by Jill Patten
Copyright © 2016 Jill Patten
All rights Reserved.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system whatsoever without written permission of the author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover Designer: Hang Le
Editing: Lawrence Editing
Formatting: Max Effect
Photography: Travis Lane
Cover Model: Drew Leighty
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
To my dad, Jesse James Pedrero. Words will never express how much I miss you. Thank you for passing on your love of reading to me.
I can’t breathe. My heart races and it’s not because the hottest boy on campus’s lips are currently fused with mine.
“Stop.” I push him back and the smirk that usually makes my heart melt appears.
“What’s wrong?”
“I can’t breathe,” I say breathlessly.
His grin widens. “I know. That’s what they all say, baby.”
The cocky smile returns, and he leans in to kiss me. But something isn’t right. I can’t catch my breath.
I hold out a hand to stop him as my vision tunnels.
From a far-off place, I hear his voice change as he says my name.
When I blink my eyes, I’m no longer in a car on a hot Friday night. Everything is white, and for a second I wonder if I’ve died and this is Heaven.
“Phoebe,” I hear my mom’s voice.
The sounds of beeping and my dad’s voice resonate in my ears.
My heavy eyelids fight against me as I try to open them.
“Marvin, are you listening to me? She’s waking up.” My mother’s voice hovers over me. “Phoebe, can you hear me?”
My head bobs up and down. Or at least I think it does.
“Marvin, she can hear us!” Relief and excitement burst from my mother as she takes my hand in hers and rubs it soothingly like she used to when I was sick with a fever.
Blinking my eyes to regain focus, my vision becomes clear and it’s then when I notice I’m lying in a hospital room. Searching into the depths of my mind, I try to remember what happened to cause me to be here.
On a date…kissing…struggling to breathe…nothing. That’s as far as my memory goes.
“Wh—what happened?” My throat is dry, and I reach for the cup of water sitting on the tray beside my bed.
Mom picks it up before I’m able to grab it and holds it in front of me, aiming the straw to my lips. I take in several large gulps as Mom answers my question. “That boy you were with rushed you here when you passed out. Poor guy, I think you scared him senseless. When he called me from your phone in a panic, I instructed him to bring you to the emergency room and I would meet him here.” When Mom sees I’ve quenched my thirst, she sets the nearly empty cup back on the tray. “As soon as I got here he left right after, explaining to me that he didn’t know what was wrong other than you said you couldn’t breathe, and then fainted.”
Nodding, I say, “That sounds about right. I don’t remember anything else.”
“Now that you’re awake, the doctors will want to run some tests on you. They’re still unsure what caused you to pass out.”
About that time a nurse who doesn’t look much older than me walks in, and her eyes widen when she sees I’m awake. “Hi, Phoebe, how are you feeling?”
“Actually, I feel fine.” And I do.
A gray-headed man whom I assume is the doctor steps in with a smile on his face. “Hello, Phoebe, we’re glad to see you’re awake.” He sticks his hand out to shake mine. “My name is Dr. Roberts. How are you feeling?” Too bad he didn’t walk in five seconds earlier. I answer him the same as I did the nurse.
He presses a cool stethoscope to my chest, and it’s not until then that I notice I have one of those red-glowing gadget thingies on the end of my finger.
Dr. Roberts asks me to lean forward and then begins listening to the deep breaths he instructs me to take. He continues moving the stethoscope over various places on my back and repeatedly asks me to inhale then exhale. My worried eyes shoot to my mother’s when I realize this isn’t the normal check-up I’m used to.
He speaks some sort of medical lingo I don’t understand to the nurse then focuses his attention on me. “Your airways sound obstructed, so I’d like to set you up for a CT scan. This way we’ll have a better idea of what’s going on inside those lungs of yours.”
“Do you have any idea what could be wrong?” my mom asks with an anxious voice.
He shakes his head. “No, ma’am, I don’t. There’s a variety of conditions to consider. But once we’re able to get a clear view, it’ll be easier to narrow it down.”
“Conditions? Are we looking at something that could be life-threatening?” Mom’s desperation to know more than what the doctor is telling puts me in panic mode. Is she reading between the lines? Does she sense something I don’t?
Dr. Roberts pats his hand at still air as he tries to calm my mom. “Let’s not jump to conclusions, Mrs. McCormick. There’s a wide range of ailments—from asthma to something more severe.”
My mind immediately goes to the unspoken word everyone hates to hear—cancer.
“We’ll have your scan set up here shortly, and after I’m able to see what’s going on inside, we’ll go from there.” He gently pats my knee a couple of times before turning to walk out. “Try not to worry, Phoebe,” he says lastly before I can no longer see him.
My eyes shoot to my mother’s, and she looks at me solemnly. “It’s cancer, isn’t it?” I ask with tears threatening to show themselves.
“Don’t you start that nonsense, Phoebe,” my dad says sternly. “We’re not going to sit here and play the ‘what if’ game and jump to conclusions. Your body has been through enough. There’s no need to add unnecessary stress to it.”
I know he’s right, but he’s not the one sitting here. It’s different when it’s your own body you’re talking about.
Not much later I’m taken to radiology for my scan, and after that so much happens so quickly in the next several hours that my neck feels as if it’s suffered whiplash.
My throat is sore from the bronchoscopy, and all three of us are impatiently waiting for more results. The scan shows scarring in my lungs, but other than that we don’t know yet what the cause might be or what exactly it is. All I know is the shortness of breath I’ve been experiencing for a while is an actual problem and not something I conjured in my head. Now I’m kicking myself for not telling Mom about it sooner.
Dr. Roberts walks in inhaling deeply then exhaling loudly through his hairy nostrils. He’s trying to give us an award-winning smile, but I can see the force behind it. He starts talking, but my hearing weakens as if I’m in a barrel and all I hear is “you have pulmonary fibrosis…there is no cure…only a life expectancy of five years…”
BLUE
The serene ocean speaks to me as the brine washes over my deeply tanned skin. Looking out as far as my corrected vision will allow, I watch the sun peek out over the horizon as layers of orange and yellow kiss the blue sky good morning.
Straddling my board, I sit idle in the water as I wait for the next ideal wave. When it arrives, I feel the freedom that only comes to me out here in the ocean.
“So what’s your quota for this week?” Thad asks after shaking his head back and forth, slinging drops of water from his shaggy brown hair. We just swam back from catching the gnarliest wave that resulted in a total wipeout for us both.
“Huh?” My mind is preoccupied with what I know I have to do today, so of course my thoughts immediately assume Thad knows my plans.
My eyebrows are already stitched together as the morning sun peeks out over the horizon, causing a blinding glare across the water, so my quizzical look goes unnoticed. “Quota for what?”
Thad chuckles. “Seriously? I have to spell it out for you?” He shakes his head. “Women…pussy…spring break hook-ups…need I say more?”
Laughing, I scoop my hand into the salty waters and splash him. “That’s a stupid-ass question. At least one a night, dude, if not two.”
He nods, probably already knowing what I would say.
“I guess other than work this’ll be the last time we’ll be hanging out until the week is over, huh?”
“Sorry, dude, it’s protocol.” Looking over at Thad, I close one eye to block the sun. “You should try it sometime.”
“Nope.” He shakes his head. “I like my life just the way it is.” Staring off far at the ocean until it drops from an eye’s view, Thad pauses in thought. “I’m going to propose to her soon.”
My eyes bug out. That’s the last thing I expect to hear him say. “Damn, Thad, Rachel’s got you pussy-whipped worse than I thought.”
Thad laughs. “It’s not pussy-whipped, it’s called love. You’ll eventually fuck the one-night stands out of your system and finally open your eyes to what I’m talking about. And then I’ll slap you with a dose of ‘I told you so’.”
“Pfffttt, fuck that shit! I’m too young to settle down and so are you. There’s not a single girl alive who will ever have me falling to my knees. I don’t have the time or the money to waste on one, and I’ve seen the kind of marriage my parents have.” Chills run down my spine as I spend five seconds thinking about the two pathetic people who gave me life. One is a power-hungry prick and the other is a meek little woman who takes orders from her worst half. “Yeah, that life’s not for me. That’s for damn sure.”
Thad chews on the inside of his cheek and nods. “Keep telling yourself that, bruh.”
Till this day it’s still hard for me to look at Thad as my boss man. We’ve been friends since grade school, but it wasn’t until we started surfing together that we formed a solid friendship. We both swore we were going to become professional surfers when we got older. Funny how those childhood dreams turn into anything but. After Thad’s father died, Thad and his mom were left to take care of the small family business. That’s when I came in and started working for him at the Surf Shack. The pay isn’t much, but at least the job comes with a roof over my head and a bed to sleep in.
Our legs dangle off each side of our boards while we glide over swell after swell. Sometimes we get so caught up in talking about our daily bullshit that we barely ride any waves.
“So what are your plans for the day?” Thad asks. “Rachel is going to a bridal shower, and my mom has the shop covered, so I’m free to hang out.”
Shit! This is not good. He can’t screw my plans up. And he sure as hell can’t know what I’ll be doing. Think fast.
“Uh…um…I’ve…oh shit! We can’t do anything. I just realized I promised Molly I’d help her paint her bathroom.” God, I hope he buys it.
“Fuck that. Tell her something came up.”
“Dude, I can’t. I’ve already bailed on her twice. And I need her help too often for me to leave her high and dry again.” I drag my fingers through the water as we let another wave go to waste.
“Whatever. I’ll catch you at the shop or next week after you get your fill of random girls.” He lies down chest to board and starts to paddle hard to catch the nicely forming wave approaching us. Giving this one to my good buddy, I sit still, straddling my board as Thad skims across the water like a pro until he reaches shallow water. He drudges through the sand and shells until he reaches dry sand. Stopping to turn around, he throws a hand up at me then walks up the beach.
Thad and I barely have time to just chill together anymore, and I feel like a dick for feeding him a line of bullshit. I’ll have to figure out a way to make it up to him, but for now, I need to get my head on right. If I’m going to follow through with my plans then I need to clear my mind and focus.
Closing my eyes, I inhale and exhale the salty breeze several times before I get back in the zone.
“Ah, just you and I, my majesty,” I say, wading my fingers through her warm, silky body.
She splashes up against my mouth, and I lick her salty drops from my bottom lip.
“A beautiful day, a new start, and fresh meat arriving in”—I glance down at my watch—“oh, about two more hours. C’mon, baby, give me what I came for.”
As if Miss Gulf of Mexico hears me, she forms a swell I know will deliver a gnarly wave.
Flipping to my stomach, I paddle hard toward it as the swell grows larger. The perfect wave forms, and as soon as it begins to break, I’m up and ready to take her for a ride.
My feet plant firmly on the board, and I own the wave like she’s my own personal bitch. As I ride along the sheet of water, the wind greets me, and the sun welcomes me with open arms.
This. This is what it’s all about. Riding solo first thing in the morning is all the life I need. Fuck love. Fuck working. Fuck college. And fuck my parents. Put a beer in my hand, a beautiful girl by my side, and an ocean to play in…hell, I don’t need anything else.
Hours fly by and people start to crowd the beach. The water becomes contaminated with tourists and everywhere I look a new Barney is taking over my favorite spot.
Propping my board against the cinder block building of my home, I walk in, pull my wet trunks off, and sling them over my makeshift clothesline to dry. I throw on a peach pair of board shorts and a white tank, then throw a black T-shirt inside my backpack. I don’t bother with my hair or what I’m wearing. Women can take me or leave me, and generally I don’t have problems in that area.
I head to the ATM before my run to the children’s home to see one of the kids I’ve taken under my wing. I told him I would bring the money by to pay for the camp I promised he’d get to attend, since his drug addict mother keeps snorting up her weekly pay.
“Shit!” There’s gum stuck to the bottom of my shoe and it only adds to my aggravation.
Ripping the receipt from the ATM, I use it to pull the sticky gook from my rubber sole. The way I feel about the gum is the same way I feel about the dollar amount in my checking account—disgusted.
What the fuck? Then I remember my damn phone bill hit, leaving me shit out of luck.
Marcus is depending on me, and I can’t deliver. I promised him I’d never let him down and here I am eating my words. I can’t show up at the children’s home empty-handed. The people he cares about the most have failed him his entire life; I can’t follow their footsteps.
All morning I’ve been contemplating over the easy way I can get the money I need. All signs are pointing me in the direction to follow through. Only I promised Molly I would never do it again. But attending that camp means
everything to Marcus. And I’d never forgive myself if I were the reason for holding him back from his dreams.
There isn’t much time to think. I’m supposed to get there before Marcus goes home. I can’t let him down. I slide my backpack on, making my way through the side streets until I reach the airport.
Carefully, I avoid looking suspicious and swagger my way through the crowd to the baggage claim. That’s when I spot her—the careless, rich bitch with her friends. They’re all wearing designer clothes with their designer bags hanging off their arms. The blonde is teasing me with the way she’s waving her wallet around. She’s completely oblivious to the fact that I’m even watching her. She looks like the typical tourist.
She’s the perfect target.
PHOEBE
Let’s fly, they say.
It will be fun, they say.
It will be faster, they say.
Sure, bouncing around on a 757 in the middle of a thunderstorm is listed on my top five favorite things to do. This is not exactly the way I imagine myself dying.
My un-manicured nails dig into soft skin beside me.
“Ouch!” Tiffanny says behind gritted teeth. She pries my fingers from her leg, leaving half-moon indentions on her copper skin. Kristy, my best friend, who claims to be the leader of our trio, decided to fry our skin in a tanning bed before we go to Panama City Beach, Florida, for spring break. “It’s going to be fine. It’s just turbulence. We’re almost out of the storm.”
I nod, not believing a word she says.
“I’ve flown plenty of times and this is minor compared to what I’ve experienced before.”
We drop what feels like a thousand feet, again, and I reach for Tiffanny’s leg. Again. She stops me from disfiguring her thigh by offering me her hand instead. Like that’s any better. “I wouldn’t be on this flying death tube to start with if you guys had just driven like I suggested. In case you forgot, I don’t have nine lives,” I say, narrowing my eyes at her.
“And neither do we.” Tiffanny slides her hand out of mine and opts to hold on to mine instead. “You should feel more alive than ever before. This is your first time away from your parents in how long?”