by J. L. Wyer
Contents
Copyright
Synopsis
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Epilogue
About the Author
LETTER TO READERS
Also by the Author
Copyright
© 2020 J.L. Wyer
J.L. Wyer is the pen name of Jennilynn Wyer
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, brands, media, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All Rights Reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without the written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Synopsis
My name is Elizabeth and I am best friends with three guys: Jayson, Julien, and Ryder.
Jayson and Julien, the silver-eyed twins that stole my heart when I was six years old. They call me their princess. I call them my princes.
Ryder, the amber-eyed daredevil with a kind heart and easy smile. He is my sunshine and I am his starshine.
We live on the same street and go to the same school, Fallen Brook High. I can't remember a day of my life that Jayson, Julien, and Ryder have not been by my side. We grew up together. We were a family.
It's hard for a girl to be best friends with three guys, especially three guys that grow up to become handsome men. There's only one golden rule to follow: Never fall in love with your best friend.
I just broke that rule — twice. I fell in love with two of them.
What do I do now?
Reader's Note: The Fallen Brook High School YA series is a High School & Young Adult spin-off of the New Adult, Contemporary romance series, Fallen Brook by Jennilynn Wyer. The Fallen Brook High School YA series has been edited and the content rewritten to be suitable for a younger audience and is recommended for ages 16+. It does contain some minor bad language and reference to underage drinking, intimacy, and social situations. Books 1 and 2 end on a cliffhanger. The series concludes with an HEA. If you would like a more mature story with mature themes, check out the original Fallen Brook Series: All Our Next Times (Book 1), Paper Stars Rewritten (Book 2), and Broken Butterfly (Book 3). The Fallen Brook Series is for mature readers and contains possible triggers, and is therefore suitable for readers aged 18+.
The Fallen Brook High School Series
Book 1: Jayson
Book 2: Ryder (releasing April 2021)
Book 3: Fallon (releasing September 2021)
Dedication
To my husband and son.
Thank you for allowing me to follow my dream.
Thank you for your love and support.
I love you.
Prologue
Present Day
Hailey
YOU. Such a simple word. An everyday word. A word that sounds like a letter but isn’t. A letter that begins words like unloved, useless, ugly, unwanted. That is what I hear every day. In my head. In my heart. You are unloved. You are useless. You are ugly. You are unwanted.
The fifteen-minute warning bell sounds, blaring obtrusively through the school halls, alerting everyone that it’s time to get to your next class. Lockers bang shut, voices get louder, footsteps become hurried. I scurry and scamper around people, my head lowered, my eyes diverted to the scuffed beige linoleum floor. I want to be invisible. I want to be unseen. Please don’t notice me. Please leave me alone.
I know what will happen if I look up. I know what I will see, what I will hear, what I will feel. Ugly. Unwanted. Useless. Unloved.
“Hailey!”
My sister Elizabeth’s voice rings loud from across the hallway next to the classroom door she is standing beside. My steps quicken. I can’t talk to her right now. I have to get out of here. I have to go. One look at my face and she’ll know something is wrong and she’ll stop me. She’ll want to know. I just can’t tell her right now. Maybe never. I don’t know what to do. I am broken and nothing can fix me.
I ignore my sister and keep walking. I pass the cafeteria doors, walk past the gymnasium, push open the back doors, and once outside, sprint down the baseball field. The smell of fresh-cut grass stings my nose. The bright sunlight causes my eyes to water. A movement to my right catches my eye. Him. He’s leaning against his car parked in the senior lot next to the baseball field. Why is he out here? How did he know I had left the school building? How did he know I would come out this way? His cold eyes are focused directly on me. Watching me. Taunting me. My heartbeat momentarily stops and squeezes tight. My body shutters to a standstill and locks up. My legs won’t move even though my mind chants run, run, run.
His eyes smile at me. The corner of his mouth tips up in a smirk. He crooks his finger at me to come. I have no choice. My body reacts to his simple command as if I was one of Pavlov’s dogs. My legs move toward him automatically even though my mind is screaming at me to stop. To run away. I just can’t do it. When I get close enough to him, I hear him say, “Good girl.” I used to love his voice. Now that voice is one from my nightmares. A voice that is still soft and deep but full of darkness and cruelty.
He opens the car door and I get inside. I know what’s coming. I know what to expect. And I know the words he’ll use when he brings the pain. You are ugly. You are useless. You are unwanted. You are unloved.
Elizabeth
I take out my phone and text my sister while walking into the classroom. My teacher, Mr. Carmichael, nods a good morning to me and continues to write on the whiteboard. I know Hailey heard me calling her name.
Me: Hey. Where are you? I saw you walk right by your classroom. I need to talk to you and Im not taking no for an answer. Why r u skipping?
I place my phone inside my bag and get situated in my seat. Mr. Carmichael finishes writing equations up on the board and goes back to sit at his desk to wait the final fifteen minutes until the tardy bell rings. I look to the right of me, then left, and finally behind me
and see the empty seats. Where are they? I know they are on campus because Jayson texted me earlier. I hear them before I see them and a smile spreads across my face knowing my morning coffee is about to arrive. They walk through the doorway, Ryder giving Julien a shoulder bump while Jayson heads my way.
“Finally,” I say as Jayson hands me a tall paper cup with a lid and sits down next to me on my right.
My right hand, stiff and bruised, is covered in gauze wrap making it hard to hold the cup so I switch to my left hand. Breakfast is our morning ritual this year. We decided to either meet up for breakfast before school at Ruby’s Diner, or they bring me a coffee and a cinnamon scone if I have to arrive at school early for choir practice and miss our group breakfast.
I look at Jayson. “You remembered two sweeteners, right?” to which he gives me an are you serious right now expression on his face as I take a grateful sip of caffeine. I can’t help it if I am OCD about my morning coffee.
“Yes, princess,” he teases, taking out his notebook and placing it on top of his desk.
Julien, his twin, takes the seat behind me, and Ryder sits to my left. They’re discussing whatever they were talking about in the hallway before they came in.
“So, how did she get your number?” I hear Ryder ask Julien.
Jayson leans back so he can see Ryder and starts to shake his head “no” vigorously.
“She thought it was Jayson’s,” which makes Ryder give an “uh huh.” Jayson’s face turns bright red before he quickly glances at me, then away.
“I’m sorry, what now?” I point my sage green eyes at Julien debating whether I should be giving evil eyes to Jayson instead.
“Jacinda texted my phone last night thinking she was texting Jayson.”
I reach back and quickly grab Julien’s phone out of his hand before he can put it away. I look for Jacinda’s text, which is hard to do because Julien and Jayson both keep trying to take the phone away from me. Their efforts are useless. I’ve already seen the text.
Jayson starts to slink down in his chair thinking this will make him invisible. He then starts to scoot his desk and chair over, so he's out of arm’s reach from mine. Ryder leans over to my side and places his head next to mine so he can see the message too.
Unknown: Hey Jason xxx
Attached to the text is a picture of Jacinda Blanchard wearing a tight black tank top, trying to show how flexible she is with some sort of yoga pose while puckering her mouth looking like she ate a sour lemon. Does she think that’s attractive? She can't even spell his name correctly. It's spelled Jayson with a "y." Ryder barks out a laugh and I make a fake gag sound while Jayson just sinks lower and lower in his seat.
I immediately delete the picture and text and block her number from Julien’s phone, but figure it’s not safe for me to try and perform a quick lobotomy before class to get that image out of my head. I toss the phone back at Julien as if holding it any longer will cause my hand to catch some disease and fall off.
Jayson decides to man-up at me and declares, “I never gave my number to her in the first place so you can’t be mad at me. I don’t know how she got it. You know I can’t stand her.”
“What about when she climbed you like a tree at the party?” Ryder chimes in.
“Shut up, Ry,” Jayson whisper-shouts at him trying not to draw Mr. Carmichael’s attention our way.
A guy sitting in front of me turns around with his phone. “It’s all over social media.”
“No, no, no. I don’t want to see any more. I already decided I can’t have a lobotomy, so please do not make me want to gauge my eyes out too.”
“You need to mind your own business, Darrel,” Jayson snarls and the boy swiftly turns back around in his seat. “And stop trying to stir stuff up,” he warns Ryder.
Jayson looks imploringly at me knowing this is the first I am hearing about Jacinda body-tackling him at the party. I had to leave early to finish up a paper due for English class so apparently missed all the action.
“Don’t worry, princess,” Julien pats my back from behind, “Jay literally kick-punted her off of him. And then there was yelling. Lots and lots of yelling. Not from Jacinda,” he adds.
I feel a little hurt that Jayson never said anything to me about it. Neither did Ryder nor Julien. They weren’t the ones she was climbing all over, but they saw it happen. They know how I feel about her, and I suspect Jayson didn’t tell me because he thought he was protecting my feelings. I turn toward Jayson. I can see regret and misery etched across his handsome face. I cave so easily for him. God, I’m pathetic. I know Jayson is loyal to me. They all are. They would never do anything to intentionally hurt me. Our relationships together are strong, built on a solid foundation that has weathered many storms. Our story, well, let’s just say it’s complicated.
These three boys have been my best friends since elementary school. I met the twins the summer before first grade when they moved in next door to me, and then Ryder joined our group in third grade. We live on the same street, so it has been easy keeping up our friendship and closeness over the years since we see each other all the time.
You would think that being besties with three boys would be weird for a girl, but my young, juvenile heart basically fell in love with each of them as soon as they said hello to me. I was the princess and they were my princes. We played together, had camp outs in the backyard together, ran through the woods together. Our families often went on vacation together too.
Every part of my growing up is imprinted with memories of them. As the years went by, however, my feelings for each of them changed and morphed into something bigger. Something monumental. I’m still struggling with the choices I made.
Like I said, it’s complicated.
Mr. Carmichael clears his throat which signals that class will now begin. I quickly glance around me at all three of the boys. Jayson and Julien tower at six feet tall with their metallic-gray eyes and dark brown hair. Jayson’s hair is slightly longer and curls around his ears and against his neck, while Julien keeps his shorter and has a little bit of a mohawk going on with his spiky bangs. I always think of them as my moonshine because of their silver-colored eyes. Ryder is my sunshine with his amber eyes speckled with yellow and green. He is about an inch shorter than the twins and has almost black hair cut short on the sides and longer at the top. I am the fairy starlight in our universe. I have platinum blond wavy hair that reaches past my shoulders and am tall for a girl at five foot eight inches.
We just started our tenth grade year and we're already talking about what colleges we want to apply to when we become seniors. We spent a lot of evenings over the summer talking and finally decided that we would all apply to Carolina University. These boys are my family just like I am part of theirs, and we want to stay together and experience college life together, just like we have experienced everything else together growing up. Ryder could care less about going to college but is going to do it with us anyway. He knows his future is secure since he plans to join his dad, Randy, at the garage. His dad owns Randy's Custom Auto and we spend almost as much time there as we do at own homes.
I think about what will happen to my sister when I leave for college. She is a year younger than us and in ninth grade, but we have always included her in everything we do. That’s changed recently. Hailey has been distancing herself from me and her best friend Brea. She stays out all night and then sneaks back inside when she thinks everyone is sleeping. Rumor is she has a secret boyfriend who has taken up most of her time, but if so, she doesn’t talk about him. I’m pretty sure I've heard her crying in the bathroom in the middle of the night. I saw bruises on her hip the other morning which she brushed off with a lame excuse. She's always making excuses when I try to talk to her. I want to believe Hailey when she tells me everything is fine.
We used to be so close. She was the person I would go to first to tell my secrets. Since I was surrounded by boys, she was my girlie time. We did each other’s hair and make-up. We painted e
ach other’s toes. We would sneak into each other’s rooms at night to snuggle close and Hailey would read me the poems she wrote. She has such beautiful thoughts. Her poetry is magical, the way she weaves words into pictures that sound like music. I miss those times. I miss Hailey.
A hand on my arm breaks me from my thoughts. Jayson’s eyebrows draw together as he looks at me.
“Hey. You okay?” He must think I'm still upset about the text from Jacinda.
Noticing most of the other students are gone and several are shuffling out the door, I realize that first period has ended and I missed most of it. Luckily, I can swipe notes from Jayson, Julien, or Ryder later at lunch. I know they’ll catch me up on what I missed.
“Yeah, sorry. I was actually thinking about Hailey. She skipped out this morning.”
Ryder takes my book and notebook from my desk, shoves everything into my bag, and picks it up to sling it over his shoulder. Julien steps next to him and we all head out of the class.
“What’s Hailey’s problem lately anyway?” Ryder asks, leading us toward my locker so I can get the stuff I need for my next class.
One of them always walks me to my classes. I engineered it that way to for my own protection. That’s another long story.
I shrug my shoulders at Ryder to answer his question with and take my bag from him. Julien leans against the locker next to mine while Jayson and Ryder stand behind me. Someone skips up to Julien and grabs his arm.
“Julien, hi.”
I exhale an aggravated huff when I hear her voice. Freakin’ Samantha Winters. She’s just as bad as Jacinda. They’re best friends.
Samantha and Jacinda are the two head cheerleaders here at school and they have been after Jayson, Julien, and Ryder’s attention since grade school. Jayson and Julien always have girls chasing after them, especially since they’re head jocks for their sports. Jayson is the youngest captain of the varsity swim team, and Julien is a co-captain for the soccer team. Even though Ryder doesn't do school athletics, he has his own fanbase of girls vying for his attention. Ryder is like the bad boy of the group, even though he’s really the sweetest person in the world. Since his family owns and runs a custom auto shop, he grew up working on cars and motorcycles. He used to race his motorbike, but as soon as he turned sixteen, he started racing his custom ‘15 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat in the Fields which is our town’s version of street racing out in the sticks. Mr. Jacoby, a local farmer, owns a lot of property and allows the kids in town to use an abandoned field to race. The sheriff’s department knows about it and allows them to do it as long as no one gets hurt and it keeps street racing off the town’s roads. Except for what happened last night, it’s been so far, so good.