Upside Down
Page 24
“Riiight, because living with a guy automatically translates into marriage and babies these days. Guys, I’m moving to Australia, not the 1950s.”
My friends swap suspicious expressions. After we broke up, Bran flew to California in early July and begged for a second chance. I accepted and the subsequent week devolved into wild beach sex and mad plotting for our future. Beth and Sunny only caught glimpses of the guy who’d wrecking-balled my heart. They remain guarded, like two mother lionesses.
An adorable act if they weren’t so annoying.
“Come on, living with a guy is a normal next step.”
“Nothing about the Bran Situation is remotely normal,” Sunny mutters.
Beth nods in rare agreement.
“I’ve always wanted to travel, haven’t I?” I stuff the stupid apron into my duffel bag.
“This is hardly the Peace Corps.” Beth throws my old dream in my face. The one I had before Pippa’s accident, before my brains decided to double down on the crazy.
“Forget it.” Sunny jumps to my defense and tosses a loose blond wave over one shoulder. “Who says we need to be sane? I need to get a grip, still can’t believe you’re leaving.”
I force a smile. “You guys have so much going on you won’t even notice I’m gone.”
Beth’s lined up a PR internship over the hill in Silicon Valley, and post-graduation Sunny is…well, the usual Sunny—cashiering at a natural food store, never finishing her graphic novels, and hunting down her next conquest like a top predator on the African savannah. I hope my smile overrules the fizzy nervousness in my belly. “Don’t forget, my visa is only for four months.”
“So you keep saying.” Beth hasn’t dropped the concerned frown. “What comes after? Have you worked out a plan?”
“No, not exactly.” I roll my shoulders. If there’s one thing I hate in life, it’s uncertainty. “Bran says we’ll figure things out once I’m there. We have until December thirty-first to wrangle a solution.”
The drop-dead date.
“And what, he’s some sort of immigration wizard?” Typical Beth, pushing to ensure every i is dotted, t crossed.
“Play nice.” I sling my arm around her, getting perverse satisfaction from knuckle mussing her perfectly straightened hair. “He’s nervous enough that I might get cold feet and reconsider coming.”
“Oh, you’ll be coming, friend. Won’t she, Bethanny?” Sunny can’t resist the opportunity to tickle our girl.
“Get fucked, bitches.” Beth squeals, breaking free. She’s a gym rat, way stronger than she looks. “What are you guys, five-year-olds?”
“Don’t be a poop.”
Sunny’s pouty descriptor rips startled laughter from my chest.
Beth is almost freakishly beautiful. She rocks her lululemon yoga wear better than a movie starlet. And right now she’s not amused. “Sunny Letman, we’ve known each other since we were, what, zygotes?”
“At least embryos.” I toss in my two cents through a giggle. We’ve been pals since our mothers introduced us in nursery co-op. Sunny and I drew the short straws, mothers who failed their daughters. Mine is lost in a fog of tropical denial while Sunny’s mom shacks in a Nevada desert bunker with a wackadoo prepper awaiting Armageddon.
“Maybe it’s time to grow up.” Beth can front prim all she wants. But underneath that perfect ice queen exterior, she’s a weirdo too.
“Her, first.” I slap Sunny’s butt.
Her response is an awkward twerk that cracks us all up.
I’m going to miss these two.
“Anyhoo.” Sunny folds her arms and leans against the banister. “Can I please point out that you’re committing a drastic error?”
Seriously?
“Call off the attack dogs, okay?” I say. “You guys really don’t know him.”
“Whoa, settle down, Miss Defensive. I’m talking about you bailing before October. The best time of year.”
“Our time,” Beth adds.
“Hmmm. You have a point.” October is fantastic in Santa Cruz. The tourists vanish and each morning we wake to perfect bluebird skies, followed by afternoons warm enough for bikinis. The gloomy fog-locked summer retreats into a distant memory as the entire town descends to the beaches, surf breaks, and bike paths, reveling in the coastal goodness. “Still not enough to change my mind.”
I love my girls but Bran is the only person with whom I’ve ever fully been myself. He noticed my OCD symptoms after five minutes and didn’t laugh or run away screaming. Sunny and Beth might be my two best friends but even they don’t know the real reason I didn’t graduate on time. How my rituals and health anxiety spiraled so far out of control that I was placed on academic probation. Even now, I can’t bring myself to tell them the truth. The awful facts are beyond embarrassing. Easier they accepted my simple explanation that I “messed up.” I mean, who challenges the dead girl’s sister?
Bran’s the only one who doesn’t tiptoe on eggshells. He treats me like I’ve got strength, makes me believe I can face life.
Beth checks her phone. “Hey, we need to jet.”
“That’s all you’re bringing?” Sunny points to my backpack and duffel bag.
“Yeah.”
“Shut your face. Two bags?” She’s a notorious pack rat, hovering on needing a hoarder intervention. Last week, I unearthed third-grade spelling tests from under her bed.
“I decided to pack Zen, practice unattachment.”
“Uh-huh.” Beth’s not having it.
“Do I sound like my mom?”
“A little.”
I cave. “Truth? Extra bag charges are a rip.”
“Aha, there’s the tight-ass girl I know.” Sunny grabs my backpack.
“And love.” Beth lifts the duffel.
“Oh wait.” I grab a small moleskin from the stairs and unzip my backpack’s top zipper, stowing the journal. The pages chronicle random happenings, unusual incidents, and amusing stories from while Bran and I were apart. Things I forgot to mention during our messenger chats or phone calls. I miss his voice, that surly accent, whispering to me in the dark. My nightly record-keeping allowed me to play make-believe, pretend Bran nestled on the pillow beside me. The ritual became a precaution against the what-ifs slithering around the edge of my thoughts, ever vigilant, waiting for an opportunity to strike.
What if Bran meets someone else?
What if I say something so stupid he has no choice but to accept I’m an idiot?
What if he decides I’m a freak?
What-ifs are so routine in my world that I’m able to ignore them—mostly.
Evil thoughts can go suck it.
My friends head out the front door and I need to follow suit.
“Are you okay to lock up?” I call to the Realtor.
“That’s my job.” Somewhere a tooth-whitening ad wants its smarmy smile back.
“Lucky you,” I mutter under my breath while stomping down the front steps.
I shouldn’t turn around. Or look at the dormer window where Pippa and I shared a room for nearly two decades. But I do. And I can’t hold back the sudden tears.
Sunny pauses to rub my back, saying nothing. If she had her way, I’d cry every morning before breakfast. She thinks it’s good for my soul. I find the whole enterprise draining and messy but better than the alternative—becoming an emotionless robot that shuts out the good along with the bad.
I had a great last summer—more or less. Now Bran waits to catch me at the bottom of the world.
“Going anyplace fun?” The Realtor wipes his forehead, perving on Sunny and Beth as they toss my two bags into Sunny’s black Tacoma, the Batmobile. The gnarly old truck is a random vehicle choice for a fresh-faced blonde with a penchant for fairy tales.
Two pelicans crisscross overhead. In the distance, sea lions bark beneath the wharf, the site where I made the worst decision of my life.
Fuck clutching breadcrumbs.
Time to let go.
Embrace the art of getting lost.
The Realtor shifts his weight.
“Yeah,” I say after an overlong pause. “I’m going somewhere great.”
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Author’s Note
Epigraph
Chapter One: Talia
Chapter Two: Talia
Chapter Three: Talia
Chapter Four: Bran
Chapter Five: Talia
Chapter Six: Talia
Chapter Seven: Talia
Chapter Eight: Talia
Chapter Nine: Talia
Chapter Ten: Talia
Chapter Eleven: Talia
Chapter Twelve: Talia
Chapter Thirteen: Bran
Chapter Fourteen: Talia
Chapter Fifteen: Talia
Chapter Sixteen: Talia
Chapter Seventeen: Bran
Chapter Eighteen: Talia
Chapter Nineteen: Bran
Chapter Twenty: Talia
Chapter Twenty-One: Talia
Chapter Twenty-Two: Talia
Chapter Twenty-Three: Talia
Chapter Twenty-Four: Bran
Chapter Twenty-Five: Talia
Chapter Twenty-Six: Bran
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Talia
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Talia
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Talia
Chapter Thirty: Talia
Chapter Thirty-One: Bran
Chapter Thirty-Two: Talia
About the Author
A Preview of Sideswiped
Newsletters
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Lia Riley
Excerpt from Sideswiped copyright © 2014 by Lia Riley
Cover design by Elizabeth Turner
Cover photography by Ali Smith
Cover copyright © 2014 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
“who are you,little i”. Copyright © 1963, 1991 by the Trustees for the E. E. Cummings Trust, from COMPLETE POEMS: 1904–1962 by E. E. Cummings, edited by George J. Firmage. Used by permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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ISBN 978-1-4555-8571-7
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