Forever Mine
FOREVER MINE
Written by
Elizabeth Reyes
Edited by
Jonathan Robidoux
Forever Mine By Elizabeth Reyes
Copyright © 2010 By Elizabeth Reyes. All rights reserved including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
I dedicate this to my wonderful family for their love and support and for putting up with endless days and nights of me sitting in front of the computer writing,. A special thanks to all the friends and other family members who’ve been listening to me ramble on and those who have read the entire book and provided excellent feedback.
Prologue:
Sarah felt herself go numb. This couldn’t be happening. She gripped the phone, her knuckles going white. The knot in her throat was unbearable.
“Sarah, are you still there?”
In an almost inaudible whimper Sarah answered, “Ah huh.”
“I know this is hard honey, but it’s not the end of the world. We talked about this already, and you knew it was a possibility. I tried, Sarah. I really did. But there’s no way around it. We’ve gone over all the other possibilities, but anything else is too much of a risk. It’s for the best.”
“But, senior year …” Sarah felt the anger building, and the tears burning in her eyes. She was ready to blow up, lash out. Then she heard her mom again. Her voice choked up as well.
“I know, honey. I’m so sorry. I really screwed things up this time.”
Her mom took a long, trembling deep breath and it broke Sarah’s heart. She wanted to be with her, to hug her, and comfort her.
“It’s okay, mom. I’ll be fine.”
Her mom cleared her throat and lowered her voice. Sounding very determined, she spoke again, “I am going to make this up to you. I promise, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I’ve already called Aunt Norma. She and Uncle William will be here this weekend. They wanna help us pack so you and I will have time to spend together. Then I’ll have to be in court on Monday.”
Sarah gasped. “Monday?”
“Yeah, babe, Monday.”
Sarah covered half her face with her free hand and shook her head. Not wanting to make her mom feel any worse, she choked back a sob.
“Alright, mom,” she whispered.
“I’m gonna be here a while, honey, so don’t wait up for me. We’ll talk more about this tomorrow.”
She hung up and looked at her best friend Sydney who’d been sitting on the bed next to her the whole time. Sydney stared at her anxiously.
“She’s pleading guilty and gonna do at least three years. I have to go live with my Aunt Norma in California.” Sydney kept a strong front but Sarah fell into his arms crying.
CHAPTER 1
ONE MONTH LATER
La Jolla High School, California
Even as she stood in the middle of a bustling hallway with noisy students rushing by her Sarah felt utterly alone. One month wasn’t nearly enough to prepare her for new school, new friends.
New life.
God, how she missed Sydney. This wasn’t at all how she’d imagined her first day as a senior in high school would feel like. She had so many plans at her old school and now she stood here completely lost.
Clenching her backpack in her hand she walked off in no particular direction. She wanted to get out of the middle of traffic of bodies. Where in the heck was Valerie? She
had
said the main entrance hall just outside the counselor’s office hadn’t she?
They’d been dropped off together by her aunt but Sarah had to go to the counselor’s office. Since she’d enrolled so late her schedule hadn’t come in the mail like Valerie’s. No sooner than the moment they had walked into school together had Valerie started socializing promising she’d be right there when she got back from the office.
The bell rang and Sarah tried not to panic. She glanced at her schedule but had no idea where her first class was. She backed up slowly until her back was against a wall. Had Valerie really abandoned her? No she wouldn’t. She took in some of the faces around her and wondered if she should just ask someone for directions to her first class.
High pitched squealing got her attention and she turned to the front entrance to find some girl had her arms wrapped around one of the guys that had just walked in. Sarah rolled her eyes. She’d always hated those types of girls. The guy was obviously a jock because he wore his letterman’s jacket and so did his two friends.
Deciding she was on her own, she walked back toward the office and frowned when she realized a map of the school had been just outside the office all this time. There were a few kids standing in front of it examining their schedules and then looking up at the map. Apparently she wasn’t the only newbie at this school. Not much of a consolation. Sarah looked around for Valerie, feeling more than a little annoyed at her.
Male laughter erupted just behind her and she turned to find the same jocks she’d seen walk in earlier with a few more guys horsing around. The tall one that was greeted at the door by the squealing girl was smiling when their eyes met. The smile on his face seemed to dissolve slowly. And she stood there frozen, her lips slightly opened. For a moment she thought he might say something and then she heard Valerie.
“There you are!”
Sarah snapped out of her daze and watched as Valerie who’d already taken Sarah’s schedule smile wickedly. “We have two classes together!”
“We do?” Sarah’s cheeks still felt warm but she quickly walked along side of Valerie incredibly grateful for her timing.
Valerie talked about the classes just until they were far enough away and around the corner of the building. “Oh, my God, Sarah, do you know who that was staring at you?”
Surprised, and not sure why, Sarah pretended to not understand. “Who?”
Valerie gasped. “That was Angel Moreno! Don’t you remember I’ve told you about him and his brothers?”
“No,” Sarah lied. Of course she remembered part of the reason she could hardly breathe when she recognized him.
The bell rang again.
“Oh, shit,” Valerie looked at her watch. “We’re gonna be late on our first day.”
She grabbed Sarah’s arm and they were off on a foot race to their first class.
TWO WEEKS LATER
Angel made his way quickly around the science building. His stomach tensed up as the bell rang. He was late to practice again and he knew his coach wouldn’t be happy. It was the second time this week, but he had to stay after class to get the extra credit assignment. He was failing Spanish II, again.
Spanish!
His parents owned a Mexican restaurant, for crying out loud. Only reason he had taken it was because he needed two years of a foreign language to even have a prayer of getting into a four year college. And now it may cost him time on the field.
Apparently, he was only good at the curse words and the teacher called his Spanish,
Spanglish.
It was a
Catch 22
though, if he didn’t stay late to get the extra credit assignments, he wouldn’t be able to make up some of the lousy scores he’d been getting on the quizzes. If he didn’t make them up he wouldn’t have the grades to play on the team. Not picking up his grade also meant staying after school for tutoring. Just the thought made him groan.
He made it to the weight room just as they were starting warm ups. The coach barely looked at him and pointed to the bleachers outside in the hot sun
.
“Twenty,” he said. “Make 'em fast.”
Running bleachers was the worst. As he began to sprint toward them, he heard Dana call out to him from the track area where the cheerleaders were warming up.
“Bleachers again, Angel?”
He nodded barely looking her way. Some of the other girls laughed and joined in. His dimples made their appearance as usual, although his smile was anything but genuine. The catcalls had stopped making him uncomfortable a long time ago, especially from this group of girls.
At seventeen, Angel was already an impressive six-feet-two. He was very much following in his two older brothers’ footsteps. Although it was nice to have instant notoriety as soon as he started high school, there were times he resented having to live up to his brothers’ legacies. He had the looks, the build, the popularity, but, unfortunately, not the grades.
He frowned at the thought of his two older brothers being on full sports scholarships in college, and here he was struggling to stay eligible to play high school football. It was embarrassing but he wasn’t going to give up. As his father, and lately his oldest brother Sal, always say, failure is not an option.
Lost in his thoughts, and still annoyed with himself, Angel ran slowly and pensively up the bleachers for the fourth or fifth time, he’d lost count. Sweat trickled down his face and he struggled to keep his breathing steady. He usually could get a rhythm going, but not today. Someone ran right past him a little too close. Startled, he almost lost his balance. He caught himself and was about to give him an earful when he heard her apologize and realized he was a
she
.
“I’m sorry, did I bump you?”
“No, I’m good,” Angel was bent over with his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath.