Stephanie Makes the Match
The Party
The Bookworm’s Makeover
The Bookworm Next Door
Along the Road
Near the Finish Line
The Summer After Graduation
The Bookworm Next Door: The High School Stories Collection
About the Author
Alicia Chumney has her B.A. in English Literature and her 7-12 English teacher certification. Since middle school she has been scribbling in notebooks, on scrap paper, even in a restaurant ticket book one time (she still has the ticket book).
She lives in Tennessee with her cat, Molly, and a stack of books that she doubts she will finish reading in her lifetime. This is mostly because she spends a fair amount of time rereading her favorite books: Anne of Green Gables and Pride and Prejudice.
You can find her on:
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Turn the page for a sample Chapter from
The Secrets Between Us
Chapter One
- June -
Finals are finally over! Mark Hamilton - the Third, but nobody ever mentions that part of his name - mentally rejoiced. This meant one full summer filled with nothing but hanging out with Holden Frazier at his pool and occasionally trying to pick up girls on the weekends.
He missed hanging out with Holden. Social Media Messengers and texts didn’t quite cut it when you needed your best friend. Sure, he’d shared a room with his current roommate since they were Freshmen, but Fredrick spent most of his time studying in the library and messaging back and forth with his own back home girlfriend.
A knock on the door made him stop in the middle of packing up his clothes. “Coming!” he shouted.
Pulling the door open, he stood face to face with the teary-eyed floor monitor’s wife. He’d never seen Mrs. Layton about to cry before in all the time he'd known her. “What’s the matter?”
“Your father sent you this express and your mother is downstairs waiting to pick you up,” she whispered. Pulling him into a hug, she added, “I’m going to miss you next year.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked, confused. Normally his dad was the one picking him up. They’d make a quick detour to New York City and pick up his mother a few ‘presents’ - Mark usually accompanied that word, in relation to his mother, with an eye roll - before boarding a flight headed towards Memphis. Then they would make another quick detour to the diner they would frequently visit before returning home, turning a typically twenty-four hour trip into a three day trip.
Still dabbing her eyes with a tissue, Mrs. Layton tearfully answered, “Your mother is downstairs getting your school records and other necessary things. You won’t be returning next year.”
“What?” Mark stammered. “Why?”
Shaking her head, she mumbled to herself as she handed over the package, “Doesn’t he already know?”
Feeling panic forming in his gut, he snapped, “Know what?”
“Oh, Mark…” she sobbed. “If you don’t already know I can’t be the person to tell you.” She hesitated before adding, “Just, open what your father sent you first. I feel as if it’s important.”
Thanking her, he shut the door and went back to his twin-sized bed where his suitcase was already waiting half packed. Everything else had already been packed in boxes and were waiting for a rolling cart to take it all downstairs.
He was tempted to tear into the package and see what it was his father had sent him. Something had to be wrong. His mother never came to pick him up. Mark knew his mother was downstairs waiting. She never had been fond of the idea of him being away at boarding school; if she had her way, she would enroll him at one of the local private schools for his final year. However, his dad wanted his son enrolled at his boarding school, the same boarding school he’d once walked the halls and snuck out of during weeknights.
He knew she was downstairs waiting, but he wanted her to wait a while longer.
Staring at the mailer for a moment longer, he finally placed it on top of the clothes already inside the suitcase and finished packing up the rest of his closet. With luck his mother would never find it on the way home. He could stick it in his favorite hiding spot when they were back.
Grabbing a cart before one of the other guys still at school could, he loaded everything up and pushed it to the service elevator only used at the beginning and end of the school years. On the first floor, he was greeted by a stony-faced Rosenstein. “I’ll get these, Master Mark,” he mumbled. “Your mother is in the office.”
“Rosenstein, how many times have I told you to just call me Mark?” he grinned, forcing his facial muscles to move. It was acting. He needed to act. He knew something was wrong that he wasn’t supposed to know yet.
“Your mother is in the office,” the stiff driver repeated. He would normally be cracking jokes with Mark if Gertrude hadn’t been nearby.
Taking a deep breath, Mark suspected what his mother was going to tell him. There was only one possible reason why his father wasn’t there to pick him up.
Pausing at the door, he hesitated before turning the doorknob and going into the empty room. That was something unexpected; Headmaster York had left them alone in the office. He never let anybody stay alone in his office filled with valuable student files and dog figurines.
“Mark,” his mother whispered, holding out her arms for the required hug and kiss on the cheek. “You just keep growing.”
“Thank you, Mom,” he smiled, giving her the hug and kiss all the while aware that he wasn’t supposed to know. “I was told you were pulling me out of school for next year.”
“Yes, Son. Sit down,” she quietly commanded. “This couldn’t have happened at a better or worse time, but… Mark, your father died in a car accident three days ago. I couldn’t tell you sooner because I knew you had finals and I didn’t want you to stress over something that you couldn’t change and…” she rambled on.
Mark went still as he listened to his mother calmly relate the details of his father’s car crash. “He’d been drinking.” “Not a high blood alcohol level was recorded, but apparently enough.” “Head on collision with a tree.” “I made an appointment for you with a psychiatrist.” All phrases that filtered into his brain and circled around the knowledge that his father had sent him something just before he had died.
There was no possible way that his dad could be dead. Somebody would have told him already. He would have seen it on social media or… only he hadn’t been on the internet. He had been focusing on passing his classes, classes he had slept through mostly because they bored him and he knew he didn’t have to listen to the teachers droning on and on when he could catch up in the library or his room later.
No, it was not possible that his dad was dead. Rosenstein would have told him. Or Holden. Or…somebody. Somebody would have told him.
Wouldn’t they?
Chapter Two
Mark stared broodingly at the front doors of the mansion he only saw on a handful of occasions: mostly during holidays and summer vacation. It had been an extremely long time since he’d last walked through those ostentatious doors. Christmas Break was also the last time he had seen his father. In hindsight if he had known that it would be the last time he wouldn’t have gone on the Spring Break trip with his roommate and a few other friends.
“Come on,” his impatient mother prodded him from his introspection. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
Nothing looks different, he noted. The same bushes grew in front of the windows. The same black shutters created the appearance that the house was watching everything. The same blue doors teased at a calmness not often found on the other side.
However, at the same time everything had changed and he was reluctant to walk through those doors.
On the other hand, maybe he was only feeling travel lag.
Feet rooted in place, he reluctantly took a step forward when all he really wanted
to do was to start walking backwards, get back in the car, and make the two day drive back to New England. His suitcase was still in the truck….was being removed from the trunk by one of the maids.
Poor little rich boy, he bitterly thought.
“Hurry up, Mark,” Gertrude snapped from where she was tapping the toe of her expensive pump on the front porch steps. “I don’t have all day.” She actually didn’t want the neighbors seeing Mark’s hesitance on entering the house.
Don’t you miss Dad at all? He didn’t dare voice the question aloud. Ever since he was twelve he’d had no illusions about his parents’ relationship. Maybe it was walking in on his father with one of their family friends or noticing that there were strange noises coming from his mother’s bedroom - his parents had always had separate bedrooms for as long as he could remember - and the pained expression on his father’s face as they walked past.
No, Mark had no illusions about the reality of their marriage; he just wished they had hid things from their son better.
“Yeah,” he mumbled. “I’m coming.”
He shouldn’t have been surprised to find Clark King lounging in the front room watching the doorway. Or when his mother went over to kiss him on the cheek and said, “Mark, you remember Clark King, don’t you?”
“How could I forget?” Looking around the room, he noticed the many changes his mother had made since he’d last been in the house. “Nice job redecorating, Mother.”
“Thank you, Mark,” Gertrude finally fumbled. Clark’s hand slowly lowered from where he’d attempted to shake Mark’s hand and they all pretended to ignore the snub.
“If you don’t mind, it’s been a long day,” Mark mumbled. “I think I’ll go up to my room.”
“But…”
“Mom,” he interrupted. “My father died. I need a minute before you start jamming your new relationship down my throat. It hasn’t even been a week and, according to you, Father’s funeral is in five days. I need time. And space.” Turning around, he started to walk up the stairs to his bedroom.
Before he made it very far, she reminded him of something she’d told him during the car ride, “You have your first appointment with Dr. Chambers on Monday.”
Pausing, he didn’t turn around before mumbling, “Thank you for the reminder.” He didn’t want to think about the fact that she had made the psychiatrist appointment before he had even found out or even reacted to the news.
Sitting on the tiled floor of his bathroom, he stared at the custom cabinets his mother had ordered years ago during an expensive remodel that had temporarily left him going to the bathroom in the guest room down the hallway.
However, he had watched the man measuring the old cabinets, especially around the sink. When nobody else was around, he had asked the man if he could install a secret panel that could be removed in case anything needed to be hidden.
The carpenter merely stared at the thirteen-year-old Mark for a moment, a smirk forming on his face when he thought about what a teenage boy might want to hide, but at the same time agreeing to do the top-secret request.
Besides, it meant the carpenter would be able to charge a bit more for this hidden functionality and that meant more money for his family. Anything to charge the frustrating and irritable Gertrude Hamilton more money. This would be the last time he would ever agree to work for her.
Tearing into the bubble mailer, Mark pulled out the letter written in his dad’s handwriting. That alone caught his attention; his father normally typed things up. He claimed it was easier to read double-spaced Times New Roman than it was to read his chicken scratch scrawl.
Mark,
If you are reading this, I am so sorry I couldn’t be there to pick you up after your finals. I had every intention to pick you up in order to explain what was happening. Instead, my journal will have to provide you with answers.
If you are reading this, I had my assistant send this package to you express in hopes it would reach you before your mother does. I don’t know what tragic plan has befallen me, but I’m dead.
I know it is a shock and you’re probably in shock at how blunt I’m being, but there’s no other way to tell you. I don’t know what has happened, but I have every suspicion that Clark King has orchestrated it.
Whatever you do, keep this journal safe. Not even your mother knows it exists and it is best that she never finds out.
Find out what happened. DO NOT let my murderer get away with it.
Above all else, remember that I love you.
Your Father,
Mark Hamilton II
Mark stared at the single page. Turned it over to see if there was anything else written on the other side before flipping it back to the front and staring at the words again. Reading the words again. Then a third time before the words finally sunk in.
Staring at the leather bound book in his hands, it took everything in him not to start crying. His dad was the only parent that treated him like a son. His dad was the only parent who ever did anything with him. Even at seventeen, he knew his mother only had him to carry on the Hamilton family name.
He was her duty.
He didn’t want her holding a display of emotions over him more than he suspected she already would.
Mark stared at the leather bound journal, fingered the ties holding the book secure. He'd undone and retied that simple knot so many times already, hesitating about scanning and flipping through the pages for some clue that his father knew what he now suspected. Nevertheless, when he finally did open the book a few entries kept catching his attention.
December 20th
C - and G - kept disappearing during the company Holiday party. She always reappeared with freshly applied lipstick.
March 15th
G - keeps accepting phones calls and leaving the room suddenly. Whenever I enter the same room she's in she'll quickly say, “I have to go,” before hanging up.
April 3rd
I don't want Mark to find out. If something happens to me I don't want his relationship with his mother destroyed.
May 23rd
I'm filing for divorce. Thanks to the pre-nup G - signed she'll get almost nothing, including the company. C - already sold me his shares years ago when he experienced a financial crisis.
If something happens to me before it is finalized then she'll get temporary control until Mark gets his MBA. I just know she'll give C - control and he'll destroy the company before Mark can protect it.
This didn't even include the entries about his concerns concerning Clark that Mark scanned.
Staring at the book in his hands, he wrapped an old t-shirt around it, popped off one of the boards under his sink, and slid the book into his hiding place. One of the maids might notice that the board was loose if she hit it just right while cleaning, but Clark and his mother would never find out. Unless a maid told them, although their loyalty seemed to be more on Mark’s side than on his mother’s.
After sitting in the bathroom for thirty minutes, he heard a knock on his door and a maid tentatively coming in, “Mr. Mark?” she called out.
“I’m in the bathroom, Rosemary!” he answered her, hurriedly flushing the toilet before running the water in the sink.
From the bedroom side of the door, Rosemary replied, “We know. Your mother was worried.” Even he could hear the slight inflection of sarcasm in the maid’s voice as she stressed the word, ‘worried.’ His mother never worried about him.
Exiting the bathroom, his brows creased with confusion, “How would my mom know that I was in the bathroom for thirty minutes? I could have been taking a shower after the long trip or something. Why would she be worried?”
“The cameras,” Rosemary whispered her warning, glancing behind her to make certain that nobody else was nearby. “They had them installed throughout the house while your mother went to pick you up.”
“Why are there cameras installed in my room?” Mark slowly asked her.
“It’s not much of a secret; at least we weren
’t told it was a secret,” she admitted. “Mrs. Gertrude was afraid that you would hurt yourself or get kidnapped or something.”
Staring at the maid for a long minute, he finally asked, “Even in the bathroom?”
“Oh, no,” Rosemary was quick to answer him. “There are no cameras in the bathrooms or your mother’s room…”
Interrupting, “But there is in mine…”
“Yes,” she slowly answered him.
Mark stared at the maid for so long she began to shift in place. Finally, without another word, he stormed out of the room in search of his mother. It didn’t take him long to find her and Clark in his father’s home office.
“Why is there a camera in my bedroom?” he demanded, looking solely at his mother.
“You are the heir to the Hamilton Interactive Media Company,” Clark King answered instead of Gertrude. “We don’t need you kidnapped or anything.”
“It is in my bedroom!” Mark slowly and carefully emphasized every single word. He refused to look at anybody other than his mother. “I want it out of my room. I have a right to privacy in my own house.”
“It’s still my house, dear,” Gertrude stated, barely looking at her son as she filed her fingernails. “I can have cameras installed wherever I feel like it.”
Mark took a step backwards, mentally changing direction. “Have there been threats against my safety?”
Gertrude merely shrugged her shoulders.
“Then wouldn’t I be safer at Roosevelt? They don’t let you in without I.D. and passing through metal detectors and all these other safety check points.”
His mother simply shrugged again without looking up from examining her nails. “The cameras stay and you are not going back to that school.”
Chapter Three
Persuaded Page 28