. Like the words deserved to be capitalized. Like The System was a place. A destination. A pit stop on the road map of my crappy life.
I slammed my head against the back of my seat. I needed to snap myself out of my pissy mood. All I had to do was get through the next year. Just one year. How hard could that be? I had a plan. It was pretty simple. Lay low. Stay out of the way. Keep my mouth shut. Try to stay invisible. No one bothered you when they didn’t notice you.
And that was all I wanted.
To not be noticed.
To just get through the next year.
After that, my life would be my own again.
I pulled my sunglasses off of my sun visor, shoved them on and readjusted my ball cap again. I knew it wouldn’t really disguise me but it made me feel better all the same. My fingers strummed across the steering wheel.
I wasn’t sure what I was waiting for.
The gates of Hell to open up and swallow me whole?
Wait. I’d already been through my own private hell. So what did I have to be afraid of?
I opened my door. The cool drizzle snapped against my face. I trudged through the gates, not really needing to think about where I was going. My feet knew the way. Thunder rumbled across the sky. The rain began to come down in a blinding sheet. I kept moving because after today, it would be a while before I had the chance to pay my respect again.
One enormous, ornate headstone decorated the two graves. The stone was white marble, cherubic angels bookended the headstone on each side.
I wondered if they’d had white-blond hair, too. If the girl’s was long and curly like her sister’s.
I knelt down. I felt my jeans sucking up the mud. It didn’t matter. I was already drenched from the rain. I didn’t know what to say. There were no words left for me to say because the words engraved on the headstone said it all:
Andrew Edward Thompson
May 6, 2006-November 9, 2013
&
Elizabeth Marie Thompson
June 13, 2009-November 9, 2013
I wasn’t sure what was appropriate for a cemetery. For a child. For children so innocent. A rose, a white one, seemed fitting to me somehow.
I had never met these kids. Of course now, I never would. Didn’t matter, though. Our lives were now and would forever be intricately tangled together.
EmLynn
The erratic thumping of the tennis balls made it hard to concentrate on my book. My concentration was further disrupted when Madison hollered, “
Emmm
! Watch me!”
My little sister had an annoying habit of dragging my nickname out so long that it sounded like a whine spouting from her lips.
“Watch me too, EmLynn!” Natalie called.
I placed my book in my lap, folded my hands over the top of it, and gave my full concentration to the twins. They were in the midst of their private tennis lesson.
“I’m watching!” I assured them both.
I leaned back in the lounging chair, grateful for the little bit of shade I’d found. The heat of the day was scorching but the sky was a gorgeous, flawless blue. There was just the hint of a breeze. It carried the scent of the flowers that lined the walkway.
Their instructor, a man at the tail end of middle age, lobbed the ball to Madison. Instead of watching the ball, she had her eyes on me, making sure I was paying attention. I watched as it bounced right past her.
“I wasn’t ready!” she pouted.
“Keep your eyes on the ball, Madison. I’m watching!” I encouraged.
When it was Natalie’s turn she swung the racket wildly. I was sure it was nothing short of luck that helped her to hit the ball.
“Good job, Natalie!” She glanced at me and I gave her a thumbs up. My action earned me one of her precious smiles. I continued to watch them. Madison continued to miss the ball. Probably because she was flustered that Natalie was doing better than her.
Their coach pulled Madison aside. From where I was sitting, I couldn’t hear what he was instructing. Not that it mattered. I didn’t know much about tennis. Unlike my half sisters, I hadn’t grown up with private tennis lessons. I hadn’t spent my summers at the country club.
I wouldn’t be here now, either, if I hadn’t been manipulated into it.
A strip of manicured lawn separated the pool from the tennis courts. It wasn’t enough distance to drown out the sound of laughter. Not just any laughter but the mean, jeering laughter I’d come to associate with far too many of these country club kids.
It pulled my attention away from Madison and Natalie.
I was too far away to hear exactly what was going on. I had a clear enough view to get the general idea.
A group of people that I recognized from Roseville High School were giving the waiter a hard time. They were heckling him as he tried to hand out various drink orders. I cringed as Marci McFadden reached for her smoothie and “accidentally” let it slip through her fingers. The drink hit the tiled surface surrounding the pool; it exploded in a mess of pink froth.
I had only been in Roseville since late last fall. Still, that was long enough to at least recognize the faces of my fellow students. This guy, I didn’t recognize him.
My anger flared as I got to my feet. I felt compelled to say something. I hesitated because I would probably only make matters worse. It wasn’t like I had any pull with these people.
At least not most of them.
Jace Devereux, the likely ringleader, caught me watching them. He smirked at me and gave me a nod of acknowledgment. I scowled back. I was sure he thought I’d been checking him out.
Before I could decide whether or not to make my way over to the crowd, the waiter took off. Probably he was heading off in search of something to clean up the mess.
I glanced at the twins again. They both seemed to have forgotten about me. Their coach had their full attention. I let myself drop back into the lounge chair.
“Hey, Em, how’s it going?” Jace didn’t wait for my response before plopping his obnoxious self onto the lounge chair next to mine.
“Only my friends call me Em,” I reminded him.
“I wanna be your friend.” He gave me what I was sure he thought was a charming grin.
“I’m not interested. And I’m busy.” I motioned toward the tennis courts.
My little sisters were fraternal twins. They were the result of an IVF treatment my aging mother decided to undergo shortly after she left Dad and me to start a new, improved family with her new, improved husband.
Madison’s bronze hair was cut into a sleek, chin length bob. Even at the tender age of five, she had the haughty air about her that left no doubt she was our mother’s daughter. Natalie, on the other hand, had her bronze, long, crazy, wildly curly hair pulled into a high ponytail. More than half of it had fallen out during the course of their private lessons. Her knee high socks were both askew. One had dropped all the way down to her ankle while the other desperately hugged her calf.
I didn’t look like either one of them. I had my dad’s looks. Dark brown hair with eyes to match. I was plain. Exceptionally so when compared to the girls surrounding the pool. It wasn’t like I compared myself to them. But Mom couldn’t seem to stop herself. It irritated her that I wasn’t fitting in better.
“They don’t look too bad out there,” Jace said.
I realized he was watching my sisters.
If he was trying to win me over by complimenting the twerps, he was on the wrong path. Then again, when it came to Jace, there was no such thing as the right path. I despised the guy. I was pretty sure he didn’t care that much for me either.
It was the Calhoun name that he was impressed with. Too bad I was EmLynn Hamilton and I planned to stay that way. I had no intention of taking anything from my step-father—at least not if I could help it. I for sure wasn’t about to take his last name.
Phillip Calhoun’s family had amassed a fortune over the past few decades. He’d inherited land from his grandfather. A lot of land. He’d gone into land development and now half the town was apparently built upon land that had once been owned by his family. It wasn’t just Roseville either. He owned property all over the state.
Or so I’d been told.
The man was worth a small fortune.
Jace was well aware of this, as was most of the town of Roseville. I wasn’t entirely sure what he wanted with me. I knew it
had
to be something to do with my step-father. I thought probably he just wanted to be able to say he was dating Phillip Calhoun’s step-daughter. There was no way he was actually interested in me.
And I was fine with that. More than fine, actually. I loathed the guy.
I shrugged as I watched the girls try to lob the ball to each other. “They’re not bad.”
“Do you play?” he asked.
I snorted out a laugh, not caring in the least how unladylike I sounded.
“I’ll take that as a no,” Jace said.
I said nothing.
“Damn girl, you’re hard to get to know.”
I pulled my eyes away from the twins.
“Maybe that’s because I don’t want to get to know you,” I said lightly. I didn’t exactly want to be rude, but I wanted to be clear.
His head snapped back, as if I’d slapped him.
“Why not?”
“For one thing, we have nothing in common. I would never treat people the way you treat people.” I nodded my head toward the pool area, giving him a clue as to what I meant.
He scoffed and cast a glance toward his group of friends. They were snickering now that the waiter was on his hands and knees, swiping up the mess with a rag and a bucket of water.
“Hey, I didn’t do that,” he said defensively.
“Maybe not but you’ve done plenty of other things. I saw you giving him a hard time when he was trying to hand out the orders. And you laughed when Marci dropped her drink. On purpose.”
“It was funny,” he argued.
“It wasn’t,” I argued back. “See? Nothing in common.”
He eyed me up for a moment. “What can I do to change your mind?”
I motioned toward the waiter with my head. “Go apologize.”
“What?” Jace looked legitimately confused.
I slowly repeated the word. “Apologize.”
“To him?” he scoffed. “He’s a foster kid. Came here from somewhere up north. What does it matter to you if we have a little fun with him? He’ll probably be out of here in no time.”
I eyed him warily. “How do you know that?” Furthermore, I wasn’t sure why that mattered as far as issuing an apology.
He gave me a cocky grin. “I make it my job to know things.”
When he didn’t say anything more I knew he was waiting for me to ask. I wasn’t about to ask Jace Devereux for anything, not even something as benign as information.
He huffed out a sigh of irritation at my silence.
“So what’s your story? You just not interested in guys, or what?”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Did he really think that just because I was immune, or rather totally turned off, by his chauvinistic ways that I didn’t care for guys in general? He probably did.
Without meaning to, I allowed my gaze to wander toward the waiter. I smirked and Jace’s gaze followed my own.
“Oh, no. Hell no.”
I raised my eyebrows as if to ask
What are you going to do about it?
The moment I did that, Jace’s expression clouded over. I immediately backtracked because knowing Jace, he just
might
do something about it. If he did I knew it wouldn’t be anything nice. As far as I could tell the guy was incapable of
nice
. I wasn’t even sure he was capable of
decent
.
“I’m kidding,” I said.
“Kidding about what?” Madison asked from beside me.
I hadn’t realized she and Natalie had finished their lesson.
“See you around, Jace,” I said as I got to my feet. I turned my back to him so I could help the girls zip their rackets into their cases. When I turned around again, he’d wandered back to the group by the pool.
Good riddance.
“Do we have everything?” I asked as I looked around.
They each held their own racket and wore a backpack Mom had packed for them.
“Yup,” Natalie said.
After scouring the area, I decided she was right. We were all packed up.
“So did you have fun today?” I asked. “You both look like you’re improving a lot.”
“We are,” Madison confidently informed me. “We’re getting really good.”
“And so modest too,” I teased.
“Uh-huh,” she blindly agreed.
I decided to bypass the pool. It meant taking the longer way around. It was a gorgeous day so I didn’t mind. We followed the sidewalk that looped around the fenced-in pool area. I listened to the girls chatting with each other. Mostly they argued about who was going to be the best tennis player.
As we rounded a corner I glanced back to make sure they were right behind me. In the instant that I looked away, I collided with a solid, masculine body. His hands flew to my elbows to steady me.
“I’m so sorry!” I exclaimed the same moment he said, “Are you okay?”
I stepped back and found myself looking into a pair of espresso colored eyes. His espresso colored hair was hopelessly rumpled. It was a bit too long and…perfect, really.
“I’m fine, just clumsy,” I admitted.
“She’s not good at paying attention,” Madison informed him.
He chuckled, setting a single dimple free. “I’ll have to remember that.”
“Sometimes she crashes into my dad and makes him spill his coffee,” she somberly explained.
“Madison, hush! That happened one time!” I said with a laugh.
“He didn’t get mad though. My daddy likes EmLynn,” she continued on. “He says we have to be patient with her because she can be kind of moody sometimes. But he says that she still loves us. Even when she’s grumpy.”
Of course I loved them.
And I wasn’t that grumpy. At least not lately.
Natalie, who was standing a step behind Madison, nodded in wide-eyed agreement.
“EmLynn, huh?” he asked. “Pretty name.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m Eric.”
“And you’re new around here,” I added.
“Yeah, I am.” He didn’t look too pleased about it.
After what I’d seen today, I couldn’t really blame him.
I slid a glance toward the pool area, scowling at Jace when I realized he was watching our interaction.
“Well, don’t let them get to you,” I said as I vaguely motioned toward the pool area.
He frowned. “You saw all that?”
I nodded sympathetically. “I wish I could say they weren’t all bad. But that whole group is. I do my best to avoid them.”
“Emmm,” Madison said as she tugged on the hem of my shirt, “can we go home now? I want to see if my daddy’s home yet.”
“In a minute,” I assured her. I turned back to Eric. “So was this your first day?”
He shook his head. “No. It’s my third.”
“Have all the days been like this?”
“Nah, just the first day and today.” He shook his head, realizing how bad that sounded.
Two days out of three? I shook my head in sympathy. “What happened the first day?”