Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Newsletter
Chapter 1
Rachel
Jake
Chapter 2
Jake
Rachel
Chapter 3
Jake
Chapter 4
Rachel
Chapter 5
Rachel
Jake
Rachel
Chapter 6
Jake
Chapter 7
Jake
Chapter 8
Rachel
Chapter 9
Jake
Rachel
Chapter 10
Jake
Rachel
Chapter 11
Jake
Rachel
Chapter 12
Jake
Rachel
Jake
Chapter 13
Rachel
Jake
Chapter 14
Rachel
Chapter 15
Rachel
Chapter 16
Jake
Rachel
Jake
Chapter 17
Rachel
Jake
Rachel
Jake
Chapter 18
Rachel
Jake
Rachel
Chapter 19
Jake
Rachel
Jake
Chapter 20
Rachel
Rachel
Jake
Chapter 21
Jake
Rachel
Jake
Chapter 22
Rachel
Jake
Chapter 23
Rachel
Jake
Rachel
Chapter 24
Jake
Rachel
Jake
Chapter 25
Jake
Rachel
Epilogue
Jake
About the Author
Other Books by Jessica Ruddick
Copyright @ 2020 by Jessica Ruddick
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Content edits provided by Marnee Blake.
Line editing suggestions provided by Red Adept Editing.
ISBN 978-1-946164-19-3
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CHAPTER 1
Rachel
“JUST THINK… SOON you’ll have a classroom of your own.” The older woman’s eyes twinkled as she smiled at me. She wore what I’d dubbed the “teacher sweater,” a hideous garment that had three-dimensional appliqués of trees and puffs of red yarn masquerading as hanging apples.
I forced myself to return her smile. “I can’t wait.” In truth, the thought made me sick to my stomach.
Patting me on the shoulder, Mrs. Davidson must have interpreted my reaction as apprehension. “Don’t worry, Rachel, dear. You’ll be a fantastic teacher. You’ve been such a big help to me.”
I kept the smile plastered on my face as I continued to cut out butterflies from construction paper, careful not to nick my finger like I had the previous week. Mrs. Davidson had kept me busy doing menial tasks like that for the entirety of my observation hours with her. Technically, I was only required to observe, but the principal at Edgewood Elementary advocated a more hands-on approach.
“I’ll be sorry to see you go next week,” Mrs. Davidson prattled on. “But I suppose you do need to observe other grade levels. That way, you’ll know for sure that first grade is where it’s at.” Grinning, she chuckled.
After spending three weeks in her classroom, I knew one thing for certain—first grade was not where it was at, at least not for me. Too bad second, third, and every other grade held no appeal either. Considering I was closing in on the end of my junior year in the elementary education program and my student teaching was set for the fall, that was a problem—one I’d been ignoring for the past year. But since I’d been spending ten hours every week in an elementary school, I couldn’t lie to myself anymore. This wasn’t the future I wanted.
Nausea washed over me. I’d gone against my family’s wishes and accumulated tens of thousands in student-loan debt, and for what? Apparently to earn a degree I had no intention of actually using.
I pressed a hand to my stomach, willing it to settle. All might not be lost. I needed to make an appointment with my academic advisor to discuss my options. Maybe there were other job prospects for people with elementary education degrees that didn’t involve the classroom. Not likely. Or maybe some of my credits would count toward another major. The trouble was I had no clue what else I would want to major in.
I watched out the window as the last school bus pulled out of the lot, then I turned my attention to the ominous stack of paper. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Davidson, but I can’t stay late today.”
Her brow furrowed. “Oh dear, I was going to work on adapting tomorrow’s lesson to the smart board.” Mrs. Davidson was stuck in the Stone Age and preferred doing everything on paper, but she was being forced to adopt modern technology. I hated saying someone was hopeless, but, well, the woman was hopeless. She barely managed to use Google without crashing her computer.
“I could do that for you and email it to you tonight,” I offered. What would take her several hours would probably only take me twenty minutes. And I would do anything to get out of there quickly without damaging my grade. Even if I no longer wanted the education degree, I didn’t want my GPA to suffer.
“Thanks for the offer, dear, but I’d better learn, or they’re going to put me out to pasture.” She chuckled. “But you could take the butterflies home.”
I tried not to let my face fall. “Sure.” It still took another ten minutes of chatting before I finally escaped to my car. I unclipped my student observer badge and tossed it on the passenger seat along with my purse and the supplies for the stupid butterflies. Resting my forehead on the steering wheel, I exhaled slowly and counted to ten.
Fuck my life.
It was my own damn fault. I’d chosen elementary education as my major with two things in mind. The first was job availability and stability—teachers could work anywhere, and it wasn’t as though schools were going away. The second was to soften the blow to my parents. They hadn’t supported me going to college, so I figured education would be the least objectionable major. Now that I was three years out of the nest, I didn’t give a shit what they thought. It had only taken one semester for me to realize how backward and old-fashioned my family—and most of my hometown—was. Most parents wanted their daughters to get an education and become a contributing member of society. The only thing my parents wanted me to contribute was babies, lots and lots of babies. My two older sisters already had two each, with another on the way for Cara.
No, thank you.
Someone tapped on my window, and I jerked my head up. Cheese and rice! I nearly peed my pants, but it was just Mrs. Davidson. I hit the down button on the window controls.
“I’m glad I caught you.” She slipped another pack of construction paper through the opening. “Here you go, dear. I was worried you might run out. Remember, I need one hundred and twenty-eight.”
Clenching my teeth, I smiled and tried to kee
p from looking like a wild animal baring its teeth. “Thank you.”
She stepped away and waved, so I took the opportunity to hightail it out of there before she decided she wanted three hundred construction paper leaves to go with the butterflies.
On the way home, I stopped at every locally owned store and restaurant to inquire about a job. In the last month, I’d filled out online applications for all the chain stores in the area, but my efforts hadn’t yielded so much as one interview. So far, all I’d managed was to burn gas by driving around and introducing myself to all the managers. Finding a job in a college town was as difficult as teaching a cat to fetch. Both required endless patience and immense determination but were basically impossible. My checking account was down to double digits, and I really didn’t want to have to take out more student-loan money if I could help it.
Every summer, I went home and worked for a lady around the corner from my parents’ house who did childcare out of her home. It worked nicely because she continued to take care of the babies and toddlers while I handled the influx of older kids who were out of school for the summer. An added perk was that she paid me under the table, so I’d been able to save enough to get me through the entire year.
But that meant I would have to live at home for three long months. Last year, the only thing that had made it bearable was my brother Eli, but he was planning to study abroad this summer. If I spent yet another summer with my parents, there would be words, the kind that ruined relationships and caused family rifts. I just couldn’t.
I hated to leave nice Miss Melinda in a lurch since she’d depended on me every summer since I was sixteen, but my youngest sister was sixteen now, and babysitting was the one job my parents agreed was appropriate for us. I was sure Brooke would be happy to fill my spot and earn some cash… if I could find a job that would allow me to stay in Bleaksburg. At the moment, that was a very big if.
After I’d struck out at the sixth mom-and-pop place, I headed home. Two hours later, I found myself frantically cutting those stupid butterflies in my living room. I hissed as my finger slid along the edge of a paper, earning a paper cut. Blood welled up on the small slice, so I stuck my fingertip in my mouth, which served the double purpose of stopping the bleeding and keeping the obscenities in check.
My roommate and BFF, Katie, emerged from her room. “Are you almost ready?”
Nope. Seventy-eight more butterflies to go. Sighing, I stared down at the small stack of completed butterflies. “How lame would it be if I brought these with us?”
Katie had invited me to her boyfriend, Wyatt’s, place for a draft-watching party. He played quarterback for our university’s football team, and his best friend and favored wide receiver, Freddie Martin, IV, also known as FM4, was expected to go in the draft’s top ten.
Katie eyed the construction paper. “What are those?”
I picked one up by the wings and made it fly. “Butterflies.”
Katie pursed her lips. “How did you get stuck with making those?”
“It’s Mrs. Davidson,” I muttered. “She’s this cute, sweet, little old teacher lady. She reminds me of my grandma. How could I say no?”
“N-O. No.”
I shot my roomie a dirty look. “Not helpful.” Sometimes it was better to go with the flow. I had to choose my battles and all that.
“Sorry. Not trying to be a jerk. But you need to stop letting people take advantage of you.” She gave me a pointed look, and suddenly I knew we weren’t talking about sweet old Mrs. Davidson anymore.
I picked up a new piece of construction paper and attacked it with my scissors. “Yeah, yeah.”
Katie was no doubt referring to Adam, my sort-of boyfriend, who stood me up about as often as he showed up. I’d never been one to suffer from FOMO, but watching Katie and Wyatt the past week had given me a severe case of it, and I’d been thinking that maybe it was time to kick Adam’s ass to the curb.
“I’m serious, Rach. You could do so much better.”
That was easy for her to say. She was a former child star who was gorgeous without even trying. I was pretty in a girl-next-door way, though I had been compared to Emma Stone a time or two, most likely because of my hair.
Anyway, Katie was right—I could do much better. But I didn’t know if I wanted to. Things with Adam were easy, even if they were less than satisfying. The relationship was casual and would never move beyond that, which suited me fine. Between my classes, observation hours, and the part-time job I hoped to get, I didn’t have time for much else. My FOMO took a back seat to practicality.
“Back to my original question, how lame would it be if I brought these with us?” I asked, avoiding getting sucked into another Adam is a dick and you need to dump his ass lecture. “It’s just casual, right?”
“Yeah. Just a few of the guys, I think.”
“All right.” I stacked the finished butterflies neatly on the coffee table and shoved the paper and scissors into my bag. “Give me five minutes.”
Katie’s phone chirped, so she pulled it out of her back pocket. “Kassidy made it home. Thank God.”
Amen to that. Katie’s twin, Kassidy, was still working as an actress and had shown up for a surprise visit the previous week. It had been fun at first, but Kassidy didn’t seem to understand that we had classes to attend and other shit to do. Her presence hadn’t changed that. Kassidy was like a tornado that breezed in and left destruction in her wake. Case in point—our apartment was a disaster. Kassidy had gone on an online shopping spree, so boxes and bits of packing material were strewn everywhere, not to mention the items she’d rejected. She must have ordered at least ten thousand dollars’ worth of clothing, makeup, shoes, and skin-care products, but she only ended up taking home a few things. The excess was mind-blowing, especially considering I was struggling to scrounge up enough money to pay my half of the rent.
I shuffled into my room to do some triage on my face and hair, which was pretty much a lost cause. The day had been humid, which meant my hair was twice its normal size. Sighing, I pulled it back into a low ponytail, dabbed some powder on my face, and swiped some lip gloss across my mouth. Good enough. I would probably just be holed up in a corner with my butterflies anyway. When I came out of my room, Katie was waiting at the front door.
I scooped up the bag of construction paper. “Sorry!”
She held the door for me. “No worries.”
We made it to Wyatt’s in record time. Katie didn’t bother knocking on the apartment door and simply let herself in. Her boyfriend’s eyes lit up when he saw her, and his mouth stretched into a smile I would have called sexy if he weren’t already spoken for. But holy man candy! Katie’s main squeeze wasn’t the only hot, buff guy in the room. The living room was wall-to-wall muscle and testosterone. It looked like the starting lineup for Virginia Valley University’s football team was crammed in the small space. It was a total sausage fest, not that I was complaining.
“I thought you said it was just a couple of the guys,” I said under my breath.
She shrugged.
Wyatt stood and lightly smacked the guy who’d been sitting next to him. “Clear out so the ladies can sit.” He then crossed the room and embraced Katie, kissing her as if he hadn’t seen her in a month instead of just the day before. He looked at her like a starving man looked at a double-bacon cheeseburger. I averted my eyes. FOMO in full effect.
The big, burly linebacker-looking guy stood, and I held my hand up to stop him. “No, it’s okay. I’m not going to take your seat.”
Wyatt disconnected his mouth from Katie’s to give his friend a look. “She’s taking your seat.”
“No, seriously, I’m not.” I held up my bag. “I brought something to work on. It’ll be easier sitting on the floor.”
The guy hovered over the space on the couch. “You sure?”
I nodded. “Sit.”
“Let me get you a pillow at least.” Wyatt disappeared into his bedroom before I could stop him. When he returned, h
e instructed everyone to shift so I would have floor space with a clear view of the TV. While Wyatt’s chivalry was admirable, I wasn’t used to so much fuss being made over me, especially by guys.
I put the pillow against the wall and leaned against it.
“You good?” Wyatt asked.
“Yes. Thank you.”
Nodding, he took his place on the couch again, and Katie draped herself on his lap. I tried to imagine snuggling like that with Adam but couldn’t picture it, and for the first time, I felt a pang of… I wasn’t sure. Longing? Regret?
Maybe Katie—and all my other friends for that matter—had the right idea. Maybe it was time for me to move on. I observed Katie and Wyatt for a few moments before feeling like a creeper. Then I removed all traces of FOMO from my mind. What they had was nice… for them. But it wasn’t in the cards for me. Watching my dad rule over my mom, and my sisters’ husbands do the same, had cured me of any need to be part of a duo.
I was better off alone.
***
Jake
I DRAGGED A hand across my face, and my fingers dug into the phone as my eight-year-old sister repeated her question. “Will you be on TV this year?”
Christ. That was a good question. “I’m not sure, Em.”
“I told all my friends that you’d be on TV.”
I should have been on TV last year. In fact, the past year should have been the best of my life. Last summer, I’d earned a spot as a starting wide receiver beside FM4. Archer and FM4 were an amazing team, but opposing defenses knew that. I was supposed to be the ace in the hole, the unexpected threat. Then my parents died the second week in the season, and everything had gone to shit.
Well, the team hadn’t. It turned out they hadn’t needed me after all. Archer and FM4 had led VVU to a national championship.
“It’s not up to me,” I explained. “The coach decides who plays.”
“But if you’re the best, he has to put you in, right?”
“Right.” Except I wasn’t so sure I was the best anymore. Everything had slipped since my parents died, including my grades and athletic performance. Losing my parents shouldn’t have affected me as much as it had. I was twenty-one, a fucking adult, not a kid, like my three younger siblings.
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