Authors: Ally Derby
Pushing Send
Copyright © Jacqueline Ross and Ally Derby 2015
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Jacqueline Ross, except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
1st Edition Published: July 2015
Published by: Blue Valley Publishing
Cover Design by: Cover To Cover Designs
Cover Model: Quinn Biddle
Photographer: Michael Anthony Downs
First Edit by: C&D
Final Edit by: Kellie Montgomery
Formatting by: IndieVention Designs
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
*Disclaimer*
This book contains mature content not suitable for some under the age of 16.
It involves strong language and sexual situations.
All parties portrayed in sexual situations are consenting adults over the age of 18.
Dedication
This book is dedicated to all the fangirls (and boys) who find their escape inside the pages of a good book.
To all of the people who feel a deeper connection to a character than the people they sit next to in class.
To all those who feel they are alone in wishing, and wanting, and hoping for a different ending to what they feel is their reality.
Never stop, wishing, dreaming, hoping and reading.
Wishing proves we want more.
Dreaming helps us find a path and a way.
Hoping means we haven’t given up.
Reading opens our minds, makes us feel and see through the words of others.
Your happily ever after is going to happen in a way, which you may not expect, and when you least expect it.
Truly…. Regardless…
Ally Derby
table of contents
prologue
I lie on my back, looking up at the white ceiling, and in my head, I am singing the song about the old lady swallowing the fly.
One event in a person’s life can change everything. My father’s unemployment led to his drinking and driving, which led to an accident, which led to his injury, which led to his pain and depression, which led to his inability to find a job, which led to me moving to two different schools already this year. Tomorrow, I will start the third.
My mother’s Aunt Ann passed away, and Mom is now the only living relative. We bought her house right before the tax auction. It is in a very small town that apparently is very expensive. This is the first home my family has owned. My mother is optimistic, hopeful, and tries her best to make my father and I feel the same way.
I wish I could do that for her. I wish I could be as happy as she is, but honestly, it drives me crazy that she can act as if our family isn’t broken, because it is. It is so very broken.
chapter one
New Girl
It is six-thirty on a Monday morning in the beautiful Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York. The temperature is negative two degrees, and there is not a cloud in the February sky.
My alarm clock blares “Fifteen,” and I think,
Taylor Swift, as much as I love you, today you are my enemy.
Then I groan as I roll over and push snooze on my hand-me-down alarm clock radio, given to me by my mother when she got the iPhone 4.
Wanting to go back to sleep, I have no desire to roll out of bed. I know, as soon as I do, my feet will touch the hardwood floor, and they will turn cold. I hate cold feet almost as much as I hate Monday mornings.
“Hadley, it’s time to get up,” my mom sings as she walks past my door toward the bathroom.
“I’m up,” I grumble.
I hear her footsteps halt before she leans back, looking at me as she stands in my doorway. “Good morning, beautiful girl.” My mother is obnoxiously chipper in the morning. It drives me insane. “Happy fifteenth birthday,” she almost sings.
“It’s Monday, Mom.” I roll my eyes and cover my head. “That’s a crappy day to have a birthday.”
“Language, Hadley.” She shakes her head and steps back. “May I enter the sanctuary?”
Yes, she asks if she can come in my room. Six months ago, when I found her crying on my bed as she was reading my diary, I kind of went off on her.
I nod in answer. Then, against all that should be for a girl celebrating her fifteenth birthday, I force myself to get out of bed. There’s that cold. Ugh. That feeling drives me even crazier. Now I’m pushing the limit.
I walk to my closet and pull out a pair of tattered skinny jeans and a blue field hockey T-shirt then pair the outfit with my white Converse high-tops. I quickly dress in the small solitude of my closet and exit the sanctuary with Mom at my heels.
“It’s your first day at a new school, Hadley, so are you sure you wouldn’t rather dress up a little? Mix it up a bit?”
“It’s my third school in a year. Things are mixed up enough.” Realizing I have hurt her feelings, I give her a hundred watt smile and a thumbs up. “I’m being true to myself.”
She smiles and nods, “That’s perfect.”
I walk into the 80s-style bathroom and turn on the mustard yellow sink with a very rusty water stain down the middle of the bowl. I brush my teeth, run a brush through my hair, and swiftly pull it into a waterfall braid that Mom and I saw on YouTube by a lucky girl who had an iPhone of her own.
I look in the mirror, and staring back at me is an average looking girl with slightly wavy, deep brown hair and green eyes that my mom promises me are the most beautiful eyes she has ever seen. I don’t argue with that compliment, seeing as they are the same as hers. Beautiful, I’m not sure of. Above average … possibly.
Regardless of how I feel about myself, I am reminded of the great words of Effie Trinket, “
Chins up, smiles on!
”
As I head for the stairs, I peek into my parents’ room to see my dad is still asleep. No shocker there. He had sock throat last night. That’s what happens when he has had a few too many “sleeping pills.” He sounds like someone stuffed a gym sock in his mouth, and he swallowed down the next shot too fast. That’s something they don’t talk about in health class—sock throat.
Apparently, we don’t talk about it here, either. Mom only tells me, “He’s just going through a rough spell right now.” Said spell has lasted, oh, about three years, since the layoff that “ruined” his life. The wizard that must have cast such a spell has to have been Voldemort.
“Morning, Dad,” I whisper, though I know he won’t hear me.
Sleep it off, man, sleep it off.
I head downstairs and nearly trip over our old, fat, yellow cat. “Shove a cheek, Yolo,” I growl at him.
Yolo, yes, Yolo.
I got a cat for my birthday two years ago, during the peak of my Hunger Games obsession, so I named him Buttercup. He got hit by car exactly one month after my birthday. Apparently, cats
DO NOT
have nine lives.
Then this fatty showed up, so we fed him. Now he won’t leave, and he is
not
friendly.
Quite honestly, I don’t like him.
“He was meant to be yours, Hadley. Look at the signs. He showed up exactly one week after Buttercup disappeared.”
“Disappeared, Mom? I saw him get hit. I watched as Dad scraped him off the street with a shovel. His blood stain stayed there as a reminder of my rotten luck.”
“Honey, he was meant to be yours for a short time—”
“A reminder that cats actually don’t have nine lives?”
“Well, maybe that’s the lesson you were supposed to learn from the experience.”
“Whatever, Mom,” I say as I walk down the stairs to head to school.
The odds were certainly
not
in Buttercup’s favor
~*~
My mother takes me to school, and by the grace of God, she doesn’t ask me a hundred times if I am all right. She only does it once in the half a mile it takes to get there. I let her know that it’s nothing new, but it is because this school is much smaller than I am used to. It will make it harder to blend in.
We walk up the front walk together and pass several of my new peers through the loud, busy halls toward the main office. They all notice me, and only a couple smile. I suspect it’s because my mother smiles brightly at all of them.
“Hadley Asher, first day of school,” Mom announces in a very chipper tone to the round receptionist with the tight bun.
“Of course,” she says as she types something on her keyboard then pushes back in her chair and walks over to grab to the paper from the printer. “Locker number one four two. Take a right when you walk out the door. Your first class is global on the second floor, next to the library, room two one two.”
When my mom smiles and acts as if she is going to hug me, she sees I am mortified and stops. Instead, I walk out of the office and look back as Mom heads left toward the main entry.
“Mom,” I call out, and she stops, looking back and giving me a sad smile. “I’m gonna walk home.”
“You sure?”
I nod, wave, and smile, wanting her to know I’m fine. Why? She deserves it.
I make my way to my locker, noticing the stares, the whispers, and a couple people smile. I give them a quick smile and then open my locker to put my Jansport backpack in it. I keep a binder, a pencil, and a pen, hoping it’s all I will need. Glancing at my schedule, I see that after global I have chemistry, algebra 2/trig, English, home economics, lunch, physical education, study hall, Spanish, and then homeroom.
The school is like a hotel compared to my last one. It is clean, and the locker-room doesn’t even smell like dirty feet. In each class, I am introduced by the teacher. I force a smile, then look back down and pretend to take notes. I collect my books, the syllabus, and make sure to jot down any questions I may have.
When the class is excused, I take the time to ask the teacher a question. This almost always makes me late for the next class, which is perfect. I am given a hall pass and skate in as class begins, avoiding awkward moments where I may have to actually interact.
Every class, I end up sitting in the front. This is preferred. I catch no dirty looks if I have to sit by someone who doesn’t want me there; the teacher doesn’t label me as a bad kid because I am not in the back, trying to mess around; and my peers don’t think I am a butt kisser sitting in front, because they know it isn’t a choice.