Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
PROLOGUE
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
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
EPILOGUE
Author Note
IDLE Playlist
SIGNUP
More of Fisher's Work
Copyright by Fisher Amelie
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Fisher Amelie.
Fisher Amelie
http://www.fisheramelie.com/
First Edition: July 2018
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Printed in the United States of America.
TO MOM & DAD,
Thank you for showing me what it is to love and be loved. What a gift God gave me in you.
PROLOGUE
APATHY. IT’S A WONDERFUL FEELING because it releases you of all responsibility, and the best part? No one can blame you for inaction because you were just doing your own thing. You were keeping your head down. You were worrying about yourself and only yourself. You were minding your own business.
But there’s a difference between minding your own business and letting someone drown, isn’t there? Who cares, though? They shouldn’t have gotten in the water in the first place, right? It’s not your problem. You have other, no, better things you want to do instead and can’t be held accountable for another’s stupidity.
It’s a powerful drug, apathy. It allows you to hide behind computers, carelessly slinging unfounded opinions, too lazy to put yourselves in others’ shoes. It allows us to pass by the homeless man, clearly cold and starving. He should just get a job already, right? It allows you to turn your head when you hear your upstairs neighbor beat his girlfriend. She chooses to stay. It’s not your problem.
Apathy allows you to slake real responsibility toward those you share the human race with. It’s a cure-all. It’s the perfect alibi.
And when you’re drowning, cast aside in a ditch, count the shoes that walk by. Count their steps. Let them echo in your brain. You are living proof of bad decisions, and you are not their problem.
CHAPTER ONE
MY PHONE RANG AND I opened one eye, rolled on my side, and checked the name that flashed on the screen.
“What’s up?” I asked my friend Ansen.
“Are you asleep?”
I stretched my body, my bones cracking. “I was, but not now, thanks to you.”
“Lily, it’s fucking two o’clock. Wake the fuck up already. Get ready. We’re going to get something to eat.”
I rolled onto my back, my free hand splayed across my pillow. I cleared my throat of sleep. “I need my cash for weed. See you tonight, though?”
“Yeah, Ashleigh’s house tonight.”
“Fine.”
He hung up and I dropped my phone on the bed next to me. I needed to smoke. I sat up, gathered then tossed my hair over one shoulder, pulled on my jean cutoffs, and grabbed the joint on my desk. I stuck my phone in my pocket and made my way through my mom and stepdad’s house to their back deck. It was barely hanging by a thread, and I was the only one willing to risk it, but it was a great place to get high without having to listen to my mom’s complaints about the smoke.
I stuck the joint between my lips and reached into my pocket for my lighter. It wasn’t there, so I rummaged the deck to see if I’d dropped one.
“Need a light?” my neighbor yelled over the fence.
I smiled at him. “Yeah,” I answered. “Got one?”
He sauntered down his own deck, across the too tall grass, and approached the chain link separating our yards. “Can’t go any further,” he said, his forearms draped across the top of the fence, holding up a lighter in one hand.
I jumped off the back of the deck and hit hard, stood tall, and met him. “What’s up, Trace?”
Trace and I had gone to high school together. He had a kid when he was seventeen but left the baby’s mom, like, six months after the kid was born. I let my eyes roam up and down his body.
“Get a good look?” he asked with a smile.
“Not as good as I’d like,” I countered.
He held out the lighter toward me. “You hitting up Ashleigh’s later?” he asked.
“I might. You?”
“Maybe I’ll see you there?”
“Maybe you will,” I told him.
I lit my joint and took a drag. I offered it to him and he did the same. I handed the lighter back, but he refused it.
“Bring it to Ashleigh’s,” he said.
I stuck it in my pocket and nodded. “See you around, Trace,” I said, turning around and heading up the stairs of my deck.
When I reached the top and faced the backyard again, he had just reached the top of his own stairs. He nodded his head my way and I watched him go back inside. I finished my joint, pinched the roach, and stuck it in my pocket. I slid the glass door open and stepped inside.
“I wish you would stop that, Lily,” my mom pleaded for the thousandth time.
“Stop asking, Mom. It’s just who I am.”
She shook her head. “It’s not,” she whispered, feeling around in her barren pantry for food that didn’t exist. “I need to go to the store,” she said like she had money. She looked at me. “Any luck finding work?” she asked.
“Not really,” I said, tossing myself on our creaky sofa. I picked up my controller and took my game from the night before off pause. She came through the narrow kitchen and studied me, but I ignored her. She shook her head then took the short trip down our small hallway to her and Sterling’s bedroom.
I could hear them arguing when Callie and Eloise came bursting from their own shared room, laughing and carrying on, worn-out-looking Barbies in their hands. They jumped on the love seat perpendicular to the sofa I was on.
“You guys are so damn loud,” I told them.
Eloise, the older of the two, scolded me. “Don’t curse, Lily. That’s gross.”
I ignored her and sat up a little, trying to scale through a particularly hard level. I played until eight or so then decided to take a shower. I tossed my roach in the glass tray on my desk with all my others. When I had enough saved, I’d combine all the weed leftover and make one whole joint again.
After my shower, I brushed my teeth, put on a clean pair of cutoffs and a tank top, stuck my keys in my pocket, and headed toward the door.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Sterling asked me when I reached the end of the h
all.
“Headed out,” I answered him.
Just ignore me. Just ignore me.
“Just where the hell is out?” he asked.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Watch the way you talk to me!” he yelled, the veins in his throat popping. He rushed me, wrapped his hand around my throat, and threw me against the wall. “Lazy piece of shit. Do you have a job yet?”
I swallowed before pushing him off me. “Not yet. Do you?” I countered.
His eyes narrowed. “You’re worthless, Lily. You’re trash.”
“I know this already, asshole,” I said, pushing him away.
He didn’t budge, though. He was a foot taller and had a hundred pounds on me. I tried to ignore him most of the time, but occasionally something he’d say would get through. He was a peach of a stepdad, let me tell you.
I slammed the creaky front door behind me and practically sprinted to my faded orange Scout International.
“Asshole,” I said under my breath.
Something angry blared through my speakers, so I turned it up and headed toward Ashleigh’s. When I pulled down her street, I could see Ansen and about ten others hanging out in her driveway smoking cigarettes. I came to a stop and idled next to them.
“What the fuck? It’s fucking Lily!” Ashleigh screamed, stumbling forward and opening my passenger-side door. She was drunk as shit.
“Hey, Ash,” I greeted with a smile.
“Hey, darlin’, how are you?” she asked.
“Good, want a ride?”
“Where we goin’?” she asked.
“Come with me,” I told her and she climbed in. I pulled forward, finding a vacant spot along her street.
I stuck my tongue at her and threw my car in park. “Not far, dummy,” I said, helping her out. I stuck my keys in my back pocket and put an arm around her shoulder, guiding her floundering body back to her house.
“Damn, Ashleigh, how much have you had to drink?”
“Lots,” she giggled.
We walked toward Ansen and the group he’d stood with when I’d pulled up. I bumped fists with Ansen and nodded at everyone else. Ashleigh’s house was dark, but the music was loud.
I leaned on the bumper of the car at the end of the drive.
“Where’s Paul?” I asked Ansen.
“Inside. You need something?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’m running low.”
He nodded. I looked around the group. “What’s new?” I asked everyone.
Justin’s girlfriend, Amy, was leaning on him, and she smiled. “Not much, Lilypad. What have you been up to?” she asked.
“Absolutely nothing.”
“Cool.” Justin nodded, flicking his cigarette in Ashleigh’s green grass.
“Trace was looking for you,” Ansen said, taking a swig from his beer bottle. “Said you owed him a lighter or something.”
I laughed. “He let me borrow his.”
He gave me a funny look but shrugged. He emptied his bottle then chucked it in the forest area across the street from Ashleigh’s house.
Just then two guys drove by. We all leaned down to see who it was, but I didn’t recognize them.
They parked ahead of my car, and we watched them walk toward the house in the pale light of the weathered country streetlights. I stood and my heart started to race when I saw one of the boys.
He was taller than average, had pale skin, black hair that sat below his ears, but it was his eyes that arrested me. They were a translucent hazel, thin, and had a haunted, almost sad quality to them. His jaw was square, his lips full.
“Who’s that?” I asked Ansen.
He knew exactly who I was talking about. “That’s Salinger,” he bitterly spit. “Don’t bother, though,” he added.
I swallowed. “What do you mean?”
“He won’t go anywhere near you. Straight as an arrow and shit. Too good for us.”
He was right. Salinger wasn’t just “hot,” he was beautiful, and not in a way I’d ever seen. He exuded something so stunning stars seemed to trail behind him. I saw them bounce around his feet and sizzle on the cold street they landed on, unable to survive without him. He just looked, carried himself, really, like he didn’t belong anywhere near us.
I cleared my throat when they got closer. Ashleigh threw her arms around Salinger’s friend.
“Noah!” she screamed. “I’m so glad you came!”
Noah wrapped his arms around her and they almost toppled into the street.
“Careful,” I said, steadying my stupid friend. My gaze found Salinger’s, though, and my heart beat wildly in my chest.
They stood upright and laughed at each other.
“You want something to drink?” Ashleigh asked both boys.
Noah nodded his head, but Salinger shook his.
Ashleigh playfully pushed Salinger’s shoulder. “Come on,” she laughed. “You’re such a prude.”
Salinger sarcastically bit, “Why do I feel this inexplicable urge to down shot after shot now?”
“Really?” Ashleigh asked, missing his meaning entirely.
I was embarrassed for her and rolled my eyes, shook my head.
“No!” Salinger laughed then smiled at Ashleigh. “I’m fine, thanks.”
The boy Ashleigh called Noah went arm in arm with her into the house, in search, I assumed, of something to drink.
Salinger stood awkwardly to the side and examined the house with intensity.
I leaned forward. “I love a good roofline.”
He looked at me and laughed. “What?”
“The 1950s ranch house is an underestimated design,” I dumbly droned on.
He narrowed his eyes, trying to figure me out, I thought. “I guess.”
I pointed toward the house. “I’m into short ceilings. Makes me feel like a giant.” He nodded his head in mock agreement. “And don’t get me started on the hundred-square-foot bedrooms.”
“Perfect for a pair of twin beds,” he countered.
“Exactly. Sleep is important. No room for anything else,” I teased. His face turned a bright red and I fought a smile. “I’ve made you uncomfortable.”
“No,” he lied. “It’s okay.”
“I’m Lily,” I said, holding out my hand.
“Salinger,” he confirmed for me.
When his hand slid into mine, when our palms met, I felt it all the way down to the heels of my feet. His eyes widened briefly. “Nice to meet you,” I whispered.
I hated to do it, but I let his hand go. “You from around here?” I asked.
“No, I’m new to the area.”
“Why?” I asked.
He laughed. “Why not?”
“Nobody comes to Bottle County, that’s why. Most of us who are born here are always looking for a way to get out. Only reason we stay is when we get stuck.”
“Is that so? Are you stuck, Lily?”
I looked at my feet then back up at him, our eyes caught. “Yes,” I told him.
The smile on his face fell. “Oh.”
I fixed a smile on my own and hoped it was convincing. He swallowed but smiled back.
Just then Trace came bounding out of the house and my stomach dropped. Don’t come over here. Don’t come over here.
“Hey, Lily,” he oozed, making me cringe.
I cleared my throat. “Hey, Trace.”
He got closer and threaded his arms around my waist. “You got something for me?” he flirted.
One brow on Salinger’s face rose and he fought a smile.
“What?” I asked, flustered. I pried his hands from around my waist.
“My lighter?” Trace said.
“Oh, uh, yeah,” I said, fishing for it in my pocket. I found it and brought it out in front of me.
“Thanks,” he said, pushing it into the pocket of his jeans. “You just let me know when you need it again,” he seeped out with a wink.
I thought Salinger may have snorted, but he hid it well. Both Trace and I l
ooked at him and he cooled his expression.
“Trace, this is Salinger,” I introduced. “Salinger, Trace.”
“Nice to meet you,” Salinger said, holding out his hand.
Trace took it begrudgingly then dropped it quickly. “Nice to meet you,” he lied, then turned toward me.
“Let’s go somewhere private,” Trace said, making me wince.
“Well, uh, I,” I began.
“Salinger!” we heard come from down the street. We stared the direction of the voice.
It was a girl, about our age, tall, five times prettier than I was. I sank a little into myself.
“Lyric!” Salinger exclaimed, smiling from ear to ear. “I’m over here!” he exaggerated, waving his hands up and down wildly. “Can you see me? I’m right here!” The girl laughed, shaking her head. “Come here and meet some people,” Salinger said, his arms dropping at his sides.
She jogged forward, a dopey grin on her face. “Hey,” she said.
“Lyric, this is Trace and,” his brow furrowed, “uh, I’m sorry, uh, I can’t remember your name.“
“Lily,” I said, my confidence at an all-time low. I held out my hand for her and she shook it firmly then smiled.
“Lyric,” she said.
“Nice to meet you.”
Lyric didn’t react.
It got quiet for a second.
“Well, uh, where’s Noah?” Lyric asked.
“Inside,” Salinger answered. “Let’s go find him.”
“Yeah, cool,” she said.
“Nice to meet you guys,” she threw over her shoulder.
“Yeah,” Salinger added, “see you around.”
I watched them as they climbed the front porch and disappeared into Ashleigh’s house.
“I don’t trust that dude,” Trace said.
I looked at him like he was crazy.
“Why?” I asked, my curiosity piqued.
“I just don’t like him.”
“Why, though?”
“I don’t know. I just know that I don’t like him.”
I laughed. “Well, I do.”
“I’m sure you do.”
I ignored him, but he followed me into the house.
“Everyone’s got a type, and that guy is mine,” I admitted when we were inside.
“What about me?”