Some Kind of Normal (20 page)

It's funny the things that you think are important when you're invincible. When you think that nothing can touch you. Music. Parties. Girls. Getting laid. Two years ago, that was me. I was that guy. The one who had it all.

Until I wasn't.

But the thing is? I don't care anymore. I'm okay with the fact that I'm not the guy I used to be. Not even close. But whatever I am is some kind of normal, my version of normal at least, and that's all that matters.

I was glad that Everly let me in. Glad that she gave me a chance to prove that I wasn't always gonna be a dickhead. And let's face it, I'd acted like a total douche toward the one girl who made me want to be a better person. My dad had been right. She was the one. And I was willing to do whatever it took to be the kind of guy who deserved her.

I wrote my government test and got a C. Everly helped a lot, and I don't think I would have snagged my diploma without her. Without her I wouldn't be in New York City. I wouldn't be living my dream, writing music with Nathan, and living in this awesome loft that Monroe's parents own. Our rent is doable, and well, the acoustics, man, they're out of this world.

I still have things to work on. I still mess up my words, and sure, the whole epileptic thing sucks. But who needs to drive in New York City anyway? My meds are working, and I haven't had an episode since the summer.

So yeah, life is good. It still has its challenges, but with a girl like Everly in my life, I can believe that things will only get better.

I miss her. She's at college in another state, but we Skype and we'll both be back in Twin Oaks for Thanksgiving. I'll get to hold her, inhale that sweet scent that is all her. Everly Jenkins. The girl who knocked me on my ass.

And for now, that's all I need.

If someone had told me at the beginning of the summer that (A) I would fall in love with Trevor Lewis, and (B) my family would be broken and fractured, I would have told them they were full of crap.

The Trevor Lewis thing came from nowhere, and sure, I'd known my family was hurting, but as it turns out, I just didn't know how badly.

Funny how things work out.

My dad lost half of his parish, but the ones who stayed were amazing. They were supportive and nonjudgmental, and well, it was exactly what he needed.

I'm not going to lie. Things were tough at first. Hell, they still are. As much as I wanted to accept who he was, who he'd been all along, it's hard getting past the broken family his truth had destroyed. I got it. I really did. But it still hurt. In a perfect world my family would be whole and intact.

We're working things out, and for now that's enough. I'm happy that he's found some kind of happiness. He's on his own. I think he's seeing his first love, Kirk, but it's not like he shares that stuff with me. And for what it's worth? Not like I want to hear the details of my dad's love life anyway.

I've learned to accept things and move on, because really, there's no point in living in a past that was a lie. Mom moved to Maine with Isaac to live with her brother. I hate that Dad doesn't get to see Isaac all that often, but I get why she did what she did. My dad hurt her, and in a way, he destroyed parts of her. I just hope one day she finds someone who can help put those pieces back together.

She deserves to be loved. Everyone does.

We talk all the time, and I Skype with Isaac, who I miss more than anything. But we'll be together again, and for now, I know that his life is settled.

As for me? I'm loving college, although I miss Trevor so much sometimes that I ache. At first I wanted to come to New York City with him, but then I realized that was his dream and he needed to do it on his own. Prove to himself that he could.

But that doesn't mean that I don't still love him. I think about him every day. About the way his eyes get all dark when he's about to kiss me. Or the way he holds me, touches me.

I miss every little bit of him, even the imperfect parts.

But that's okay. I'll see him in a few weeks when I go home for the holidays. And in the meantime? I'm working on me. Working on happy.

Working on some kind of normal.

And right now, in this moment, it feels pretty awesome.

This book was partially inspired by a true event and partially inspired by my daughter and her big heart. Her mantra, that love is love, is one we should all aspire to live by. Our world would be a much kinder, gentler place if we did so.

I'd like to thank Kristen and her friends Hailey, Mariah, Maggie, Abbey, and Danielle for being bright, compassionate, funny individuals. I so enjoyed all the “BAE” conversations I overheard while you were all gathered around the kitchen table. I wish all of you much success and hope that no one ever breaks your heart. Ever.

I also need to give a shout-out to my wonderful agent, Sara Megibow, my editor Aubrey Poole, the team at Sourcebooks, and all my author buddies who are in this crazy world of publishing with me. It's a crazy ride, but hey, I wouldn't want any other job in the world!

USA
Today
bestselling author Juliana Stone fell in love with her first book boyfriend when she was twelve. The boy was Ned, Nancy Drew's boyfriend, and it began a lifelong obsession with books and romance. A tomboy at heart, she split her time between baseball, books, and music—three things that carried over into adulthood. She's thrilled to be writing young adult as well as adult contemporary romance and does so from her home somewhere in Canada.

Two shattered hearts are about to collide in small-town Louisiana.

Don't miss Juliana Stone's

Boys Like You

My gram told me once when I was eleven that I could do anything. She'd been very matter of fact as she poured us each an iced tea on a steamy afternoon.

It was the kind of afternoon when the air sizzled and stuck to the insides of your clothes. The kind of afternoon that made your skin clammy and your muscles lazy. I remember that the birds were quiet but the locusts chimed like mini buzz saws.

Funny, the things that you remember, and the things that you can't forget no matter how hard you try.

On that particular afternoon, we'd sat on her front porch in the rain, Gram's hyacinths bent over from the weight of the water, her two cats Mimi and Roger curled at our feet. I'm sure I wore some trendy New York outfit that was totally inappropriate for Louisiana in August, and Gram Blackwell was dressed in what she liked to call “genteel southern attire,” which basically meant cotton instead of linen or silk.

We settled back in our chairs and chatted about the soccer team. I told her how much I wanted to make first string, and she told me that anything was possible as long as I applied myself. Of course I believed her with all the enthusiasm an eleven-year-old who has never been hurt or disappointed feels.

Why wouldn't I? This was Gram, and she was never wrong.

I tried my hardest and made the team.

But that was before Malcolm. Before the awful year that had just passed. That was before I learned that my charmed life could bleed. That pain could become an everyday kind of thing, and that happiness was just a word that didn't mean anything.

And now, at the ripe old age of sixteen and a half, I don't know what I believe in anymore, and I don't know if I'll ever be fixed.

It's not like I haven't tried.

I went to private therapy. I went to group counseling. I read the books that I was supposed to read, did the relaxation exercises that I thought were stupid, and took the meds that they gave me.

In fact, I loved how those little blue pills made me feel nothing—which isn't very different from the way I feel most of the time—but medicated nothing is so much better than the real, hard nothing I had been living with.

I suppose it's why they weaned me off them. “Addict” wasn't exactly a label my mom wanted to add to the impressive list of everything else that was wrong with me.

My point is…I did it all. I tried.

It's just hard to succeed at something when you don't really care, and as much as I want to get better for my parents, I can't
make
myself care. Not even for them. My therapist says I need to care for myself first.

And therein lies the problem. The catch-22. I just don't care anymore. Not really.

Yet there are moments where, if I try real hard, I can close my eyes and smell the rain. Not just any rain, mind you, but
that
rain. From that long-ago afternoon.

Gram's rain.

“Monroe, I'm heading to town in a few minutes. Do you want to come along?”

I turned as Gram walked into the kitchen. It was nearly noon and I had been sitting at the table for about an hour, trying to decide if I was going to eat the bowl of pears she'd put out for me earlier or if I was going to put them back in the fridge.

I liked pears. I liked them a lot. I just wasn't all that hungry.

“Uh, I think I'll stick around here, if that's okay with you.”

Gram put her purse on the table, and I pretended not to notice how her eyes lingered on my hair. I'd pulled it back in a ponytail yesterday—or maybe it was the day before—because I couldn't be bothered with it. I'm pretty sure I hadn't brushed it since.

She pointed to the bowl in front of me and raised her eyebrows, waiting half a second before grabbing it and setting it on the counter. She pulled plastic wrap from the drawer and covered the pears before putting them back in the fridge.

Gram turned and leaned against the counter, and for a moment, we stared at each other in silence.

I'd arrived a week earlier and we hadn't had a real chat yet—the one that I sensed was coming—and my stomach churned at the thought.

Gram's long hair was swept up in a clip at the back of her head, the silver strands glistening in the sunlight that poured in from the window above the sink. She wore pink lipstick, a casual cream skirt—cut to an inch above her knee—a moss-green blouse, and low open-toe heels to finish off the outfit. Pearls were in her ears, and the matching pendant lay at her neck. A classy choice that was totally Gram.

She was beautiful.

My gram had turned sixty last year and still carried that simple elegance that set her apart from a lot of women. She'd been a real hottie in her day, and though my mother said I was her spitting image, I didn't see it. But then I suppose beauty is more about your state of mind, and since mine was all dark and gloomy, that's what I saw when I looked in the mirror.

“All right,” she said after a while and glanced at the clock above the stove. “I have someone coming by the house anyway, and I'll need you to show him where the job is.”

Great. I thought of my bed and the nap I'd planned.

“Who is it?”

I didn't really care, but I could at least be polite and ask.

“I've engaged the services of a local contractor for some repairs and maintenance around the plantation. Today the fence around the family crypt and burial plot will be painted.”

Gram's ancestors had lived in Louisiana for generations and this place—Oak Run Plantation—had been in the family for just as long. Years ago, Gram's father had turned the family home into a successful bed and breakfast/museum, which Gram had inherited, because according to my father, Gram's brother, Uncle Jack, was a no-good drunk who couldn't find his own butt if he needed to.

My grandmother even stayed on after her husband died, but instead of living in the big house, she moved into what used to be the carriage house. And that's where I'm staying this summer.

Everyone—which would be my parents and my best friend Kate—was hoping the hot Louisiana summer and laid-back atmosphere would somehow fix me. They think that the city and the memories are too much, and I don't have the heart to tell them that the memories will never leave. That much I've learned.

So location doesn't really matter, but I was glad to be away from my mother and her large, expressive, puppy-dog eyes. She looks at me a lot when she thinks I won't notice, and every time she does, I feel like the biggest failure on the planet.

I don't know how to react to her anymore—do I pretend I'm better to make her pain go away? Do I ignore her? Do I tell her to get out of my face?

And my father, God, he's the total opposite. He acts as if everything is normal. As if the last year and a half never happened—as if each one of us is whole—and that makes me angry. And kinda sad.

Gram grabbed her purse, bent low, and gave me a hug. “I love you, Monroe.”

“I know,” I whispered.

She grabbed her keys and paused. “Barbecue sound good for supper?”

I shrugged. “Sure.”

“All right then.” She moved toward the door but paused, her hand on the ivory handle. “He'll be here in an hour. Why don't you brush your hair?”

“Okay,” I answered, though I'm pretty sure we both knew it wasn't likely to happen.

The crap thing about not being able to drive is that I do a lot of waiting around for rides, and I hate waiting. Doing nothing makes me crazy, and crazy Nathan isn't exactly the kind of thing I'm going for these days.

But mostly I hate waiting because it gives me too much time to think about the reasons I'm waiting in the first place. About how one stupid mistake changed everything. About how I screwed up so badly that now, the summer before my senior year—the one that I should have spent hanging with Rachel and Trevor and the rest of the guys—is going to suck.

Though it won't suck as much as Trevor's.

I wiped sweat from my brow and scooped up my bag from the porch. I hate waiting. I hate thinking.

In the fourth grade, Alex Kingsley tripped Trevor in the hallway, just outside our classroom. We had been in line waiting to head into the gymnasium, and Trevor tumbled into me. Long story short, we both wiped out, and the entire row of girls laughed their butts off. So did Alex—until we cornered him in the schoolyard at lunch.

Trevor and I taught the little turd exactly what happened to dickheads. After that, Alex pretty much left everyone alone, and though Trevor and I were punished—we had to stay after school every day for an entire week—it solidified our friendship.

We bonded over our mutual dislike of Alex Kingsley and our love of music and sports. Eventually, I forgave Trevor his thirst for all things country—he couldn't help it, his parents were true hicks—and he learned to like my progressive ear. He was into country music, bluegrass twang, and he also had a soft spot for the New York Jets. I was all about the old classics my dad loved, hard rock, and loud guitars. I also preferred the Dallas Cowboys, but he was cool with that.

Somehow we gelled, and our band is, or rather
was,
the hottest act in the area.

One mistake. One stupid-ass mistake and I ruined his life.

I would switch places with him in an instant if I could. Maybe then the guilt would go away. Maybe then I could look in the mirror and that empty hole in my gut would fill up with something other than loathing.

It should have been my future in the gutter. But I was Jack and Linda Everets's son, and around these parts, that meant something. Around these parts, it meant special treatment or a second chance, even when you didn't deserve it.

I'd gotten off easy and I knew it. Everybody knew it, except they used all kinds of excuses to cover up the fact that Trevor was lying in a hospital bed and I should be locked up.

Nathan
is
a
good
boy.

He's never done anything like that before.

They
can't be perfect all the time.

They
all
make
mistakes, even the good ones.

Blah. Blah. Blah.

None of it changed the fact that I'd screwed up huge, and I wasn't sure what made me more bitter—the fact that I should be riding a bench in juvie and wasn't, or the fact that I should be the one lying unconscious in a hospital bed with broken bones that would never play a guitar and a brain that might be scrambled for life.

My cell buzzed and I grabbed it from my pocket, frowning when I saw my uncle's name pop up.

Shit. I knew what this meant.

I started walking.

“Nathan, I'm going to be late.”

The Oak Run Plantation was about thirty minutes down the road, and though the air was thick with humidity, anything was better than sitting on my front porch, staring at a car I couldn't drive and thinking about stuff that made me more depressed than I already was.

“I'll head over,” I answered.

“It's hot as hell out there, boy. I don't want you to have heatstroke. Your mother will tan my hide if that happens.”

My parents had gone north for the week in a bid to escape the heat, so at the moment, I was stuck home with no wheels and no one to take me anywhere. I could die of heatstroke and they wouldn't know until Sunday night when they returned, because they never called when they were away—and I knew not to call them unless the house was on fire.

I could say it was because cell reception was bad, but the simple truth was, my parents really dug each other—still—and they kinda forgot about the world when they went away.

I used to think it was gross—the way my dad would paw my mom—but now I realize they have something special, and that's a hell of a lot more than I could say for a lot of my friends' folks.

“I'm good.” I grabbed a bottle of water from my bag and emptied it over my head. It soaked through my hair, which hung down to just above my shoulders, and splattered drops of water across my white T-shirt. My dad hated my hair, but Mom and my girlfriend, Rachel, loved it.

Rachel had told me once that if I ever cut it off, she'd dump me—she was joking, of course, but for a while there I wasn't so sure.

It was hair; I didn't see what the big deal was, but Rachel thought it made me look like some guy on TV, and Rachel was, if anything, all about looks. I guess when you are a hot little blonde, it's not surprising.

“Thanks, Nate. You're a good kid.”

Tell that to Trevor,
I thought.

“The paint and brushes are already there, so you just need to get started and knock off around five, or earlier if need be. It's Friday, you got plans?”

Rachel had left for the lake about an hour ago with a group of friends we hung out with, including one of the guys in my band, Link.

I could still taste her cherry gloss in my mouth. She'd come by, wearing the skimpiest bikini top you can imagine, along with the shortest jean shorts she owned. If I cared enough, I would have given her crap about it, but since I didn't anymore, I said nothing.

She'd jumped from the car and into my arms, wrapped her legs around my waist, begging me to reconsider and come with them. She seemed almost desperate—as if she knew something that I didn't.

What
does
it
matter
if
you
blow
off
Mrs. Blackwell?

Your
job
will
still
be
waiting
for
you
on
Monday.

It's not like your uncle will fire you.

“Nate,” she'd breathed against my mouth. “Come on, baby, it will be a good time.”

A good time for Rachel was code for getting wasted and having sex, which were two things I wasn't all that interested in anymore. At least not with her. Not since that night.

“Nathan?” My uncle's voice cracked through the cell.

“Nah, I'm taking it easy tonight. I'll work 'til five,” I answered and then pocketed my cell. Or later. There was nothing for me to come home to, and without the band or Rachel around, what was there for me to do?

The walk to Oak Run Plantation was brutal. It was hot and muggy, and by the time I got there, my T-shirt was long gone. My feet were just as sweaty as the rest of me, and I was irritated that I'd decided to wear work boots instead of something more sensible like my Chucks or sandals.

The driveway was impressive if you were interested in that sort of thing, lined on each side by huge oak trees that were generations old. Their branches spread over the top, reaching for the other side like a canopy, and I enjoyed the shade as I walked toward the main house.

Several cars were parked beside a small outbuilding to the right, and at the last minute, I paused, because I was pretty sure Mrs. Blackwell didn't live in the main house anymore. I spied a smaller place on the other side, set back a good twenty feet. There were flowers planted in the front, beneath the veranda. Purple and white petunias just like at my grandparents. Old lady flowers.

I decided to start there first.

I dropped my bag on the bottom step, took the stairs two at a time, and rang the doorbell. A few minutes passed and I rang it again, this time pressing hard for several seconds. I could hear it echoing inside and took a step back.

“Shit,” I muttered, glaring at the door—like that was going to make it open. I was hot, sweaty, and didn't exactly feel like searching a freaking plantation for some creepy burial site.

One more minute ticked by before I decided that's just what I was going to have to do, when I heard a scuffling noise and the door swung open.

I'd just tied a bandana around my head to keep my hair out of my eyes, and with a smile plastered to my face, I turned back to greet Mrs. Blackwell.

Only it wasn't Mrs. Blackwell who stepped out onto the porch.

It was a girl. I knew that much. How old was she? I couldn't say exactly, because in that moment, I couldn't even tell you if she was pretty or not.

I was way too focused on a pair of eyes that hit me in the chest like a hammer against stone. The color was unusual—a light gray/green—and sure, they were pretty damn striking, exotic even, but it wasn't the color or shape that got to me.

It was what I saw inside them. Something indefinable and yet so familiar because it was like looking in the mirror, and my first thought as I stared back at her, my smile slowly fading away?

Man, that sucks.