Table of Contents
No Regrets
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Secrets
Thousand Dollar Bet
Love Tantrum
Unsteady
Blurry Words
Some Kind of Normal
Losing Control
It’s About Time
Fallen Angel
Mine
Saying Nothing
Locked out
Numbing the Pain
Too Late
My Father’s Wise Words
Breathless
Facing Facts
Defending Territories
Drifted Bond
Moving On
Me, Without You
Broken Heart
Broken Promises
Fading Away
Mother’s Always Know Best
Facing Demons
Unwanted guest
Acknowledgements
About the author
No Regrets
by
Aimee Noalane
No Regrets book 1 Copyright © 2016 Aimee Noalane
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author of this book, except in the case of
brief quotation embodied in critical reviews.
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 fictitiously manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
The author acknowledges the trademarked / licensed status and trademark / license owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication / use of these trademarks / license is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark / license owners.
Cover image copyright © Aleshyn_Andrei
Used under license from Shutterstock.com
Cover design by Schmist’s Author Services
Formatting CP Smith
EBook ISBN: 978-0-9953482-0-2
Dedication
I dedicate this book to my beautiful children.
Always remember that your past does not define who you are;
it’s the events that you learn from that make you grow into the best person you can be.
Prologue
Abbygail
“Mom kicked me out again,” I said, crossing the street to join my friend on the steps of his front porch.
“Why? What did you do now?”
I raised my shoulders. “I don’t know. She’s been super pissed at everything I say for the past five days.”
We were about to celebrate my eighth birthday. It was supposed to be a nice day where all of my friends came over, but then Simon called at the beginning of the week and cancelled on us again. It was the same thing every year. There was always a reason for him not to show up. I guess I got over the deception after a while, learning how not to be deceived by him, or his lies; my mother, not so much.
“Abbygail?” he whispered noticing the tears rolling down my cheek. “Why are you crying?”
I looked up to his worried dark eyes. “Because I don’t have a dad.”
“Of course you have a dad. Everyone has one. It’s the only way to make babies.”
I snorted as I looked at him sitting beside me. He might have been four months younger than I was, but he was already way taller than me. He had dark hair like mine, and deep chestnut eyes, which were so different from my blue ones. He said my eyes changed color depending on my mood: some days they were crystal blue, and other days they were ocean blue. My mother always said I had my father’s eyes. I always wondered if she thought it was a good thing or not because every time she spoke about him, it was in a negative way.
“That’s not what I mean, Ol. I mean that Simon never comes to see me. It’s like he doesn’t want to be my dad anymore.”
“Well, if you ask me, your dad’s a jerk. I’m going to ask my dad if he can be your dad too.”
I smiled thankful that I had a friend like him in my life. I loved Henry, Oliver’s dad, he always took care of me in ways my own father never did.
“Here,” he said pulling a flower blossom from behind his back. He placed it delicately inside the palm of my hand I had stretched out for him. “I took it from my mother’s plant inside the house. It reminded me of your eyes.”
“What is it?” I asked as I paid attention to the various shades of deep blue ridges that covered the beautiful white blossom.
“A flower.”
“Duh! I mean what’s it called?”
“I think, it’s an orchid. “
“An orchid?” I laughed.
“That’s what I heard my dad calling it when he gave it to my mom.”
“Well, it sounds like a pretty weird name for a flower to me. You must have heard him wrong.”
He shrugged.
“It’s really pretty, though.”
“It is. Just like you.” he admitted with a shy smile.
“Eww!”
“What?”
“Don’t tell me I’m pretty.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. It’s just weird.”
He rolled his eyes. “Fine then. I think you’re super ugly.”
“Hey!”
“What now?”
“Well, you can’t tell a girl she’s super ugly, especially not on her birthday.” I pouted. “It’s kind of mean.”
“But you just –”
“There is such a thing as an ‘in between’, you know.”
He didn’t answer. He just huffed as if he was the most annoyed seven-year-old guy on the planet.
“Maybe that’s why I don’t have a dad. Maybe he thinks I’m too ugly and so mean that I’m not worth his time anymore.” I started to cry all over again.
Oliver put his arms around me, soothing my tears as best as he could. “Abby, you are the nicest girl I know. You are the best friend I ever had, and I swear I will never leave you. I promise that I will never hurt you.”
I looked up to his deep chestnut eyes. They were filled with friendship and promises. I couldn’t help but believe him, and from that day forward, I knew that Oliver Langton and I would always be together.
Secrets
Nine years later
Oliver
“Abbygail.”
“What?” She didn’t even look up from her floating air mattress, but I noticed her innocent smirk.
It was the end of August, and the sun was setting. Unfortunately, in Carrington, when summer ended, it was warm and humid during the day, but as soon as the sun went down, so did the temperature. With my incessant begging, I managed to convince Abby to join me in the pool after dinner. The pink bikini she wore barely covered anything, and she had already complained at least twice that she was freezing. I could see the goosebumps clearly on her skin. In her defense, though, she was right. Even I was starting to get cold. But the thing was I was enjoying our time alone. School was about to start, and that meant having to share my best friend with everyone else all over again.
“Abbygail.” I growled. “Could you please stop ignoring my questions?”
“I’m not ignoring your questions, Oliver. I choose not to answer them. There’s a huge difference.”
I shook my head at my best friend’s comment with a slight grin. She always found a way to play with words in order to be right.
“Maybe it is time for us to go back to school after all.”
“Why?”
“Because I think you’re having trouble with your vocabulary,” I mocked. “Ignoring and choosing not to answer means the same thing, Abs.”
I leaned in and rested my arms and head on the side of her stomach letting the cool pool water touch her skin.
“It does not,” she gasped. “Shit, that’s cold.”
“It wouldn’t be as cold if you’d just come in with me.”
“I’m not coming in. I already told you: the water’s freezing.”
She was trying to maintain a certain level of dryness on the pool float she was laying on, but what she didn’t know was how fast she’d find herself at the bottom of the pool if she wouldn’t give up the information I inquired.
“I’m still waiting, you know.”
“You can wait as much as you want, Oliver. I’m not going to answer you.”
“Fine then!” I flipped the mattress, and before she had any time to react, her head was submerged in water.
I heard her scream through the air bubbles and laughed.
“What the hell was that for?” she whined when she resurfaced.
“I asked you a question.”
“And you think I’m going to answer you now? I swear you have to be the most irritating friend on earth.”
“Best friend!” I corrected and she stuck out her tongue making me smile.
Summer evenings where I could spend some alone time with Abby were the ones I preferred the most. When I came back from football practice that afternoon, my parents were at Abby’s house preparing dinner with my Aunt Jenna, Abby’s mother.
She and my mom had been paired up as roommates when they started university. Their friendship was so strong that they acted more like sisters than best friends. Jenna once told us that even after my mother left to work in British Colombia, they managed to keep their friendship as strong as if they still lived in the same dorm room.
My parents met while working at the same research facility. A few months after their wedding, my grandmother on my mother’s side got very ill, and since Aunt Hailey, my mom’s sister, couldn’t handle the care on her own anymore, my parents decided to move closer to home and help out with her needs. Unfortunately she passed away after catching a virus her system was unable to recover from. Not long after her mother’s passing, my mom found out she was pregnant, and their house became our home. I was born four months after Abby.
Jenna had always been a constant part of my life, which is why I called her my aunt. She was my mother’s best friend, and to me, she was family.
“Why do you even care anyway?” she asked trying to reach out for her pool float I hid behind me.
I don’t care…I’m jealous!
She glared at me with her piercing blue eyes, and I smiled, proud of myself. I would always get a kick out of getting under her skin. Her attempt at pretending to be mad at me was always entertaining. I had known Abbygail my whole life, and if I wanted to know how she truly felt, I studied her eyes. It always amazed me how their intensity changed with her mood. When she was mad, they were gray. They’d turn crystal blue if she was sad. Whenever she was happy, they were ocean blue. Or at least I thought it was when she was happy…
“I don’t care. I just want to know who the mystery guy is. Who knows? Maybe I can help you set up a date.”
She rolled her eyes at me. “Forget it. I don’t need your help with this.
“Is it Stephan?” I just couldn’t help asking. It had been bugging me for a few weeks how they had gotten closer over the summer.
She grimaced.
“Then tell me. I don’t get it. Don’t you trust me?”
“This has nothing to do with trust, Oliver. The fact that you overheard a private conversation between Kylie and me does not entitle you to all of my secrets.”
“But I’m your best friend. Best friends confide in each other, and news flash, Abbygail, I do know all of your secrets.”
“Well, apparently not all of them.” she smiled evilly. She tried to swim away, and by the time I reached her, she had already started to climb the stairs. “I’m cold and I’m getting out. We’re done with this conversation, Oliver.”
Like hell we are…
“Abby wait!”
I reached out and circled her body with my arms, dragging her back down into the pool with me. She laughed as she kept trying to find a way to put my head under water.
“Okay guys, it’s getting late.”
At the sound of my mother’s voice, Abby’s attention shifted for a fraction of a second and before realizing it, she found herself back under water.
“Oliver!” she shrieked. By the time she reached the steps, I was already long gone with both of our towels and laughing my head off. “Oliver Langton, give me my towel!”
“You want it, come and get it,” I hollered as I ran to hide under the willow tree.
“Uncle Henry?” Abby complained to my father.
I rolled my eyes. She had the worst habit of sucking up to him and making me look bad in the process.
“Yes, sweetie?”
“Your son is being a pain in the ass again. He just left with my towel,” she whined.
“Hey, Monkey Butt, give Abbygail her towel,” my dad disciplined.
I groaned. Abby joined me on the other side of the tree and snorted at my irritated face. My evil stare dared her to mock me again to which she simply responded with a satisfied grin. The nickname had to be the worst one ever, and it was all her fault.
When we were twelve years old my parents took Abby and me on a summer vacation. On one of the days we were at the beach, I had somehow forgotten to put some sunscreen on my face. By the end of the day I looked like an overcooked lobster.
Anyway, the next day we visited the Toronto Zoo and passed by the macaque monkeys. As soon as Abby saw the color of their butts, she exploded into laughter and compared my face to their ugly asses. My dad, who was not too far ahead of us, picked up on my aggravation towards my best friend. For some reason, he thought it would be funny to add fuel to my anger, and went on telling me to get over it and stop acting like a monkey’s butt. Unfortunately for me, the nickname stuck.
“Really, Abby?” I grumbled loudly. “That’s a low I would never have expected from you.”
“Yeah, well, I’m fucking cold, Oliver.”
“Abbygail, don’t swear,” her mother disciplined. “I’m expecting a dollar in the swear jar, young lady.”
My best friend shot me a dirty look as she joined me under the tree. “This is your fault, you know.”
“What’s my fault?”
“I’m a dollar poorer because of you.”
“Don’t blame your swearing on me. I don’t control your mouth.”
Oh but I wish I did…
“Yeah, sweetheart, it’s not pretty for a beautiful young girl like you to swear like you do.” my mother encouraged.
“Sorry Aunt Evelynn!”
“God! You’re such a suck up.”
“I am not,” she replied. “You’re just jealous that she likes me better than she likes you.”
I rolled my eyes. “So about that guy –”
“Drop it, Oliver.”
“Monkey Butt,” my dad called a second time. “Let’s go!”
Abby eyed the towel around my hips and then the one I was holding in my hands.
“Yeah, Monkey Butt,” she mocked. “It’s getting late. Besides, I need to get ready too. You know; beauty sleep and all.”
“Why? Who do you need to impress?” I asked as I wrapped her pink towel over her shoulders. My jealousy had finally won over my sense of reason. I looked at her beautiful face, and without thinking through all the possible consequences of my stupidity, I put my lips to hers. They were soft and sweet, exactly how I’d imagined she would taste. She was perfect.
I pulled away before she had any time to react. Pushing away the branches of the willow tree in order to clear myself a passage, I turned around to look at her. With the ti
p of her fingers on her lips, she looked stunned. I smiled. There wasn’t much I could do to render Abbygail Evens speechless, but that definitely did the trick.
I tried to see her eyes; the need to know how she felt was overwhelming. Unfortunately, it was getting dark, and I couldn’t tell what shade of blue I was looking at.
“’Night, Beautiful.” I said, drawing back her focus to me.
She shifted her attention from her daze and regarded me with what seemed like a thousand questions. Instead of answering any of them, I gave her my most charming grin and winked.
Abbygail
Um…
“Abbygail?”
Um… Wait. Did he just wink?
“Abbygail,” my mother called a second time.
Ugh... I really needed some quiet time to think.
“What?”
“Aren’t you going to say goodnight?”
“Oliver and I already said goodnight, Mom.”
“We did not,” he replied.
“Shut up, Oliver!”
“Abbygail don’t be mean. And I was talking about you saying goodnight to Evelynn and Henry.”
I winced. Of course, she did. I didn’t want to walk over there. If Oliver saw my face, then he’d find out how his kissing me was affecting my mental state. The problem was, not only did I not mind kissing Oliver, but I wanted to kiss him. He, on the other hand, had been doing everything to provoke me for weeks, pushing my buttons repeatedly until I lashed out at him.
Oliver Langton was the one stable point of my life. He was my rock. We were neighbors, we went to the same school, we were in the same grade, we shared the same group of friends and we liked the same activities. Well, sort of.
He played football; not my thing. I hated team sports or anything that involved a ball. He skateboarded: it was his passion, which was again not my thing, but he and I would spend way too many hours at the skate park two blocks down from our houses. I mostly used that time to admire him from the bleachers while he showed off. Life had deprived me of the coordination I needed to even try to ride a board, and it wasn’t from lack of effort. I couldn’t count the number of times Oliver had convinced me to let him teach me. He still did that summer, until I sprained my ankle and told him that if he made me do it again I wouldn’t talk to him for a month. The concept was absolutely ridiculous; I couldn’t even go five hours without talking to my best friend, but he took the threat seriously and hadn’t bugged me about it for the remainder of the summer.
No Regrets (No Regrets #1) Page 1