Puddle Jumping

  Copyright 2014 Amber L. Johnson

  Edited by Kathie L. Spitz

  Cover design by Annie Rockwell

  Book design by Lindsey Gray

  Cover art by Anna Ismagilova via Shutterstock

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the author.

  Title

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  Endorsement

  When it comes to love there’s no such thing as conventional.

  Everyone thinks Colton Neely is special.

  Lilly Evans just thinks he’s fascinating.

  Once friends when they were younger, their bond is cut short due to her accident prone nature and they go their separate ways. Years later, they meet again and Lilly learns that there is something special about the boy she once knew, but she has no idea what it all means. And she’s not sure if she’s ready to find out.

  When he walks through the corridor of her school the first day of her senior year, she knows that it’s time to get to know the real Colton Neely. The more she learns, the deeper she falls.

  Their friendship grows into love, even as Colton does not express it in words. But one decision threatens to break down the world that Lilly has tried to hard to integrate into and she must figure out if the relationship can survive if they are apart.

  To Aaron who taught me at the age of seventeen that we love the way we love, and it’s not the same as anyone else’s.

  And for Emory.

  Someday you will find your own Lilly Grace.

  You paint the world in colors I’ve never seen and I’ll always love you blue because you always love me yellow.

  “Last night my world exploded.”

  Fall Out Boy

  It begins with a boy.

  It begins with a boy and it ends with a boy, but what story doesn’t?

  In my eyes, this one is the most amazing person I’ve ever met. And maybe some people would say that I loved him too much and forgot myself in the process, but from what I’ve seen of relationships, there’s always that one person who does.

  Last night, my world that had been so small and wrapped up in everything about him, came to a grinding halt. I can’t sleep. I need to do something. I’ve decided to write it out from beginning to end. How we arrived at this place.

  This is my story. Our story.

  It’s about an incredible guy who changed my mind about everything I thought I knew. And maybe I helped change his world, too.

  So here it is.

  This isn’t your run-of-the-mill fairy tale. It’s not some Harlequin romance. I wouldn’t even categorize this as much of a romance at all.

  Because I’m not the kind of person to fall in love.

  And neither is the guy I’m head over heels for.

  I’m Lilly Grace Evans and this is the true account of how I ended up falling for a boy who made me believe love is anything but conventional.

  Love, for those lucky enough to experience it, is extraordinary.

  I wasn’t supposed to meet him.

  My best friend, Harper, had been told she could no longer babysit for Wednesday Night Prayer Meetings because she’d been stupid enough to put a three year old on a window sill – (“It was CLOSED!”) – The poor toddler leaned against the screen until it popped out, sending him tilting out the window and almost to his death.

  This is quite unacceptable anywhere, but God help you if it happens in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

  Luckily, he was okay, but our pastor got involved and suggested maybe she wasn’t the best fit for the job. That’s how I got asked to take her place. I’d shown up at the Neely house, and while my mom dropped off a crockpot of meatballs, I was pointed towards a bonus room holding exactly one other occupant: a boy.

  It was the first time I met Colton Neely. Nine years old. Dark brown bowl cut hair and eyes that strayed everywhere but on me. The room was filled to the brim with coloring books, art pads, and paints. And trains. Oh my God, don’t get me started on the trains . . . bins of them in every corner.

  He wanted to color for the two hours I was with him. At the time, I barely thought anything of being paid to sit with a boy so close to my age while our parents were in the next room – I was getting paid, after all. Halfway through the first picture in his coloring book, that he refused to share with me by the way, I looked over and gently grabbed hold of his hand to stop him from what he was doing.

  “You need to color inside the lines. That’s what they’re for.” I admonished him with the brazen bitchiness only a ten year old girl with a superiority complex could muster.

  See, I believed you could tell a lot about a person by the way they color.

  I used to think there were two kinds of Crayola artists: Ones who color inside the lines and ones who don’t stay within the rigid boundaries set by thick black perimeters that make up a cuddly koala.

  But it seems that inside and outside the lines is just the main basis for comparison. You also have those who color lightly inside and fill each space according to the chosen and appropriate shade.

  Then you have those who scribble and slap any color anywhere. And sometimes these people have purple turkeys and shit that drives me absofreakinglutely crazy because, seriously . . . who has purple turkeys?

  Then you have people who take the time to outline each portion of the picture with color before filling it in, so it not only looks cohesive, but it seems like they actually give a damn about the big-eyed My Little Pony they’re giving definition to.

  Or, you have those who make little polka dots in the middle of a bear’s face and then cry excitedly that the bear has chicken pox.

  See where I’m going with this? Society has pretty much taught us that it’s inside the lines, or outside. But there’s so much more in between.

  I wanted to correct Colton so he’d be like everyone else.

  He didn’t even look up from the paper, but flinched and quickly pulled his hand away from mine. “You’re mean,” he whispered and continued to make sweeping motions across the paper, coloring in wide strokes of every vibrant hue he could get his little fingers on. It was the first words he’d spoken to me, and they would reverberate through my brain for years to come.

  Was I mean?

  I don’t like people being mad at me, or not liking me, so I tried to make up for it.

  “Wanna go outside?” I’d asked, afraid he’d tell my mom I’d hurt his feelings.

  “It’s raining.” He’d said it so matter-of-fact, like he was the adult and I was some stupid little kid.

  Colton was not going to get the best of me, you see. I was going to make $15 that day. And I was going to get this kid to give a good report to his mother.

  “It’s not raining that bad.”

  “My mom says I’m not allowed.”

  “No one will notice. Come on. Let’s go outside.”

&n
bsp; It was the first time I’d get him to do something he wasn’t too sure of. We’d gone out into the rain on that balmy summer day. He’d looked into the sky with wide, pale blue eyes that appeared much too mature for his age, and he’d simply muttered something about the chances of getting hit by lightning.

  I didn’t really pay attention, though. He had a badass swing set with a sandbox in his back yard and I was too busy trying to get up the slide from the front, instead of taking the ladder, because I wanted to be one of those chicks on television who kicked ass. And my first step would be to get up a slide. In the rain.

  It’s called ‘preparation’.

  Colton had run over to me, his hands waving up and down at his sides frantically as I huffed and puffed my way up the slick metal. “You’ll get hurt!”

  I’d rolled my eyes and shushed him. “I’m fine.”

  That’s when the first lightning bolt hit the tree a few feet away from the slide I was struggling to get up.

  Poor little Colton covered his ears and jumped about a foot into the air.

  I had watched in awestruck wonder as he’d turned around ridiculously fast and sprinted across the backyard, screaming as his legs propelled him forward while he leaped over puddles of water two feet wide to get back to the house.

  Leaving me on the metal slide.

  Alone.

  Where I did get hit by lightning.

  Well, not me. The slide. The slide got hit by lightning and I was holding on to it so I sort of just spazzed out and my arm hair was standing on end by the time I shook hard enough to get my fingers to let go of the side of the slide. Then I fell back into the mud and blacked out.

  When I woke up in the hospital, my mom informed me Colton had been freaking out and his mom finally got enough information out of him so that my mom could pull me across the lawn and into the house. Both of them were hysterical. And I was lucky to be alive.

  He had essentially saved my life.

  Then he showed up at the hospital with his mom, Sheila, looking at me like I was the most fascinating thing in the world because I wouldn’t die.

  I did get this amazing scar from the experience, though. My doctor said it was called a Lichtenberg Figure, this crazy raised skin that was darker than the rest of my complexion. It looked like tree roots running from the top of my shoulder to the middle of my arm. I was enamored with it at the time.

  Apparently Colton was, too.

  Now it’s just a thing on my body. Part of who I am. Sometimes I forget it’s there.

  Back to the story.

  He stayed for a good thirty minutes, not speaking and not doing anything other than staring at me – at my new battle wound that I hoped portrayed I actually was a badass. Right before he left, he pulled a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it over, offering me a small wave before walking out behind his mother.

  That piece of paper held the most intricately colored artwork I’d ever seen in my life.

  Instead of making me feel better, it made me feel bad.

  Because just the day before, I had apparently told The Artist of our Generation to color inside the effing lines.

  * * *

  I met Colton under the guise that I was getting paid to sit for some kids from church. But every time I showed up to the house, it was just us two.

  I had to wonder why I was getting paid to hang out with him in the first place. I mean, really?

  You would think after I almost died I wouldn’t be asked to come over anymore. But you’d be wrong because apparently his mom didn’t learn a lesson once. I’m sure it was because she felt like her son was good enough that we wouldn’t get into trouble, but she didn’t take into account that I wasn’t.

  Colton’s pretty much perfect. He’s quiet and aloof, always minds his manners and whatnot. As a child, he was continuously focused on coloring or drawing or even painting in the room his dad had cleaned out above the garage.

  I didn’t want to paint or make boy-trains. I got tired of coloring.

  I just wanted to play, ya know?

  Needless to say, he probably stopped trusting me a whole lot the day I almost choked on a marble. And the time I accidentally got gum stuck in my hair and asked him to help me cut it out. Which resulted in a huge chunk of hair missing on the left side of my head.

  His trust of me must have taken a nosedive the day I tried to teach him how to mattress surf down the stairs, but since he was being so adamant about not participating, I decided to show him exactly how much fun it could be. I got onto the mattress backward, staring him in the face as I pushed off the top stair and started to head backward down the stairwell. Except . . . the mattress didn’t come with me.

  Not at first, anyway.

  I rolled onto my back and went head first into the corner next to the front door and hit my head so hard it gave me a concussion. Colton had to push the mattress off me because it was only five seconds delayed behind my limp body. And then he started screaming for our moms and they called another ambulance while they freaked out. I threw up green hot dogs or something crazy on the way to the hospital. Once I was coherent enough to speak to her behind the flimsy blue curtain in the ER, I assured my mom it was my fault.

  Funny enough, she believed me.

  That time, when Colton and his mother came to see me in the hospital, it was to announce I was no longer going to be invited over on Wednesday nights. And they were changing churches.

  It took all of that for her to realize I was incapable of keeping myself out of harm’s way. Amazing.

  Anyway, Colton had stayed even more quiet than usual, and he’d barely looked at me the entire time he was there. But before he left, he’d given me another picture. And let me tell you, this one was even more beautiful than the one before because it was a page full of nothing but color.

  He’d scratched at his hair hidden beneath his favorite baseball cap and whispered, “Bye, Lilly.” I’d given him a final wave, knowing deep in my heart it was probably going to be the last time I would see him for a very long time.

  I was pretty much right. Mrs. Neely had been talking to my mother out of what she assumed was earshot, but I could still hear what was going on. At the time, her words didn’t make much sense. Although, they do now.

  Because it took me another five years to figure out exactly what was so different about Colton Neely and why his mother was so upset that she couldn’t find a playmate for him.

  When I was younger, I always thought everyone was the same. So it didn’t really faze me all that much that Colton kind of just faded away. He was someone I hung out with for a few weeks and then he just . . . wasn’t. He became another kid I once knew.

  A few years passed and I didn’t think about him anymore. Harper and I moved on from playing like tomboys to paying attention to boys. She would flirt and I would laugh at how obvious she was. But beneath it all, I really wished I had her kind of confidence, which I sincerely lacked.

  It wasn’t until my parents forced me to go on a camping trip that I realized I was capable of getting the attention of boys, too.

  It turns out I didn’t like it much.

  I’d fought them tooth and nail; because I just wanted to stay home and read books or watch television, or hang out with Harper or anything else other than spend time with my family. I’d sulked the entire way there, my earbuds in and a scowl on my face, annoyed I wasn’t an adult and able to make my own decisions.

  While they went and took nature walks, I wandered over to the beach with a book in hand and my headphones, hell bent on getting some sort of tan because I was practically translucent. But instead, I met a boy named Rory. He was splashing in the water, clearly having a good time with what turned out to be his younger sister. She was less than impressed and whining about being in the water, but I couldn’t help notice how cute it was that they were playing together.

  Apparently, I caught Rory’s eye because he kept staring at me. At first, I figured it was my scar, as I’d grown increasingly s
elf-conscious about it as I got older. But he wasn’t looking at that. He was watching me like a stalker.

  You know what I mean. That kind of uncomfy stare that makes you shift around and turn in random directions to make sure there isn’t some freakishly good looking supermodel sitting behind you grabbing a male’s attention. I kept moving around on my beach towel, convinced this cute, tan boy with shaggy brown hair wasn’t staring at me. But he totally was.

  Eventually it got hot and I waded out into the water, only to be hit by a spray of wetness coming from the pissed little sister of said cute boy whose gaze I was half-heartedly avoiding.

  “Penny, apologize to her.” He’d pointed in my direction and I froze because he was actually paying attention to me and it caught me off guard.

  I waved my hand and shook my head. “It’s okay.”

  He waded over and smiled, running his hands through his hair and it was then I realized he had these really light green eyes. I had never seen anything like it in my young teenage life. They were breathtakingly clear, and with his tan, they stood out even more. It may have been the first time I ever felt my heart flutter, but there was also a weird sort of reaction in my stomach that felt a lot like queasiness.

  He introduced himself and we spent the next couple hours ignoring Penny and talking in the water. Then, right before it was time to head back to my tent, we walked over to my beach towel and I realized sweet Rory . . . was sporting a raging boner.

  In his swimming trunks.

  It was pointing directly at me and I swear to the good Lord in heaven above it scared the shit out of me. I couldn’t help but stare at it with wide eyes and an open mouth, trying not to point.

  Instead, I packed my stuff in a hurry and rushed back to the safety of my tent and wondered if all guys were like that. If I was doomed to a life of uncontrollable hard-ons and pretty boys with light green eyes who pointed their sticks at me with wild abandon.

  Rory eventually found me in the campground and tried to hang out a couple more times, but I always made an excuse to not be anywhere around him. I even went so far as to spend time with my dad.