Copyright Amber L. Johnson 2013
Cover design by Annie Rockwell
Cover Image courtesy of Four Smiles Photography
Cover Model Brianna Accinelli
Pencil Sketch by Marty Keely
Book design by Lindsey Gray
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.
Table of Contents
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Summary
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
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Epilogue
About the Author
Acknowledgements
Links
Table of Contents
To Aaron
“This heart, it beats
Beats for only you
My heart is yours”
- Paramore
Summary
Mallory Durham has been left behind and it is making her feel less like an adult and more like an afterthought. Divorce, sickness, educational aspirations being shattered, and her Aunt Sam recently moving into her home, have made Mal's life nearly unrecognizable to her.
When Tucker Scott re-enters her life along with his band, will they offer what she needs to once again find her voice and self confidence or will it strip her of it even more?
Told through the dual voices of Mallory as she navigates her new world, and Aunt Sam’s letters to her niece, Beatless tells the story of two women at very different points in their life, fighting the same battles. Proving that, no matter what age we are, there are always lessons to be learned.
Prologue
Dear Mal,
From the moment that we are born, we want our voice to be heard.
With that first scream announcing our presence; through the struggle to form thoughts and words. It’s in the shape of incessant questions throughout childhood and the burgeoning need to be understood in our teen years.
It never ends as we age. We fight to be heard in life, in relationships, in jobs. And in the end, when we’ve lost our ability to speak, we are relegated to hoping that someone, anyone can hear us as we lie on our backs in a bed waiting for the end.
We all want to be heard.
My wish for you is that you find a way to use your voice in the loudest way possible.
Sam
~*~1~*~
The sun was finally starting to set, casting shadows in the corners of my room and disappearing against the dark walls. Lying on the carpet, I watched blue skies break down to pinks and oranges through my open window; shredded ribbons of colors melting into the trees until darkness began to settle.
It was possibly The Worst Day of My Entire Freaking Existence and I was left with the certainty that my life was essentially over.
It was The Absolute Worst. Worse than the day my parents said they were getting divorced. Worse than the time I got mono my senior year and had to repeat twelfth grade by myself, while all of my friends were starting new lives at college. Even worse than the day my mom told me she was leaving for a work project that would last at least nine months.
No, this had to be the worst day of my life. Because my two closest friends left for their respective accredited universities, and instead of going to Vanderbilt like I’d been planning since sixth grade . . . I was going to community college. Both my mom and my aunt assured me that there was no shame in going to Perimeter. That I could stay home and save the family money, get my Associates before moving on to bigger and better things.
It blew.
I stared at my closet door, filled from top to bottom with four years of high school pictures chronicling every event, dance, and party I’d attended with my best friend. Her face smiled back at me through the glossy finish and I sighed.
Lassiter: Blonde hair, dark eyes, tall and thin.
Me: straight brown hair, a face full of freckles, eyes too dark to be considered a true brown, and limbs that went on for miles.
I wasn’t exactly on her level and she’d never shied away from letting me know it, either. I had no idea how we’d become friends in the first place, given how unremarkable I’d always felt in her presence. But we’d met in freshman chorus and she’d tilted her head in my direction asking if I knew how to read music and if she could follow along on the alto parts. There was no way I could say no.
We tried out for plays and musicals together, and the day our drama teacher, Mr. Hanks, told me, “There’s nothing wrong with being the funny friend or the side-kick. You’re just not lead material . . .” Lassiter nodded her head sadly and squeezed my shoulder in agreement. “Not everyone is cut out to be center stage.”
Her other best friend, Brooke, had agreed. She was more of Lassiter’s friend than mine, and there were times that I felt like she just tolerated me. But I didn’t mind. I was part of a group. I felt like I belonged somewhere. I could be the third wheel as long as I was invited.
They spent the remainder of their high school career (I couldn’t call it our high school career because I was, sadly, a Super Senior) trying out for all of the leads in South Gwinnett’s plays and musicals. It took Brooke until senior year to get her chance, but Lassiter was given the role of Sandy in Grease her junior year, which was almost unheard of. She was just that good. And I’d been one of the girls at the carnival. Where I belonged.
I would always be the B girl - the understudy. Accepting that had been easier than I’d anticipated.
Then they both went off to college, and I was stuck at home, but at least they called or emailed. At first, anyway. When they returned for the summer, I felt like things were back to normal, even if a little strained. They talked about school and new people and rushing sororities and I just sat back and waited for the conversation to turn to which movie we’d be seeing that night.
Tonight was the first time I felt that things might not be the same after all.
Lying on my side, I held my breath and counted to twenty, letting pressure build up in my ears, my heartbeat drowning out the sounds around me. My favorite album was playing in the background and I could make out the beat of the bass line through the carpet, the long notes helping me to count the seconds in meter.
“Mal.”
The sound of my aunt’s voice made me groan and I curled even smaller, reaching above my head to turn up the music on my laptop. The doorknob rattled and I sighed, wondering just how resourceful she’d get if I didn’t respond. My answer came exactly two choruses later when I heard the screws on the side of the door being jimmied, and watched from my cheek-down position on the floor, as the room flooded with light from the hallway, and the door fell away, propped against the wall as my aunt leaned into the . . . hole.
“Well, aren’t you just the picture of emo-teenage angst?” Her gaze scoured the room like she was afraid that I’d completely gone off the deep end.
Maybe I had.
She crossed her arms and let out a long breath, the air catching the ends of her light hair that had fallen
from her ponytail. “Are you gonna do this much longer? I’m hungry and your mom didn’t buy any food before she left.”
“I’m not surprised,” I mumbled into the carpet, closing my eyes again and blocking her out.
Aunt Sam stepped into my room, over my wilted body, turned down my music, and touched her toe to the back of my thigh. Pausing just long enough to make sure I was actually okay, she stepped back over and squatted next to my head. Her hands were cool against my forehead as she rolled my face upward to look me over. “Eh, you’ll live. Is it a boy?” I shook my head no. Her forehead creased. “A girl?”
I nodded. “Technically, girls. Plural . . .”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Well . . .”
“Not like that.” I groaned
“Oh. In that case, get up and wash your face. I need sustenance. And no ho-mance will stand between me and my hash browns tonight, young lady. You can spill your guts over some stuff my doctor advised against today. But tonight we dine in Hell.”
***
Hell was the Waffle House two miles down the street from my house. And approximately five hundred feet from my high school parking lot. On one of the last Friday nights of summer in the illustrious town of Snellville, Georgia, it was also the very last place I wanted to be. Because it was inevitably the hot-spot where half the high school was fueling up before they all went out with their friends.
“You’re being completely overdramatic.”
“I’m not. Don’t you remember how hard it was being my age?”
“Oh, yes. Life and death and all that. End of the world.” She smiled and leaned in. “Change of subject. What classes did you sign up for?”
“I really don’t want to talk about it.”
The reality of the situation was that I’d already had to establish myself with a new senior class. And now I had to do the same in a college that wasn’t even considered a real college, all because my parents got divorced and suddenly there wasn’t enough money for me to go to Tennessee.
That was why my mom had taken the work assignment to begin with. Due to the downshift of the economy, her department was lean and she was one of the few people who kept her position in the city. This meant that she was the only one who could manage the new office and train people that were being hired in another part of the country, while still maintaining her job duties here. Irony at its finest.
At first I thought she was going to force me go with her and I wanted to freak out and tell her that it wasn’t fair that I’d been so sick and had to repeat a grade, much less made to put off college for a year. This would mean I’d have to find another one to attend on short notice.
“Don’t worry,” she had said after she dropped the bomb about leaving. “Your Aunt Sam is moving back home and she’s agreed to watch over you while I’m gone. Not babysit you – just make sure you have someone here.”
Now, I’m legally an adult, but I could see why she felt the need to have Sam in the house. Being sick. Being on my own. Dealing with all of it. It could have been overwhelming. We live in the house that they both grew up in, the same mint green two-story Cape Cod with the burgundy front door that my grandmother left to my mom in her Will (with an addendum that the rose bushes by the front were to be kept impeccable at all times) – since she was the oldest. Plus, Sam had gotten married and moved away, and she didn’t have any kids, so she really saw no point in taking ownership of it. Now she was coming back to live in her old room, and if I was being honest with myself, I was a little glad she was going to be here.
Right before my mom left, she’d gifted us with room redecorations (clearly a guilt driven move); me with midnight blue walls, a new comforter with tiny violets embroidered across the hem, and a set of twinkling white lights across the far wall. Maybe she wanted to help me forget the months spent in that bedroom staring at peeling peach paint, under a cotton candy blue blanket.
Aunt Sam had opted for deep red, her vintage black furniture causing the room to look like a shiny record when you walked by. She seemed content as my mom prepared to leave. She didn’t freak out when she was left with instructions. She didn’t even act weird the first night we were alone together. I don’t think she knew exactly what to expect from the entire thing. And it was fine. Until the days before school started, and every friend I’d had for my entire life, left to go to back to college and I was alone and empty, wondering exactly how I was going to survive the year without one single friend by my side.
That is how I ended up eating dinner with my middle aged aunt on a Friday night.
The waitress dropped off our food and Sam exhaled loudly, shoving her cardigan sleeves higher, her palms swiping together greedily. I watched her thumb drift against the now naked ring finger on her left hand before her small cluster tattoo caught my attention on the same wrist. I’d asked about it once a few years ago because the three stars were spaced so far apart and delicate looking - light black outlines filled with pastel blue, yellow and green respectively. She didn’t really give an answer that I could understand so I’d left it alone.
Digging into her scattered-smothered-covered monstrosity like she’d never eaten before, she glanced back up at me. “So, now what?”
“So, now what, what?”
“You’re a good kid. But maybe that’s your problem.” Her gaze flicked over my shoulder and held for an uncomfortable beat. “Maybe this year you should branch out a little.”
I rolled my eyes and slumped farther into the booth, trying to push my bitterness over the situation down.
Sam finally turned back to me and frowned, wiggling her fingers for me to hand over my phone because I was checking it repeatedly to see if Lassiter had sent a text or an email. She hadn’t and it made me feel anxious. So I held on even tighter as my vision blurred with tears.
“Don’t be that girl, Mal. Don’t be the girl crying in a Waffle House on a Friday night. You’re better than this. So your friends went to college before you. Big deal. You were sick. And your mom can’t afford for you to go right now. Can’t change that.”
I shook my head, feeling the first tear slip free, dipping my face to quickly reach up and wipe it away with the back of my hand. My chin quivered and I blinked rapidly to keep the rest at bay.
Sam leaned forward and gripped my hand and I closed my eyes again while another tear trickled down my cheek. Whispering as if she were revealing the most important secret in the entire universe, she said, “Your life is not over. Not even close. You have to make the best of this situation. Go to school. Study. Party. Get into trouble. Find new friends to fill the spaces of the others, but leave your heart open to them, too.”
I opened my eyes and pressed my lips together, tilting my head to say I didn’t understand.
“Ever hear that saying that some people enter your life for a reason, or a season, or whatever? They’re here to slip in and fill the voids made by others. And some you keep, some you let go, but your heart always has space for the ones that really see inside and want to stick like glue . . . those are the ones you fall in love with. If that’s Lassiter and your other friends, then so be it. But maybe there are more out there that you haven’t even met. And that’s an adventure.” She widened her eyes and made a fake gasping sound. “Look at me, giving adult advice.”
That made me laugh.
“So, tell me, Miss Mallory. I know you finally had those braces taken off and clearly haven’t invested in a hair cut in the last ten years, but are guys into that these days? Have you had a boyfriend, yet? Hmm?”
I rolled my eyes and withdrew my hand from hers, momentarily forgetting about my depressive state and thinking back to the years before when I’d bounced from crush to crush on every new boy that even looked my way. “No. Not yet.” Narrowing my eyes suspiciously, I smirked and wiped my face again. “You sure know a lot about my business, Sam. You Face-stalking me? I barely even use that site anymore.”
She grinned. “Your mom was a little worried after the divorce. She wanted me to kee
p an eye on you.”
“Her divorce? Or yours?” It slipped out faster than I intended and I wished I hadn’t said it because she winced, but that was one thing I admired the most about her. She rebounded quickly.
“Hers, of course.” An uncomfortable silence settled as I pressed the cellphone into my thigh, pretending to stare at the table while she ran one prong of her fork through her now-cold food. “Anyway. Never been in love, huh? What about that guy over there? He seems up for the challenge. I mean, he hasn’t stopped looking over here since we walked through the door.”
I felt the blush start at the base of my spine and skyrocket to the top of my head before I even glanced over my shoulder. Tucker Scott was behind the counter, Waffle House hat askew on his mop of dark hair tucked behind one ear, leaning across the counter laughing with a group from our school. In the sliver of a second that I was looking at him, a deep dimple appeared in his left cheek when he smiled.
Turning quickly, I shifted my hair behind my shoulder and slumped lower in the booth, snorting softly.
“You know him.” Her eyebrow was cocked in amusement.
“I don’t know him. We used to ride the bus together in middle school.”
“I think there’s more to that story, but I’ll let it slide.”
“Let’s just say that . . .Tucker Scott? No. Just . . . no.” My dad had always told me to never trust a boy with two first names. Tucker definitely fit into that category.
Sam’s mouth turned down comically. “Methinks the lady doth protest too much and all that –”
“No.” I held up my hand to stop her. “He has a job here. And he goes to community college. You should see his car . . .”
“At least he has a job. And a car. And if I’m not mistaken, you’re going to community college, too. So he has two up on you so far.”
“No,” I repeated, my face flushed with embarrassment.
She raised an eyebrow and leaned forward again, lacing her fingers, making them into a teepee. “Oh, I think that’s a yes. Indeed. In fact, I’d venture so far as to say that a boy like Tucker Scott,” she lowered her voice to a whisper at his name and made a big deal about mouthing it all huge and embarrassing which made me groan and slide even lower into my seat. “I would go so far as to say a boy like that would be worth getting a broken heart over.”