The Life You Stole
Page 27
His blue eyes, which match mine, ping-pong around the room before landing on me. “Shh … you don’t need to be so loud.” He smooths his hand over the top of his mostly bald head, like I ruffled his feathers, what few he has left.
“Let’s just go, dear.” My mom reaches for my hand.
I jerk away.
“Swayze.”
As if giving me such a stupid name wasn’t enough, she has to draw it out. “Swaaayzeee.” Who wants a name that rhymes with lazy and crazy?
“Well, you said you can’t hear me when I talk to my feet. Can you hear me now?!”
They hear me. The guy who tested me peeks his head out the door, squinting at me. He hears me too. I can’t find my inside voice. Something has tripped my volume and it’s stuck on playground voice.
“Potty is what toddlers do. I’m not a toddler! I’m eleven. And I know stuff that other eleven-year-olds don’t know. So what? That doesn’t mean something is wrong with me. You keep bringing me to places like this to take stupid tests and sit in stinky waiting rooms with weird kids who have crazy names and like to chant unsolvable riddles, pull their hair, and pick their noses!”
Balling my hands, I resist the rare urge to pull my own hair. My parents each take one of my arms and drag me out of the office. Just before we reach the door, I give Nevaeh a small grimace of apology. She slides her finger back into her nose.
“Am I a genius yet?” I ask in a much calmer voice as my parents rush me to the elevator and down fifteen stories like someone’s trying to kill the president. Next to our blue hybrid car is a red convertible. Maybe it belongs to Nevaeh’s parents. Then again, that car is a little too cool for people who would name their child Heaven backwards. Heaven in the opposite direction … wouldn’t that be Hell?
After checking my seatbelt, as if an eleven-year-old can’t be trusted to listen for the click and give it a tug, my dad glares at me, jaw clenched. He’s too mad to talk. That’s fine. I’ll know when he’s ready to talk; his first demand will be an explanation. There really isn’t anything more I can say. My words, although louder than necessary, were self-explanatory.
After long minutes of some self-imposed timeout on himself, my dad looks at my mom and nods.
“Swayze?” She glances over her shoulder at me, curling her dark hair behind her ear. I don’t detect any anger in her voice. It’s sweet and juicy like the Starburst candy I get at the movies.
I fear her words will feel like the cavities I get from eating too much sugar.
“How would you feel about trying a new school?”
Yep. She’s drilling without numbing anything first. I’ve attended four different schools. Every educational psychologist and child development expert in a fifty-mile radius has evaluated me. They figured out I’m gifted, but not in a typical way. Smart. But not necessarily a genius.
My random recollections of historical events, that are not at all noteworthy, are most puzzling. I’m not playing Chopin or speaking fluent Spanish. I enjoy talking with adults, but I fit in just fine with my peers as well. I can’t name that many famous war generals. Even naming the presidents in order is a challenge. But random things that happened in Madison, Wisconsin, a few years before I was born seems to be my specialty.
“Move? Again?” I sigh as we pass the UW-Madison Arboretum, one of the places I like to go in the summer.
“We just want to find a good fit for you.”
“I fit fine where I’m at.”
“But they’re not challenging you enough.”
I shrug. “What does it matter? If I already know what they’re telling me, then I don’t have to do as much homework as my friends.”
“It’s wasted potential.” Dad shoots me a quick look in the rearview mirror. He, too, has lost his fight over my outburst.
“Potential means—” Mom starts to explain.
“Possibilities, prospects, future success. I get it.” I’m fairly certain other eleven-year-old kids in sixth grade have heard the word potential before. It’s not exactly a word I’d see on my word of the day calendar.
“You know, Swayze, the Gibsons are sending Boomer to a private school only an hour from our house. If we send you there, you’d already have one friend.”
Boomer. Another hideous name. Sounds like a Rottweiler. Nice boy though. I like him, but not the way he likes me. At least I don’t think so. He carries my backpack to the bus for me after school, but he also snaps my bra in class. The bra I don’t need. My mom pressured me into getting one after several of my friends got them. I don’t have breasts. Nope. Nothing there yet. Still, I wear it to feel like all of the other girls, and apparently Boomer’s need to snap it during math every day means he likes me. At least that’s the story my mom tries to sell.
Not buying it.
“I like my school.” I twist my blond hair around my finger then slide it through my lips curled between my teeth.
Mom frowns. She has a thing about hair near the mouth. A hair in her food triggers her gag reflex to the point of vomiting, and then she can’t eat that type of food for months. Dad always threatens to plant a hair in the ice cream she likes to sneak—his ice cream.
“You’ll be in middle school next year. It’s a good time for a change. The transition will be easier.” Dad nods as if he only needs to convince himself and my mom.
“I like my friends.”
“You’ll make new friends,” Mom says, shaking her head and scowling at the hair in my mouth.
I pull it out and flip it over my shoulder. “Why can’t I just be normal and you be happy with that?”
“Swayze, if you just give this a try, I promise we won’t ask you to switch schools again, even if it doesn’t work out.” Mom flinches like something’s caught in her throat, probably bile from seeing hair in my mouth.
One last move. One last school. I’ll do it. But I won’t believe it’s truly the last.
Read More
Acknowledgments
I’ll start at the true beginning …
Thank you Jyl and Cleida for the best girls’ getaway to Colorado where we plotted this fantastically complicated story.
Jenn Beach—keeper of my sanity—thank you for everything. It’s hard to list all you do. We know you’re the glue, and without glue there would be nothing holding me together most days.
YOU—my readers deserve a mountain of gratitude for willingly, or not so willingly, “going there” with me. You give my words so much purpose and continually make me a very happy author.
My amazing beta readers and editing team worked over the holidays—and quickly—to make it possible to publish these books two weeks apart. Leslie, Kambra, Maxann, Monique, Sian, Shauna, Shabby, Bethany, Sherri, and Amy … THANK YOU!
Instagrammers, bloggers, Jonesies—you killed it with this book! Ashely with Ashes & Vellichor, thank you for the beautiful trailers and graphics!
Kerry Ellis with Covered by Kerry, you nailed these covers. I can’t wait to work with you on the rest of the books in this series. They are stunning!
Jenn, Sarah, and Shan with Social Butterfly PR, thank you for making things happen. I know I was a little high-maintenance with these books.
Paul with BB eBooks—as always, you’re the best!
To Kate for Room 212. ; ) Thank you for being my sounding board when my confidence crumbles.
Thank you to my favorite boys, Tim, Logan, Carter, and Asher. You are always my greatest love story.
Also by Jewel E. Ann
The Life Series
The Life That Mattered
The Life You Stole
Jack & Jill Series
End of Day
Middle of Knight
Dawn of Forever
Holding You Series
Holding You
Releasing Me
Transcend Series
Transcend
Epoch
Standalone Novels
Idle Bloom
Only Trick
Undeniably You
One
Scarlet Stone
When Life Happened
Look the Part
A Place Without You
Naked Love
Jersey Six
Perfectly Adequate
jeweleann.com
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About the Author
Jewel is a free-spirited romance junkie with a quirky sense of humor.
With 10 years of flossing lectures under her belt, she took early retirement from her dental hygiene career to stay home with her three awesome boys and manage the family business.
After her best friend of nearly 30 years suggested a few books from the Contemporary Romance genre, Jewel was hooked. Devouring two and three books a week but still craving more, she decided to practice sustainable reading, AKA writing.
When she’s not donning her cape and saving the planet one tree at a time, she enjoys yoga with friends, good food with family, rock climbing with her kids, watching How I Met Your Mother reruns, and of course…heart-wrenching, tear-jerking, panty-scorching novels.