Authors: Jalena Dunphy
Stolen
Stolen
By
Jalena Dunphy
Stolen
Copyright © 2015 by
Jalena Dunphy
All rights reserved.
This is a work of
fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is
purely coincidental. The Author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized
duplication is prohibited.
No part of this book may
be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form
without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of
copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.
Dedications
Mom, thank you for being
my biggest fan. You helped give me the courage to chase this wild and crazy
dream.
To my penguin, thank you
for loving me, for giving me confidence when I had doubts, and for rubbing my
shoulders after a long night of writing. I love you more than my luggage!
To my editor, Michael
Garrett, thanks for helping me to make this the best book it could be.
And to the readers who
took a chance on my book, thank you!
Three years ago .
. .
“Jess. Jess, it’s time to get up.”
I stir from someone stroking my shoulder and
whispering softly to me as if I’m made of glass, as if any loud noise will
shatter me. I don’t want to get up. I don’t want to do anything; and it will be
safer if I don’t. I only harm those I love.
I’m wrapped in my soft, white down comforter, with my
head buried under my pillow, in a fetal position. This is where I’ve been for .
. . a while. Time hasn’t meant much to me except to remind me that, for me, I
have too much if it.
Why do I have so much time? Why me?
I shrug my shoulder to get the hand off it. Why must
people touch me? Why does everyone think it will soothe me or just make me
forget? I’ll never forget, and I don’t deserve to. This is my punishment and I
can’t get out of it, not that I would even try.
I hear the voice—my mother’s, of course—try again.
”Honey, I know you don’t want to get up, and I know you don’t want to go, but
if you don’t, you’ll regret it later.”
Will I, though? Is that the memory I want seared into
my brain? Maybe not, but as I’ve already accepted that I deserve all this pain,
I suppose that’s a part of my punishment. I have to go. I have to endure, and
while everyone, including my mother, will be happy with my supposed progress at
finally getting out of bed and facing my fears, I’ll know otherwise. This will
placate them for a while, though, which will let me return to my confines when
this is all over.
It’s only one day. It’s only one day. It’s only one
God damned day! The hardest day of my life, but what are hours in the grand
scheme of things? Only one day is what they are.
I get out of bed. I don’t make eye contact with
my mother. I hate those eyes. Her eyes have always been transparent; recent
events haven’t changed that fact any, and if I have to see the worried,
exhausted pain behind them, I’ll never make it through the day.
I shower. I comb my long brown hair. I brush my teeth.
I put the clothes on that have been left on the bathroom vanity, the shoes that
are near the toilet, and I breathe—not too much; I don’t deserve to breathe. I
don’t deserve to take deep, cleansing breaths. I’ll only breathe enough to get
through this day, this day made up of hours. Only hours until this one day is
over, then, maybe, just maybe, I’ll breathe, but not today. If I have to
survive this day, this will have to be enough.
Please don’t make me live another day, I beg some
unseen force, but I won’t have an answer to that plea until this one day ends.
Just one day, made up of hours.
I walk out the front door and suffer through the
longest day, made up of the longest hours, then the next day, and the next. I
still won’t breathe beyond what it takes to survive, every day after this day,
this day of endless hours. This is my Hell, fire and brimstone be damned!
I got my answer. Verdict in, punishment decided.
I’m sentenced to live.
Present day . . .
“Jess, have you seen my blue sweater?” I hear a
frantic voice call for me.
I always dreaded the first day of school. It seemed
like no matter how well prepared I thought I was the night before, come morning
I was always running around like a lunatic. This is no different for my younger
sister Cassie; Cass as everyone but our mother calls her.
It’s the first day of high school for her, and I’m
pretty sure nerves are getting the best of her, although I was the same way a
couple of weeks ago when I started my first semester in college. I guess we all
have jitters at some point.
“It was hanging in the laundry room the last time I
saw it, but mom might have moved it. I’ll help you look for it,” I yell to her
from the kitchen where I’m making her a sandwich for her lunch.
My sister and I have always had a great relationship,
unlike most siblings I know. I think the age difference helps. She’s fourteen
and I just turned nineteen. A five-year gap in age meant that we never fought
over the same boys, or activities at school, or whose clothes were whose. I
would do anything for her; absolutely anything.
About half an hour later, Cass is off to school, with
her blue sweater, and I’m alone at the dining table eating my bowl of Fruity
Pebbles and downing my second cup of coffee.
Our mom is a manager at a bank and is always out the
door before either of us is usually even up, so I get the mornings to myself. I
only have one class, World History, a prerequisite along with five other
mundane, boring classes that fill my first semester today, and that doesn’t
start until 11:30, so I guess I get a couple of hours of down time until I have
to get dressed and leave.
College for me isn’t a fancy Ivy-League institution,
but a local state university only twenty minutes away that affords me the
opportunity to live at home instead of living in one of those holes in the
wall, otherwise known as dorm rooms. It also lets me stay close to Cass and
mom, and considering how close we all are, that’s a definite plus. The only
downside I can foresee is if/when I start dating. I assume it would be awkward
if I lived in a dorm, though, too.
I couldn’t juggle a relationship right now if I wanted
to, and part of me does want to, but getting used to college life is more
stress than I allowed for. Fitting someone else into this chaos I call life
would be impossible. Besides, I don’t know if I’m ready for a relationship yet.
It’s been a while for me since my last boyfriend, but it doesn’t feel it; in
fact, the thought of being with someone else feels like I’m cheating. I don’t
know if I’ll ever get over that feeling, and part of me doesn’t want to. I
deserve to feel wretched about moving on.
As my mind continues to wallow over my past, the alarm
I set on my phone buzzes—time to get ready.
Class flies by, but the work I have to do for it won’t
go so quickly, I’m afraid. Caffeine is what I need, and if the line waiting out
the doors of our campus coffee shop is any clue then I’m going to say I’m not
the only one hoping it will help conquer the daunting tasks that lay ahead.
“Hey, Jess! Jess, over here!”
I hear my name, but with all the shouting and
complaining going on around me, I have no idea where it came from.
“Jess!”
I step out of line only slightly—these people are
vicious, I can tell, and will fill in my gap in a heartbeat if I let
them—finally seeing a person flailing about, trying to get my attention and
continuing to shout my name. I weigh my options, I can stay where I’m at and
avoid having to start this whole process again by stepping out of line, or I
can go and be nice to the one friend I’ve made so far.
Choices. Choices.
“Jess Foster, get your butt up here! I’ll buy you your
coffee, so stop worrying about losing your place in line!”
Now that’s creepy. She’s either psychic or I’m just
that transparent. I’m going with the latter. I’ve never been able to hide my
emotions, and I don’t believe in psychics, so it’s the only logical answer.
A few apparently “accidental” elbows to my gut by
angry students seeing me cut in line later, and I’m standing bumped, bruised,
irritated at all humanity; or at least the humanity that this line consists of,
in front of Rachel Evans, a fellow English Lit student.
“Hey, girly! What’s with making me stand up here
looking like a psycho waving and yelling for you?” She links her arm in mine
and tugs me as the line moves forward. “I was going to get my caffeine fix and
do some work on that paper that’s due next week, but now that you’re here I say
we split and hit the strip!”
The strip is a strip of shops, café’s, bookstores, and
boutiques that many tourists visit in the summer, but come early fall the
locals take it back, and by locals I mean mostly college kids since it’s within
walking distance of the school. I do love walking and seeing what unique things
people are selling, and I especially love the bookstores since they seem to
always have hard to find or just plain unique books in stock, but I really
should be studying. More choices and I’ve yet to have a coffee.
I shouldn’t go. Right! I’m not going! That would
be rude to leave a friend high and dry, but I really need to study. At least I
think I do. I suppose nothing is due, so it wouldn’t kill me to take an hour or
so break from schoolwork. So I should go, right?
Along with a college degree, maybe I can also get a
degree in how to make a damned decision. If Cass were here right now, she’d bop
me on the head and tell me to snap out of it already. “Life isn’t as hard as
you make it” is what she would be telling me, which is what she’s always
telling me. I didn’t used to be like this, but things change; I changed, and
until that fact changes, I’m stuck with a disposition as pathetic as, well, I
can’t think of anything as pathetic as me right now so I guess I get the
privilege of being the example in that sentence.
Great
.
I can see Rachel is studying me out of the corner of
her eye, giving me time to come up with my answer while keeping her head on the
people in front of her. “Fine, I’ll come, but I shouldn’t stay out too long. I
have a lot of work I should probably get to.”
Her arm is still linked with mine, and now her gaze is
on me as I watch a smile spread across her face. “Great! I knew you wouldn’t
make me go out all by myself,” she coos at me as if I’m an infant. I can’t help
but laugh. She and Cass would hit it off great, two peas in a pod. Maybe that’s
why I like her so much.
An hour later, or ten minutes by anyone else’s time,
we finally have our coffee and are making our way through the still growing
line and out to the street, on our way to the strip. This is the first time
I’ve had a chance to talk to Rachel alone, and I’m finding she’s talkative and
energetic, but not in an irritating cheerleader kind of way.
Thank God!
She’s the younger sister to a brother who’s in the
military. Her parents are still together but, apparently, her father has a
mistress. Of course, she also says her family holds séances and conjures up her
dead relatives, so who knows if she’s telling the truth or not on that whole
mistress thing; then again, maybe she is and maybe they really do conjure dead
relatives and she really is psychotic and, currently, my only friend; that
would figure.
We walk past half a dozen shops or so before walking
into my favorite bookstore, The Bookend
.
I hadn’t even realized that
while we were still talking we had both veered our way into the very same
store,
Kismet.
This store has been here forever, it seems, and has
always been my favorite. When I was younger, mom would take Cass and me in once
a week and let us each pick one book. By the time I was eight, one book barely
lasted me to the next day, so my allowances kept increasing from one to two to
three books, until she finally halted that, instead giving me money to buy as
many books as I could with the allowance. It was the best day of the week when
we came here.
“Hey, Jess, look who I found!” I look over to where
Rachel is standing and next to her is a guy who’s also from our English Lit
class. I don’t know his name, but he seems nice enough, and from the way Rachel
is caressing his arm repeatedly I’m guessing she thinks so, too.
“Jess, you remember Kyle Warren, right?”
Apparently, his name is Kyle.
“Sure, you’re in our English Lit class, right?” I
watch as he nods in agreement, but I also notice the way he seems to be staring
at me intently, even as Rachel continues to stroke his arm. Hopefully she won’t
notice; I don’t want to get into some girl fight over a guy, especially with
the only friend I have right now.
Rachel continues to stroke his arm, but he never takes
his eyes off me, even to acknowledge her. “Yep.”
A man of few words. Okay. Change of tactics; he’s obviously
not into useless banter.
“So, do you come in here often?” Did I really just ask
him that? Oh my God I’m hopeless; that sounded like a horrible pickup line. I
can’t stay in this awkward situation any longer. “I’m sorry, I actually have to
go so you guys hang out and I’ll see you both in class, okay?”
“Jess, what the hell, we just got here!” Rachel yells.
“Yeah, well, I-I just need to get to studying. I
should have been doing that already.”
He’s staring at me. Why does he keep doing that? I
have to get out of here. Now.
“Jess, you don’t have to go. I was actually heading
out soon anyway, so if you were leaving on my account, don’t.” His voice is so
soft and sweet. If my heart could talk, it would be stuttering right now, but
he’s all but taken and, sweet or not, it doesn’t matter.
If you’d stop staring at me, maybe I
wouldn’t.
“No, really, I have to get going.” With my hand on the
exit door, I look over my shoulders, telling them both goodbye, and that I’ll
talk to them both in class.
I sigh a breath of relief when I feel I’m a safe
distance away from the bookstore, slowing my hurried pace into a more sane
speed. I’m so embarrassed. I acted like a complete fool, and I don’t know why.
Well, I guess that’s not entirely true; I may or may not have found Kyle to be
a little attractive. Okay, a lot attractive. He has dark brown hair that hangs
low on his forehead, deep blue eyes, a tall stature, and a body either sex
would be envious to have.
He doesn’t exactly fit the bad boy image, but
doesn’t look like a choirboy either. There’s a tattoo on his upper right arm
that I can only barely see under his black short-sleeved shirt, but it looks
like it might be script. His shirt clings to his body in a seductive way that I
doubt he realizes and his jeans, oh my God! His jeans hang just low enough to
accentuate his well-defined torso.
He’s pretty gorgeous if I’m going to be completely
honest. What warm-blooded female wouldn’t have found him attractive? I had to
leave, though, for that very reason. Rachel obviously likes him, and I don’t
want to get in the way of whatever it is that she might be trying to start with
him.
“Hey! Hey, Jess!”
It takes me a second before I realize that someone is
calling for me, and when I turn to look around to find out who it is, I nearly
knock over a little old woman coming out of a bakery to my right. “Oh my God,
I’m so sorry! I should have been paying more attention.”
I’m rewarded with a scowl by the woman and a laugh by
someone behind me. I turn on my heels and almost run into another person. This
time I have no desire to move or apologize for the near attack. Kyle is
standing in front of me, and I watch as his expression changes from humorous to
heated in about six seconds. I look up into his gorgeous eyes, someone who’s
taller than I am. Another plus to his tally of many pluses, and forget how to
speak. I actually forget how to speak!
“So, do you make it a habit running away from people
only to run right into little old ladies?”
There’s a hint of humor in his tone, but still something
lays latent to his words. If I didn’t know any better I would say he was
flirting with me, but that can’t be. Who would want to be with me over someone
like Rachel? Me, who has always been as tall as most boys in school, with plain
brown hair and boring brown eyes, who’s partial to a lack of makeup and hair
product as opposed to someone like Rachel who’s dainty with blonde hair, blue
eyes, and the epitome of girly.
“I-I umm didn’t mean to seem like I was running away
from you guys, I really just have a lot of work to do.” I clear my throat, look
him in the eye, and straighten my spine that seems to have gone soft.
I hate it when that happens. I hate when I become one
of those pathetic girls in some of the books I’ve read who cower in the
presence of men and act like total buffoons around men they find attractive
.
Arghh!
But I have my reasons. I didn’t used to be like this. At one point,
I was just like everyone else; with friends and a boyfriend I was in love with,
but things change, and this is apparently who I am now—a plain Jane girl who
has only one friend, and that’s because she’s from another state and doesn’t
know anything about me. The new me can’t even talk like a sane person to the
first attractive guy I’ve encountered in what feels like ages.