Revolution (54 page)
I looked up at my husband and even after everything had happened I couldn’t help but be grateful that our worlds collided.
"
I love you, too, Keeper." He laughed. He always laughed when I said that.
I didn't care what anyone said.
Merrick would always be my Keeper to me.
The Very End
Playlist
(Theme) Collide : Howie Day
(Merrick's flashback) Open Your Eyes : Snow Patrol
(Sherry's dream) Touch This Light : House of Heroes
(P
lotting)
Angel With A Shotgun : The Cab
(F
ight) Skin Graph : Silversun Pickups
(The hard truth
) Ann Sun : Walk The Moon
Remember The Empire : House Of Heroes
(Ryan & Ellie) Love Somebody : Maroon 5
You Know Where I'm At : Gavin Degraw
Wide Awake :
Katy Perry
Iscariot : Walk The Moon
Keep Your Eyes Open : Needtobreathe
Y Control : Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Stay : House
O
f Heroes
(Cain in the Sand) Be Still : The Fray
Alibi : 30 Seconds To Mars
Where I Belong : Switchfoot
(Daniel's Goodbye)
Broken Angel : Boyce Avenue
We Were Giants : House Of Heroes
Home : Phillip Phillips
(On the road to the station) Roads Untraveled : Linkin Park
Gunnin' : Hedley
This Is Why We Fight : The Decemberist
On The Run : Kaiser Chiefs
(The war) The War Inside : Switchfoot
Daylight : Boyce Avenue
(The End) Vegas Skies : The Cab
Thank you
to my God and my family for supporting me through my endeavors of writing.
This book was so hard to write! I'm going to miss Sherry and Merrick terribly. They were my first couple and will always hold a place in my heart. I hope you enjoyed this series as much I enjoyed writing it. This last book, gut wrenching for me as it was, was still fun and reminiscent. Thank you for coming along on this journey with me.
Thank you!
---------------------------------------------------------------
Shelly's other works
Significance series
Devoured series
Stealing Grace series
Wide awake
Please feel free to Contact Shelly at the following avenues.
www.facebook.com/shellycranefanpage
www.twitter.com/authshellycrane
And here's an excerpt from
Smokeless Fire
(Fire Spirits #1)
By Samantha Young
~1~
Ghost in the Soul
Ari’s eyes followed the swipe of Mr. Dillon’s eraser across the board, wiping out the poor chalk-figure hangman who had met his full and complete death - a head, torso, limbs and all - when the senior class had failed to figure out the blanks equated to
accumulated depreciation
. The last week of school. Business class.
Ari hid a yawn behind her hand and glanced worriedly out of the classroom window to the trees behind the parking lot. She wondered if he was out there already.
“God, I thought this class couldn’t get any more boring,” Nick Melua whispered across to her. Ari made a sympathetic noise and nodded in agreement. Waiting for graduation was a slow torture in hell. That the waiting room at present happened to be Mr. Dillon’s Business Studies class only increased the banality.
Ari winced. She better get used to it. She would be heading off to major in Business at Penn after summer break. Pushing the future and the host of angry butterflies the thought of it created in her belly out of her mind, Ari concentrated on worrying about Charlie. Was he out behind the parking lot?
Again?
“Miss Johnson?”
She groaned into her wrist and flicked her eyes up at the board.
“W,” she guessed without thinking and immediately felt the heat of the glares from her classmates.
“Nope.” Mr. Dillon shook his head. “Nick?”
“E,” he threw across the room belligerently and was rewarded with grateful smiles as the word became clearer.
“Entrepreneur!” Staci Pike shouted out with such enthusiasm you could be fooled into thinking she cared. Ari smirked over at her and rolled her eyes at Staci’s sheepish shrug. Staci hated making anyone feel bad and the perspiration rolling down Mr. Dillon’s face that told them he knew he was failing miserably at keeping them entertained, and was beginning to feel the pressure, was not something Staci could just sit back and watch.
Mr. Dillon smiled gratefully. “Correct. Do you want to come up, Staci, and choose a word?”
Ari grinned at her.
See, that’s what happens when you’re nice.
Staci narrowed her eyes on her as she swept by her table. “Meanie,” she murmured loud enough to make Ari snort.
Fifteen minutes later the class grew more fervent in their irritation as they struggled to figure out Staci’s word. Finally Mr. Dillon sighed. “I’m afraid the hangman is definitely… dead. You’ll have to tell us your word, Staci.”
Her dark eyes were wide with disbelief. “You guys are terrible at this game.”
“Aw come on, Staci!” Nick beat his fist against the table, his voice climbing to a whine. “Just tell us.”
“Fine,” she huffed. “The word
or words,
rather, are ‘Bill Gates.’”
Ari immediately began to laugh as the class exploded into an uproar.
“I still don’t
see what the big deal was.” Staci shrugged as they headed towards their lockers.
“You were supposed to use a business
term
.” Ari chuckled, plucking a spit ball out of Staci’s hair and flicking it to the ground. She grimaced, wiping her hand against her t-shirt.
“Bill Gates is a businessman, hellllooo!”
“Hello to you too,” a warm voice purred, an arm wrapping around Staci. She was pulled back into the solid embrace of her boyfriend A.J. Half Japanese (on her mom’s side) Staci’s slight frame was swallowed up in the stocky shadow of A.J.’s wrestler’s body. Her almond-shaped eyes widened slightly before she relaxed into him, tilting her mouth up to his for a kiss.
Ari sighed and turned away from them, yanking her locker open with more force than she had intended.
“Is someone in a bad mood?” A.J. asked softly, grinning sheepishly at the glare Ari threw him over her shoulder.
Staci shook her head. “Nah, I think she’s just bummed out after the longest class in the history of classes.”
“What’s there to be bummed about?” A new familiar voice entered the fray. Ari craned her neck around her locker to smile at her best friend. Rachel grinned up at her, her blonde hair swinging against her chin as she jerked her gaze back and forth between her friends with the excitement of a puppy. “We’re officially free in a few days and… drum roll please.” She gestured to A.J. who supplied the request with his imaginary drum sticks. “It’s Ari’s 18
th
birthday slash graduation party!”
As her friends began talking enthusiastically about their plans for the 18
th
birthday party her dad, Derek, was letting her throw in their house at the end of the week, Ari tried to smile with sufficient animation. It wasn’t that she hated birthdays, or graduation even. It was more the promise of the future. A future she wasn’t so sure about.
“Oh, guys, I have to bring the stethoscope Mom and Dad bought me to the party… it’s awesome,” Rachel chirped happily, her eyes glittering at the prospect of heading off to Dartmouth to do her pre-medical studies. After Dartmouth she was planning on applying to John Hopkins, and Ari had no doubt that w
hatever Rachel wanted
Rachel would eventually get.
“They bought you a stethoscope already?” A.J. snorted. “Dude, you’re not even going to med school for another three years.”
“Seven years of college. You are so insane.” Staci shuddered. “I can’t even imagine.”
A.J. shrugged. “I don’t know. Seven years making movies… sounds kind of fun.”
Staci rolled her eyes at him but smiled indulgently. “Anything sounds like fun to you as long as it gets you off that farm.”
Ari felt like sinking into the floor if only to disappear from this moment. Her friends were so clear about who they were and what they wanted… it terrified her. It made her feel like a freak. She glanced around at them as they started
yammering on
about college sweatshirts, roommates, the freshman ten, wondering what on earth happened to her that she didn’t know what she wanted out of life like they did. Staci and A.J. were heading off to RISD together to study Film and Animation, something they had talked about doing nearly the whole three years they had been dating. Ari shut her locker, trying not to have a panic attack. Never before in her life had she suffered from anxiety but she’d had three attacks this last month. She closed her eyes, her back to her friends. When her dad suggested she studied Business at college Ari hadn’t argued. What else was she going to do, right? Unlike her friends there wasn’t anything she’d ever
felt particularly brilliant at
or drawn to. How could they possibly understand that? She needed someone to understand.