Safer Outside (A Mature YA Romance) (The Outside Series) (16 page)

About the author

Kristina Renee was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. She married her high school sweetheart after college and they have two sweet and adventurous sons. She spends her time chauffeuring her kids around and doing technical marketing but when she can escape, she loves reading, writing and editing. Learn more at www.KristinaReneeBooks.com

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A Zebra Like Me

By
Amy Maurer Jones

Prologue

Maybelle

I sit on the soft, green grass staring out at the lake behind my house. The breeze is cool and soothing against my sun-kissed skin. Tomorrow is the first day of school.

A sour feeling invades my stomach. I barely passed last year. The pressure of my reality is consuming. Now, in the waning heat of August, after a summer filled with rest and relaxation, it’s easy to pretend this year will be better, but I know the truth. Soon, a daily routine of torture will overwhelm me. Pain-filled days spent trudging up and down concrete floors and flights of stairs. Agonizing hours of stillness trapped in the unforgiving frames of wooden desks. Neck-breaking, never-ending minutes straining to see what my teacher wrote on the board and overhead projector. And, the paralyzing stress of knowing it’s getting worse and I can’t handle it. I feel helpless and defeated and have yet to step through the school’s front doors.

             
“I’m a zebra. No one understands me,” I whisper to myself.

             
I take a deep breath as the air stirs. My focus is distracted by a shimmering glint of light. A silvery-white slip of paper floats down from the clear, blue sky. I stretch out my open palm and clasp my fingers around it. It’s folded neatly into quadrants. I unfold the square of paper to find out what is written inside.

             
You’re not alone, Maybelle.

             
I search the empty space around me and find nothing out of place. Everything is the same. My grandmother’s ferns dangle from their baskets on the back porch. The heavy, faded wooden rocking chairs are still, immune to the feeble breeze. The vegetable garden and the locked shed beyond it are undisturbed. An occasional boater drifts by on the lake but otherwise all is quiet. I am alone.

I reach for my backpack and retrieve my makeshift diary, a simple spiral-bound notebook. I tear out a piece of paper.

“Prove it.” I say the words as I scrawl them on the slip of paper, fold it into a square, and toss it toward the Heavens.

Amy Jones Books

www.amyjonesbooks.com

Coming in June 2014
: Kim’s Story

Coming in Fall 2014: Adam’s Story