Love and Relativity

LOVE AND RELATIVITY

RACHAEL WADE

Also by Rachael Wade

The Resistance Trilogy:

Amaranth, Book One

The Gates, Book Two

The Tragedy of Knowledge, Book Three
The Preservation Series:

Preservation, Book One

Reservation, Book Two (2013)
The Keepers Trilogy:

Repossession, Book One (2013)

Praise for Amaranth

“A beautifully written story about love, sacrifice, and friendship that has a lot of fun twists and turns.”
-Seeing Night Reviews 

“As wonderful and enchanting as its beautiful cover…”
-Shadow Kisses Reviews

“…a new, exciting, and riveting tale of love and loss. The part that really stood out for me was that it is not just about fighting for your love, your soul mate, but it was about redemption of an entire clan so to speak.”
-Alchemy of Annes Anomalies Reviews

“...I was hooked from the first chapter. I just wanted to step into the dark, dangerous world of Amaranth.”
-Fiction Fascination Book Reviews

“A fantastic journey from beginning to end.”
-Gothic Angel Book Reviews

“…far from ‘just another vampire book.’ ”
-Live to Read Book Reviews
“Amaranth was in NO way a direction that my mind EVER would have gone. Talk about beautifully written, Rachael built a world that is absolutely stunning!”
-Taking it One Book at a Time Reviews

All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Copyright © 2012 Rachael Wade

Rabbit Hole Press
Orlando, Florida

www.RachaelWade.com

Cover Design: Robin Ludwig Design Inc.

Editor: Susan Miller

ISBN: 978-0-9840208-7-4 (Paperback)

DEDICATION

To anyone who has loved and lost, or never had the chance to say goodbye.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to my Creator and Savior, for endless love and forgiveness.

Thank you, Tess (my BBB), for all your input on Jackson and Emma’s drama, for recommending Downton Abbey, for loving Olympic swimmers, and for a crap ton of other things that have made me smile. You rock, my friend. Also, thanks to my other Goodreads girls: Maria, Chanda, Melissa, and Fathima (the original Crazy Book Chicks!) for the best book gossip EVER. Love you, ladies. xoxo

Thank you to the book blogging community and all of my blogger friends—you know who you are. You guys are amazing. My books never would’ve made it off the ground without your support. I am beyond grateful for all that you do.

Thank you, Cath, for your input on the story and just for being you—my bestie!—and to Dave and Patricia, for putting up with my crap and loving me anyway...even when I disappear to the writing cave for weeks, don’t speak to you, and wear pajamas all day. Pat, my time with you on our last trip fueled the completion of this novel. Thank you for your acceptance, love, and encouragement.

Finally, thank you to my readers. I love you all to the moon. You guys have no idea what a blessing you are to me. I hope Emma and Jackson’s story makes you smile.

Author’s Note

This story was inspired by the song, “The Story” by Brandi Carlile. If you haven’t heard it, stop what you’re doing and listen to it now, before you begin reading. If you want to get to know Emma and Jackson, everything you need to know is there. Brandi Carlile and The Twins are some of the greatest, most underrated artists of all time. Listen and be moved.

Also, this story coordinates with The Preservation Series. If you want to read more about Emma, Jackson, Carter, and their friends Kate and Ryan, Try Preservation, book one of the series. You can read Chapter One for free at the end of this book.

What I remember most is the sirens—their wailing as they faded in and out, and that I should’ve been headed in the other direction, toward the scene of the accident. Instead, I rode my bike as fast as I could into the darkness toward Pete’s Tavern, slowing down when my legs started to fail me and my lungs gave out. I slid off the bike and started walking it with me, dragging myself for what felt like hours, when in reality, the effort lasted a minute at most.

Everything in me slowed down then, all of the disbelief draining from my body. A desolate, static hum pulsed there now, and the sirens disappeared. The sea breeze whipped around my face and stilled my movement on the side of the road. My head tilted slightly toward the direction of the ocean, where it lay behind the roadside shops, as if Jen’s spirit were dragged out to sea and I needed to catch it before it drifted too far.

And then I was on the ground, my bike crashing onto the sidewalk.

At first sitting on my bottom, I curled my knees to my chest and sucked in a sharp breath, eyes glued past the shops and out to the sand dunes, where the ocean’s dark horizon called to me. The moonlight rained down on the beach as if to shine a spotlight on my solitude, and I wanted to cry out at it, ‘Why did you take her? You, surrounded by all of your twinkling stars and infinite wonders and darkness. There’s already enough beauty where you are.’

At one point my lips moved, although I couldn’t hear my voice, and then another voice overpowered my internal grudge with the moon.

“Emma,” it said. “Can you hear me?” By now I was flat on the cement, arms and legs limp. The voice called out to me again and I was lifted up, wrapped in a blanket and carried into a pick-up truck.

“I’ve got you,” the voice echoed as I faded out. “I promise, it’s all going to be okay.”

I managed to push out two final words before a tide of troubled sleep swept me away.

“Thank you.”

Part 1

Love

Chapter 1

The muggy evening heat engulfed me when I stepped outside of the classroom, causing my glasses to fog up the instant I hit the campus pavement. Pulling them from my face, I tossed them into my book bag. I didn’t need them for anything other than reading, but every now and then, I toted them around in public. They made me feel like a different person, an alternate me—the one who would’ve been clear across the country right now, finishing up college in Washington, with my ex high school sweetheart by my side. Only that would require an alternate him as well, because the real him decided he didn’t want to leave Florida after all, and that sleeping with some freshman he met at a beach party was a wake-up call that he didn’t love me as much as he thought he did.

It was a miracle I didn’t hinder his ability to have babies the night he told me the news.

That was a year ago, and now I was back at Edison State College for round two, beginning my sophomore year. Chris, the ex-boyfriend, and I had taken some time off after high school and made a pact to spend our freshman year here together in Florida, at Edison, to knock out some general education classes before transferring to the Northwest to finish our degrees. I was preparing for a Bachelor of Science in Biology with a Marine Biology concentration, and he had his sights set on psychology.

The original plan was cool with me. The Southwest Florida lifestyle had suited me well since I was born. I loved the sunshine, the tropical humidity, the weekends at the beach and afternoons by the pool, and the year-round flip-flop and tank top wardrobe requirements. It also gave me time to save some money. When Chris ditched me for the freshman and my sister passed away shortly after, all of that changed.

Now I craved cloudy days, hated the unbearable heat, and found myself interested in wearing more than shorts and a bathing suit all the time. Not a day went by when I didn’t imagine what it would be like out West with Chris, or where Jen would be right now if she were still here, which lives she’d touch and the amount of light she’d shine. I might’ve given up the dreams to leave this place a year ago, but my desire for them wasn’t dead, just dormant.

And Jen’s absence never let me forget it.

Hopping in my car, I pulled out of the campus parking lot and made my way toward Sanibel Island, where I lived and worked. Driving inland to Fort Myers to go to school a few days a week was no biggie. In fact, it was a relief. I liked getting off the island, and it gave me a chance to think. I seemed to emerge from my car after every ride with a little more clarity, which was something I ached for lately. You think when someone you love passes away, everything becomes clearer, that your priorities and perspectives align in a way they’ve never aligned before because of the sobriety of it all.

But it doesn’t.

Those revelations just become skewed and distorted until you’re forced to rewrite them entirely. You can’t walk straight on a new path when you have too much luggage on your back. You just keep swerving, trying to find a way to accommodate the weight, but it’s all dead and you know it’s going to take you down. The only answer is to re-route.

I pulled up to Pete’s Tavern at 9:30 p.m. on the dot, relieved to see Whitney already waiting for me when I walked in the door. There she sat, propped in our favorite spot at the bar, with her petite frame swallowed up by the wide high-back bar stool, and her dark, onyx hair piled high up on her head in her signature messy bun. The seafood joint felt more like New England than Southwest Florida, but it was cozy and offered the best drinks and coconut shrimp in town, not to mention the best karaoke selection.

Jimmy Buffet was singing about it being 5 o’clock somewhere, and the Friday night regulars were just getting started. There were only two kinds of music that made it onto the radio here: Jimmy Buffet’s greatest hits, and country. We might have been in the tropical Sunshine State, but we were also in the South. And that meant a lot of country. And whiskey. And pick-up trucks, muddin’, and crazy-ass Southern boys who loved to raise hell. While most of the region was a melting pot like the rest of the state, that didn’t stop Fort Myers from carrying its own particular brand of backwoods Southern flair.