by Kasie West
He gave a breathy laugh. “Another letter?”
“You haven’t gotten one in a while.”
He picked it up from where it had landed in front of him. “Not from you.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Someone else has been writing you letters?” When he didn’t say no right away, I gasped. “Wait. Your dad?”
His eyes snapped to mine and all the pain he’d been hiding since I’d arrived was burning there.
I lowered my voice. “Will you let me in, Cade? Please?”
He stepped forward and opened the gate. I rushed through and flung my arms around him.
“I was just about to read a letter,” he said, close to my ear. “You’re so clingy.”
I smiled. “Stop making jokes and let me be here for you.”
We sat on the patio overlooking the golf course. We each held a letter. I held one addressed to Cade from his dad, and he held the one I’d written earlier.
“I don’t have to read this,” I said again. “If it’s too personal.”
“I want you to. I need objective eyes on it.”
“Okay.” I took a breath, and opened the envelope.
I removed the single sheet of paper that was folded in thirds and carefully opened it. The handwriting looked hurried but I wasn’t familiar with his dad’s handwriting, so it could’ve been his best effort for all I knew.
Cade,
My son, good to hear from you. Life has been busy for both of us, I’m sure.
Already, it felt like his dad was diffusing the blame. I paused and moved one of my hands to Cade’s knee. He didn’t look up. His eyes were on the letter I had written. I continued to read.
A new job where I have to relearn an entire computer system is keeping my mind occupied and between that and family obligations, time seems to get away from me every day.
Ouch. As if Cade wasn’t one of those family obligations.
I’m sure you know how that goes seeing as how you’re basically a grown man already. How’s school? Baseball? Any prospects for college? I’ll have to see if I can get out your way sometime in the next year so we can catch up properly. In the meantime, I’m sure we can both be better about keeping each other updated. Love you.—Dad
I closed my eyes for a moment, then waited for Cade to be done reading my letter. When he was, he gave me a smile and a kiss.
“I needed this,” he told me.
I refolded his dad’s letter and shoved it in the envelope before I gave into the impulse to rip it to shreds.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, handing it back.
“No. Don’t be. He’s right. I could’ve tried harder.”
“Don’t give him permission to pass the blame to you.”
“What do I do?” Cade asked with a sigh.
“Either call him out or let him go.”
Cade pulled me over to his chair and buried his face in my neck. He held on tight to me. I wished I’d been here for him earlier, hadn’t pushed him away for so long. But I was here now and there was nothing wrong with needing someone else to hold on to.
“Did you pull me over here so we could make out?” I asked.
“Yes, I did.”
He kissed me and I kissed him back.
“I think I might call him out,” he said between kisses.
I smiled. “Can I be there for that?”
I walked into the kitchen to see Cade staring intently at two necklaces on the counter. My dad sat at the table pretending not to be interested.
“Dad, no.” I grabbed Cade’s hand and pulled him away.
“He’s an impartial third party,” my dad called after us.
Cade yelled back, “Sorry, Mr. Abbott, I’ve been abducted.”
“More like saved,” I said under my breath.
“Your parents are so funny.”
“Yes, they are.” I pushed open the door to my bedroom and picked up my guitar. “Now, I need your help. You are the lyricist for our band, right? I need to finish this song in two days and my inspiration has run out.”
Cade grinned. “I thought you said that I inspired you.”
“I’m counting on it. Now sit there where I can see your cute face and help me think of words.”
He sat in the chair, his gorgeous smile in place.
“Okay. Let’s get to work.”
One hour later I put down the guitar.
“You’re as bad as my sister,” I groaned. “Your lyrics aren’t any better in person than they were in letters.”
“That’s a good lyric: You’re no better in person than you were on paper.”
I laughed. “Just stop. Come on. I know you can help me for real here. I just need the chorus to flow better.”
My notebook sat next to me on the bed. I’d been using scratch paper to try to work out the song instead of writing down words only to cross them out in the book.
Cade leaned forward and picked up my notebook. “Can I look?”
My heart raced. I could do this. The worst had already happened. Sasha had read my lyrics to the entire school and people had actually liked them. Little did she know that her attempt to hurt me had actually ended up giving me a confidence boost. “Yes.”
Cade smiled, like he knew how hard that was for me. “Thank you.”
“No mocking me.”
“But I’m so good at that.”
“Oh and there’s a mean song in there about you. I was mad.”
He laughed and sat down on the floor, his back against Ashley’s bed across from me. “Of course there is.” He flipped through the pages as I continued to write. “Monsters in trees?”
I moved to the floor, sitting against my bed, letting my legs stretch out in front of me and intertwine with his. “I said no mocking.”
He chuckled and my breath caught at the sound. I watched him as he read, the line of his jaw relaxed, his hair flopped onto his forehead, his fingers poised to turn another page. And I started to write. My pencil flew across the paper beside me.
Words brought us together though they almost kept us apart.
You trusted me with your secrets and then you stole my heart.
They say that love is rare, like …
“What’s rare?” I asked.
“What?” His eyes lifted from the page and met mine.
“What are some things that are rare?”
“Meat?”
I laughed. “We’re more alike than you know.”
His gaze softened as he stared at me. “Love?”
I smiled and pressed my knee against his. “I already used love, I was trying to compare it to something else.” I tapped my pencil on the page, biting my lip.
His eyes went back to my notebook. “This is really good.”
“Which one?”
“You know which one. You need to use it for the competition.”
“I can’t, Cade. It’s yours.”
“It’s raw. It’s real. It’s perfect. Do you have music for it?”
I nodded, the melody immediately coming into my head.
“Will you play it for me?”
I blushed. “I don’t really perform. I just write. These words were always meant for someone else to perform them.”
“Will you play it for me?” he asked again.
I held my hand out for the notebook and he placed it there. “I actually have a second verse for it that’s not in here.” I pulled a page out of my nightstand drawer, immediately nervous to share.
“I won’t look at you if that will help,” Cade said as though reading my mind.
I pulled my guitar off the bed. “Yes. That will help.”
But when I started to play, I couldn’t help but look at him and when his gaze found mine, it only proved to calm me. I sang the lyrics by heart.
“I’ve turned waiting into a form of art
Tied twisted lines around my broken heart
To keep me hanging on for one more day
I’ve painted on a crooked smile
Hung the
tears to dry awhile
Because I knew that you’d come back to stay
But my … arms are empty
And my … heart’s in pieces
And my … soul is twisting
And my … throat is aching
Because I’ve finally woken up to find:
That I’ve been Left Behind.”
As I started in on the second verse, my emotions closed my throat a little, making my voice husky.
“I’m done with this waiting game
My heart may never be the same
But it’s time to live my life and move on.
This may have made me stronger now.
Even though I’m not quite sure how
I think it may be good that you are gone.
So my … arms are reaching
And my … heart is healing
And my … soul is hoping
And my … throat is screaming
Because I’ve finally woken up to find:
I can’t be Left Behind.”
I transitioned into the bridge, his soft stare encouraging me.
“I needed you. I wanted you. I tried to please you, but that’s no way to live. It’s all up to me now, and if I see you again soon, maybe you’ll stay … ”
I stopped playing, letting silence hang for a moment before singing the end.
“Now my … arms are stronger
And my … heart is beating
And my … soul is soaring
And my … throat is speaking
Because I’ve finally woken up to find:
I won’t be Left Behind.”
The last notes rang in the air for a moment before everything went still. My throat closed up even more now, with nerves.
Cade still hadn’t looked away, but his playful glimmer had come into his eyes. “I think I love you.”
My heart soared. “We—we need to save important admissions like that for letters,” I stammered.
“Or songs.”
“Yes, that would be good in a song.”
“I’ll write that one,” he said. “It’ll be a good one.”
I laughed.
“No, but seriously. Who told you that you weren’t meant to perform? You are amazing.”
My cheeks went red.
“And that song, Lily. Please enter it. It is perfect. Will you enter the song in the contest?”
I took a deep breath. Before I could answer him, though, Jonah burst into the room.
“Wyatt stole my tooth fairy money!” he cried.
“I did not!” Wyatt said, running in after him. “He lost it.”
Ashley appeared then. “Can I come in my own bedroom yet?”
I smiled at Cade in the chaos.
“Will you enter the contest?” he mouthed at me through the noise.
I nodded. I would. I couldn’t wait. It didn’t even matter if my song won, just knowing that I could, I would, was a huge step for me.
And then I mouthed, “I think I love you too.”
You’d think this would get easier the more books you have out, but in my opinion, it actually gets harder. Maybe because now I recognize more fully just how many people have helped me along this journey. Maybe because the further I get the more and more people there are involved in this process. I don’t know, maybe it’s because I feel very lucky to still be writing and to still have people reading what I write. Whatever the reason, I’m feeling very sentimental and thankful and terrified that I’m not feeling either of those things nearly as much as I should. Regardless, I will try to express the appropriate amount of gratitude in the couple pages that I have to do that.
First, I want to thank my family. You’d think they’d get tired of my deadlines and crazy late nights and sometimes weeks of shutting myself away from life to finish a draft. But they don’t. They are very understanding and supportive and help me make the most of the times I’m not on deadline and don’t have to shut myself away. So to my husband, Jared, and my kids, Hannah, Autumn, Abby, and Donavan, I love you dearly. You are my everything.
Next, I’d like to thank my agent, Michelle Wolfson. She is truly a rock star. She reads my drafts at the speed of light and as many times as I need her to, she has excellent advice, and she keeps me sane. Thanks, Michelle, you are the best.
I got to work with Aimee Friedman for this book and she is an amazing editor. It was like she had direct access to my brain. We had the same vision. That makes for a fun and easy working relationship. I’m so happy to have her. Thanks, Aimee, for making this book better than it would’ve been without you. You are amazing. And thanks to the rest of the Scholastic team—David Levithan, Emily Rader, Yaffa Jaskoll, Ingrid Ostby, Janelle DeLuise, Anna Swenson, Ann Marie Wong, Tracy van Straaten, Monica Palenzuela, Bess Braswell, Lauren Festa, and so many others—for all you did: a fun cover, a great copy edit, marketing, and on and on.
I got lucky in life to have some of the best friends. It helps to have friends both in and out of the writing industry. As a writer, it’s nice to be able to unload some stresses on people who understand. Also, it’s nice to have friends who help with reading and editing and all that other stuff that sometimes comes up at the last minute. Knowing I can count on people I love and trust to help me with these things is invaluable. Those people in my life are Candi Kennington, Jenn Johansson, Renee Collins, Natalie Whipple, Michelle Argyle, Bree Despain, and Julie Nelson. Love you ladies, so much. On the other side, having nonwriter friends keeps me balanced. My lovely ladies who get me outside my own head are Stephanie Ryan, Rachel Whiting, Elizabeth Minnick, Brittney Swift, Mandy Hillman, Jamie Lawrence, Emily Freeman, Misti Hamel, and Claudia Wadsworth.
I also want to thank you, my readers. It means so much to me to have people from all around the world interested in reading what I write. It still feels very surreal. I make things up and people want to read them. How awesome is that? It’s the coolest job in the universe (aside from colonizing Mars) and it’s mine. I love it. And I love you for making it possible for me. Thank you!
And last but not least (mostly because there are too many of them for them to be “least” in anything), my huge family. People often ask me how (and why) I can write such big, crazy families in my books. It’s because I have a big, crazy family. So here goes, a long list of the names that make up my family (people I see often, by the way; they aren’t just family in name): Chris DeWoody, Heather Garza, Jared DeWoody, Spencer DeWoody, Stephanie Ryan, Dave Garza, Rachel DeWoody, Zita Konik, Kevin Ryan, Vance West, Karen West, Eric West, Michelle West, Sharlynn West, Rachel Braithwaite, Brian Braithwaite, Angie Stettler, Jim Stettler, Emily Hill, Rick Hill, and the twenty-five children who exist between all these people. Love you all, so much.
Kasie West is the author of several YA novels, including The Distance Between Us, On the Fence, and The Fill-In Boyfriend. Her books have received numerous awards and accolades, including an ALA Quick Pick selection, a YALSA Best Books for Young Adults selection, and a number of Whitney and Goodreads Choice Awards and Nominations. Kasie lives in Fresno, California, with her family, and you can visit her online at www.kasiewest.com.
Copyright © 2016 by Kasie West
All rights reserved. Published by Point, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, POINT, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress catalog number 2015031158
ISBN 978-0-545-85097-1
First edition, August 2016
Jacket design by Yaffa Jaskoll
Jacket photographs by Michael Frost, © 2016 Scholasti
c Inc.
e-ISBN 978-0-545-85098-8
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.