Miracle
Authors: Elizabeth Scott
Tags: #Teen & Young Adult, #Literature & Fiction, #Social & Family Issues, #Being a Teen, #Romance, #Contemporary
I woke up with a start, something hot stinging my eyes and throat.
I lay there for a long time, trying to go back to sleep, but I could hear the trees rustling outside and I didn’t like the way they sounded. Plus whenever I closed my eyes, I saw a bright red sky.
After a while it felt better to just make myself stay awake, to stare up at my dark ceiling. To remind myself I was at home, in my room.
To remind myself I was alive.
ELIZABETHWRITES.COM
I sat there and wondered again why I’d lived. Why I didn’t even feel like I was here.
Megan is a miracle. At least, that’s what everyone says. Having survived a plane crash that killed everyone else on board, Megan knows she should be grateful just to be alive. The truth is, she doesn’t feel like a miracle.
In fact, she doesn’t feel anything at all.
Then memories from the crash start coming back. Scared and alone, Megan doesn’t know whom to turn to. Her entire community seems unable—or maybe unwilling—to see her as anything but Miracle Megan, except for Joe, the beautiful boy next door with a tragic past and secrets of his own.
All Megan wants is for her life to get back to normal, but the harder she tries to live up to everyone’s expectations, the worse she feels. This time she may be falling too fast to be saved. . . .
ELIZABETH SCOTT
is also the author of
Bloom; Perfect You; Living Dead Girl; Something, Maybe; The Unwritten Rule;
and
Between Here and Forever.
She lives just outside Washington, D.C., with her husband, firmly believes you can never own too many books, and would love it if you visited her website (
elizabethwrites.com
), followed her on Twitter (
twitter.com/escottwrites
), and became a fan on Facebook (
facebook.com/elizabethwrites
).
Jacket design by Jessica Handelman
Jacket photograph copyright © 2012 by Kamil Vojnar/Trevillion Images
Author photograph copyright © by Matt Mendelsohn
SIMON PULSE • Simon & Schuster, New York
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ALSO BY ELIZABETH SCOTT
Bloom
Perfect You
Living Dead Girl
Something, Maybe
The Unwritten Rule
Between Here and Forever
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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First Simon Pulse hardcover edition June 2012
Copyright © 2012 by Elizabeth Spencer
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
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Designed by Angela Goddard
The text of this book was set in Adobe Caslon.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Scott, Elizabeth, 1972–
Miracle / by Elizabeth Scott. — 1st Simon Pulse hardcover ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Rising senior and star soccer player Megan Hathaway, unable to remember
the plane crash of which she was the sole survivor, feels like an empty shell and loses all interest
in her life and her friends, but unlikely friends help her face life as a “miracle.”
ISBN 978-1-4424-1706-9 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4424-1708-3 (eBook)
[1. Survival—Fiction. 2. Aircraft accidents—Fiction. 3. Post-traumatic stress disorder—Fiction.
4. Family life—Fiction. 5. High schools—Fiction. 6. Schools—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.S4195Mir 2012
[Fic]—dc22
2011008655
Contents
Acknowledgments
As always, many thanks to my editor, Jennifer Klonsky, for her amazingness, and a huge thank-you to everyone else at Simon Pulse and Simon & Schuster for being the best at what they do and for always making me feel like my book matters.
Hugs to the best copy editor around, Stephanie Evans, and to Robin, Beth, Diana, Ann, Jess, Amy, and everyone else who read through all the drafts and told me that I could do this.
Jay Asher, thank you for taking the time to read this book, and for then giving me such an amazing gift.
A shout-out to the best mailing list members any author could dream of: Brittany Conlon, Lexi Welch, Jenny Davies, Adrianne Russell, Brittney Tabel, Katrina Schofield, Christi Aldellizzi, Kaitlin Lyngaas, Vong Bidania, Nancy Woodford, Vanessa Ealum, Julie Kao, Samantha Townsend, Lucile Ogie-Kristianson, Mahlail Shahid, Andrea Burdette, and Hannah Joy Herring.
Finally, a very special thank-you to Yani Hernandez, who I think deserves a week of her own.
When I woke up the sky was burning.
It was orange-red with flames, breathing hot all over me, and thick black smoke bloomed like clouds. I rose to my knees and the sky grew hotter and closer as water poured over me. I knew I should turn around, that there was something behind me. I didn’t know how I knew that. I just did.
I didn’t turn around, and in front of me, through the bright flame of the sky, I saw a hint of green. I started walking toward it. Smoke was winding itself inside me, slipping down my throat every time I breathed.
My eyes hurt. My lungs hurt. I hurt. My feet caught on something and I fell.
My eyes were open, wide open, but I couldn’t see anything.
After a while, it just seemed easier to close them. So I did.
When I opened my eyes I saw light. Bright white light, so strong it made my eyes burn. I didn’t know where I was, but then I smelled a weird yet familiar scent, disinfectant and sweat and used Band-Aids mixed together, and knew I’d fallen asleep in the hospital.
Great. What had David done now?
I tried to sit up. I couldn’t. It hurt too much. I hurt too much.
There was an IV in each of my arms. I could see them stuck into my skin, taped into place well below the sleeves of my hospital gown.
I
was the one in the hospital.
Why was I in the hospital? Had I gotten hurt during the last scrimmage at soccer camp? I’d been careful through every game there even though I’d known it meant I wouldn’t
get the best player award. I hadn’t wanted to start the season with an injury.
I heard someone crying and tried to sit up again. It hurt even more this time. My head felt like it was filled with rocks. The crying got louder and then Mom was leaning over me, a huge, shaking smile lighting up her face. It looked strange, wrong against the tears.
“Mom?” I said, or tried to. Apparently there were rocks in my mouth too.
“Oh, Megan,” Mom said, and her voice was weird, shaking just like her smile.