Table of Contents
The Fire Between High & Lo
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Part Two
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
The One by Danielle Allen
Chapter 1
Unspeakable by Kristen Hope Mazzola
Wet by Stacy Kestwick
Copyright
The Fire Between High & Lo
Copyright © 2016 by Brittainy C. Cherry
All rights reserved.
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.
Published: Brittainy C. Cherry 2016
[email protected] Editing: Edits by C. Marie and Librum Artis Editorial Services
Proofreading: Judy’s Proofreading
Cover Photography: Franggy Yanez
Cover Design: Quirky Bird
Formatting: CP Smith at Affordable Formatting
Dedication
For those with a fire inside them, thriving for better tomorrows.
For those who need to know that their past mistakes do not define them.
This one’s for you.
Prologue
Alyssa
The boy in the red hoodie kept staring at me in the checkout line.
I’d seen him before, many times, including earlier that Monday morning. Every day he and his friends hung out in the alleyway behind the grocery store where I worked. I’d see them when my boss made me break down boxes and toss them outside.
The boy in the red hoodie always showed up with his friends each day. They’d make a ton of noise, smoking cigarettes and cursing up a storm. He stood out, because the other guys laughed and smiled. He seemed mute, almost as if his mind lived far away from his surroundings. His lips hardly ever turned up; I wondered if he knew what smiling was. Maybe he was a person who simply existed instead of lived.
Sometimes we’d lock eyes, and I’d always look away.
I found it hard to look into his caramel eyes, because they looked sadder than any eyes his age should’ve ever looked. Deep, purplish bags sat under them, along with wrinkle lines, but still, he was handsome. A handsomely tired boy. No boy should’ve looked that exhausted, or that gorgeous, all at once. I was almost certain he’d lived one hundred years of struggle all within his youth. I could tell he’d been through worse private wars than most of the people walking the earth just by the way he stood: shoulders rounded forward, back never straight.
But not all of him looked so broken.
His medium-length dark hair was always perfect. Always. Sometimes he’d pull out a small comb and run it through his locks, as if he was a greaser from the 1950s. He always wore the same kind of outfits, too: either a plain white T-shirt, a plain black T-shirt, and sometimes the red hoodie. His jeans were always black, along with his black shoes that were tied with white shoestrings. I didn’t know why, but even though the outfits were simple, they gave me goose bumps.
I noticed his hands, too. His hands were constantly wrapped around a lighter he flicked on and off, nonstop. I wondered if he was even aware that he did it. It seemed almost as if the flame shooting from the lighter was a part of his existence.
A mundane expression, tired eyes, perfect hair, and a lighter in hand.
What kind of name would fit with a guy like that?
Hunter, maybe. It sounded kind of bad boyish—which he was, I assumed. Or Gus. Gus the greaser. Greasy Gus. Or Mikey—because it sounded sweet, which would be the complete opposite of what he seemed to be, and I enjoyed things like that.
But, his name didn’t currently matter.
What mattered was that he was standing across from me. He showed more expression than I’d ever seen from him as he stood in the alleyway. His face was beet red and his fingers were fidgety, as he stood in my checkout line at the grocery store. There was such a strong, poignant embarrassment in his eyes as he swiped his food stamps card over and over again. Each time it was declined. Insufficient funds. Each time he grew gloomier. Insufficient funds. He bit his bottom lip. “That doesn’t make sense,” he murmured to himself.
“I can try it up here on my register if you want. Sometimes those machines are wonky.” I offered him a smile, but he didn’t smile back. His face was filled with stern lines of coldness. His brows were knit and aggressive, yet he handed me his card. I slid it through my machine and frowned. Insufficient funds. “It’s saying there isn’t enough money on the card.”
“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” he mumbled.
Rude.
“This is bullshit.” He huffed, his chest rising and falling. “We just got money on it yesterday.”
Who was ‘we’? None of your business, Alyssa. “Do you have another card we could try?”
“If I had another card, don’t you think I would’ve tried it?” he barked, making me jump a little. Hunter. He had to be a Hunter. Mean, bad boy Hunter. Or maybe Travis. I’d read a book once with a Travis in it, and he was a very bad boy. Travis was so bad that I had to close the book to keep myself from blushing and screaming all at once.
He took a breath, studied the line of people forming behind him, and then locked his stare with mine. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell.”
“It’s okay,” I replied.
“No. It’s not. I’m sorry. Can I just, leave the shit here for a second? I have to call my mom.”
“Yeah, sure. I’ll just suspend the order for now, then we can ring up your items once we get the issues worked out. No worries.”
He almost smiled, and I almost lost it. I didn’t know he knew how to almost do that. Maybe it was just a twitch in his lips, but when they slightly curved, he looked so handsome. I could tell he didn’t partake in the act of smiling very often.
As he stepped to the side and dialed his mom’s number, I tried my best not to eavesdrop on his call. I took the next customers’ orders, but still, my nosy ears and eyes kept finding their way back to him.
“Ma, I’m just saying, I feel like a fucking idiot. I swiped the card and it keeps getting declined.”
“I know the pin number. I entered the pin number.”
“Did you use the card yesterday?” he asked. “For what? What did you get?”
He moved the phone from his face as his mom spoke to him and rolled his eyes before putting the receiver back to his ear.
“What do you mean, you bought thirty-two cases of Coca-Cola?!” he shouted. “What the hell are we going to do with thirty-two cases of Coca-Cola?” Everyone in the grocery store turned toward him. His gaze met mine, and the embarrassment returned to him. I smiled. He frowned. Heartbreakingly handsome. Slowly he turned his back to me and returned to his call. “How are we supposed to eat for the next month?”
“Yeah, I get paid tomorrow, but that’s not gonna be enough to—no. I don’t want to ask Kellan for money again—Ma, don’t cut me off. Listen. I have to pay rent. There’s no way I’ll be able to—” Pause. “Ma, shut the hell up, okay?! You spent our food money on Coca-Cola!”
Short pause. Crazy arm movements of anger.
“No! No, I don’t care if it was Diet Coke or Coke Zero!” He sighed, running his fingers through his hair. He sat the phone down on the ground for a few moments, shut his eyes, and took a few deep breaths. He picked it back up. “It’s fine. I’ll figure it out. Don’t worry about it, all right? I’ll figure it out. I’m hanging up. No, I’m not mad, Ma. Yeah, I’m sure. I’m just hanging up. Yeah, I know. It’s okay. I’m not mad, okay? I’m sorry I yelled. I’m sorry. I’m not mad.” His voice became as low as it could, but I couldn’t stop listening. “I’m sorry.”
When he turned back to me, I’d finished helping the last customer in my line. He shrugged his left shoulder and stepped closer, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t think I’m gonna be able to get those things today. Sorry. I can put the stuff back on the shelves. Sorry. Sorry.” He kept apologizing.
My gut tightened. “It’s okay. Really. I’ll handle it. I’m getting off work now anyway. I’ll put it all back.”
He frowned again. I wished he would stop doing that. “Okay. Sorry.” I wished he’d stop apologizing, too.
When he left, I glanced inside his grocery bags. Studying the items in the bags was heartbreaking. The stuff added up to a total of eleven dollars, and he couldn’t even afford that. Ramen noodles, cereal, milk, peanut butter, and a loaf of bread—items I’d never had to think twice about buying.
You never knew how good you had it until you saw how bad someone else did.
“Hey!” I shouted, chasing after him in the parking lot. “Hey! You forgot these!”
He turned around slowly and narrowed his eyes in confusion.
“Your bags,” I explained, handing them to him. “You forgot your bags.”
“You could get fired.”
“What?”
“For stealing groceries,” he said.
I hesitated for a moment, a bit confused as to why his first thought would be that I stole the food. “I didn’t steal them. I paid for them.”
Bewilderment filled his stare. “Why would you do that? You don’t even know me.”
“I know you’re trying to take care of your mom.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose, shaking his head back and forth. “I’ll pay you back.”
“No, don’t worry about it.” I shook my head. “It’s no big deal.”
He bit his bottom lip, and brushed his hand over his eyes. “I’ll pay you back. But…thank you. Thank you…uh…” His eyes fell to my chest, and for a second I felt a level of discomfort, until I realized he was retrieving my name from my nametag. “Thank you, Alyssa.”
“You’re welcome.” He turned and went on his way again. “What about you?!” I shouted his way, hiccupping once or twice—or maybe fifty times.
“What about me?” he asked, not turning to face me, still walking.
“What’s your name?”
Hunter?
Gus?
Travis?
Mikey?!
He could’ve definitely been a Mikey.
“Logan,” he said. He kept walking, not looking back once. I placed my shirt collar in my mouth and chewed on it; it was a bad habit my mom always yelled at me about, but my mom wasn’t there, and small tiny butterflies were taking over my stomach.
Logan.
He looked like a Logan, now that I thought about it.
***
He came back a few days later to pay me back. Then, he began showing up weekly to buy a loaf of bread, or some more ramen noodles, or a pack of gum. He always came to my checkout lane. At some point, Logan and I began to talk during transactions. We learned that his half-brother was dating my sister, and they had been together for what felt like forever. At some point, he almost smiled. Then once, I swore he even laughed. We kind of became friends, starting with small exchanges of words and building up to bigger conversations.
When I’d leave work, he’d be sitting on the parking lot curb, waiting for me, and we’d talk even more.
Our skin tanned together under the burning sun. We left each night beneath the flaming stars.
I met my best friend in the checkout lane of a grocery store.
And my life was never the same again.
Part One
His soul was set in flames,
and he scorched anyone who stood too close.
She stepped closer,
unafraid of the ashes they were destined to become.
Chapter One
Logan
~*~
Two years, seven girlfriends, two boyfriends, nine breakups, and a stronger friendship later.
~*~
I’d watched a documentary on pie.
Two hours of my life were spent sitting in front of a tiny television, watching a library DVD on the history of pie. It turned out pie had been around since the ancient Egyptians. The first documented pie was created by the Romans; they made a rye-crusted goat cheese and honey pie. It sounded completely disgusting, but somehow, at the end of the documentary, all I wanted was that freaking pie.
I wasn’t much of a pie eater, more into cake, but at that moment, all that flew through my mind was the thought of a flaky crust.
I had all the things needed to go upstairs to our apartment to make the pie, too. All that stood in my way was Shay, my now ex-girlfriend, I’d spent the past few hours sending mixed signals.
I was crappy at breaking up with girls. Most of the time, I’d text them a simple, ‘Not working, sorry’ or have a five-second phone call to cut it off, but I couldn’t with this one, because Alyssa told me breaking up with someone over the phone was the worst thing a person could ever do.
So I’d met up with Shay in person. Terrible idea.
Shay, Shay, Shay. I wished I hadn’t found the need to have sex with her that night—which we had. Three times. After I broke up with her. But now it was past one in the morning, and…
She. Wouldn’t. Leave.
She wouldn’t stop talking either.
The cold rain whistled as we stood in front of my apartment building. All I wanted to do was go to my bedroom and relax for a bit. Was that too much to ask? Smoke a bit of pot, start a new documentary, and make a pi
e or five.
I wanted to be alone. No one liked being alone more than I did.
My cell phone dinged, and I saw Alyssa’s name appear on the screen with a text message.
Alyssa: Is the good deed done?
I smirked to myself, knowing she meant me breaking up with Shay.
Me: Yeah.
I watched the three ellipses appear on my phone, waiting to see Alyssa’s reply.
Alyssa: You didn’t sleep with her though, did you?
More ellipses.
Alyssa: Oh God, you slept with her, didn’t you?
Even more ellipses.
Alyssa: MIXED SIGNALS!
I couldn’t help but chuckle, because she knew me better than anyone else. Alyssa and I had been best friends for the past two years, and we were the complete opposite of one another. Her older sister was dating my brother Kellan, and at first, Alyssa and I were convinced we had nothing in common. She happily sat in church, while I smoked pot around the corner. She believed in God while I danced with demons. She had a future while I somehow seemed trapped in the past.
But we had certain things in common that somehow made us make sense. Her mom barely tolerated her; my mom hated me. Her dad was a jerk; my dad was Satan.
When we realized the small things we did have in common, we spent more time together, growing closer each day.
She was my best friend, the highlight to my shitty days.
Me: I slept with her once.
Alyssa: Twice.
Me: Yeah, twice.
Alyssa: THREE TIMES, LOGAN?! OH MY GOSH!
“Who are you talking to?” Shay whined, breaking my stare from my phone. “Who could possibly be more important than having this conversation right now?”
“Alyssa,” I said flatly.
“Oh my gosh. Seriously? She just can’t get enough of you, can she?” Shay complained. It wasn’t new though; every girl I’d dated in the past two years had a way of being extremely jealous of Alyssa’s and my relationship. “I bet you’re screwing her.”
“Yeah, I am,” I said. That was the first lie. Alyssa wasn’t easy, and if she was, she wouldn’t be easy with me. She had standards—standards I didn’t meet. Also, I had standards for Alyssa’s relationships—standards no guy could ever meet. She deserved the world, and most people in True Falls, Wisconsin only had crumbs to offer.