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  Copyright © 2020 by Carmel Rhodes

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

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

  Editing: Kristen—Your Editing Lounge

  Proofreading: Leslie Middleton

  Cover Design: NET Hook Line Design

  Interior Formatting: Champagne Book Design

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  About this book

  Part 1

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Part 2

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Part 3

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Epilogue

  Preview of Lithium Waves

  Also By Carmel Rhodes

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  For Suzan, Lori, and Kelly. I love you, deep.

  The summer after senior year was supposed to be the best summer of my life.

  It was supposed to be full of adventure and self-discovery and making love under the stars.

  It was supposed to be about losing myself and finding my way.

  Only, it wasn’t supposed to start like this.

  I wasn’t supposed to go to that party.

  He wasn’t supposed to notice me.

  The hot jock with the trust fund and chip on his shoulder.

  My ex-boyfriend’s half-brother.

  Noah Tedesco is so far out of my league he might as well be playing a different game.

  Noah wasn’t supposed to look twice at a girl like me, but he did.

  Now that I’m on his rader, my life will never be the same.

  Truly is a dark coming of age romance that explores themes of dub con and non con and happily ever after. Proceed with caution.

  “You’re breaking up with me?” I ask, my frail voice barely audible in the noisy auditorium. The summer after senior year is supposed to be the best summer of my life. It’s supposed to be full of adventure, and self-discovery, and making love under the stars. It’s supposed to be about losing myself and finding my way.

  Only, it isn’t supposed to start like this.

  Devin lifts a shoulder, sucking the ring circling his bottom lip into his mouth as our former classmates file pass us. His royal blue graduation robe hangs open, as does the baby blue button-down underneath it, revealing a faded black concert tee. His posture is relaxed as though we’re discussing plans for later and not the end of a two-year relationship.

  I used to admire his unapologetic demeanor. The way his shoulders hang with the confidence of a boy who isn’t worried about what other people think. The way the right side of his mouth tips up in a half-smile. The I don’t give a fuck twinkle in his eyes.

  He’s the boy from the other side of town who saw rules as mere suggestions. The boy who’d rather skip class, get high, and make music, then worry about SAT scores and organized sports.

  The bad boy.

  The rebel.

  Now, he’s just the stupid boy who’s breaking my heart.

  “Don’t say it like that, Tru. I want us to still be friends.”

  Friends? Do I even know how to be his friend? Devin is the love of my life. He understands me like no one else. Despite our differences, we click. I was planning to give my virginity to him. He swore to me that we’d make it work, even though he’s staying local and going to community college, while I head two hours south to Jameson University. “You said you’d try,” I bite back, as the ridiculous tassel on my graduation hat catches in the fake lashes my cousin helped me apply.

  His eyes finally meet mine, and I’m disappointed in what I see there. I’d hoped to find the same pain searing my chest reflected in them. Not this…this indifference. “Long distance never works.”

  I yank the stupid hat off. It’s graduation day. I’m supposed to be happy. I’m supposed to feel accomplished and proud. Instead, I feel gutted. “You didn’t even give us the summer.”

  Aaron, one of Devin’s best friends, comes up behind him, slapping his shoulder playfully. “Hey, y’all coming to The Grove tonight?”

  The Grove is a park near the edge of town where Devin and his stoner friends hang. Consequently, it’s also the place where he and I met. I was there taking pictures. He was there getting high. I spotted him lying on top of a picnic table, staring at the sky.

  It was cold that day. His lips and cheeks were stained red. He looked like a painting, like art. I was so mesmerized, I wanted to immortalize the moment. I snapped a picture when I thought he wasn’t paying attention, but I wasn’t as invisible as I thought. He spotted me the second the camera shuttered. The whole world seemed to pause in that moment. He hopped off the bench and strolled towards me as casually as he’s breaking my heart now. I’d held my breath the entire time it took him to reach me. Frozen in wide-eyed embarrassment at being caught.

  I don’t remember exactly what he said, but I remember everything he did. With a cocky half-smile situated on his strawberry colored lips, he reached out, tucking a strand of curly hair behind my ear and bopped me on the nose. Something I’d later found out his dad used to do before he died. We spent the entire afternoon talking, and like an idiot, I fell for him. His seduction of me was gradual, yet inevitable, like sand slipping through an hourglass. Apparently, also as temporary.

  Devin rakes a hand through his shaggy brown hair and addresses his friend. “I’ll meet you outside in a second.” A look passes between them. Aaron’s eyes trail to mine and he nods in understanding, then turns, leaving us alone.

  Students continue rushing past us. Some cast curious glances our way, while others snicker at my expense. The news of our breakup will undoubtedly hit the gossip mill before sundown.

  “You told him?” I do my best to keep my voice down and the tears at bay, but I can’t help feeling like everyone was in on the joke but me.

  “I asked his advice, that’s all,” he explains. At least he has the decency to look embarrassed.

  “How long have you been planning this?” My phone buzzes in the pocket of my skirt. Probably my dad wondering why I haven’t met him outside yet. A bitter laugh escapes my throat as another realization dawns. “You couldn’t even wait until after graduation?” We were supposed to be heading out to dinner with my dad, but I guess that isn’t happening now.

  “I didn’t want it to be weird. Sitting at dinner with your father—who hates me—knowing I was planning this. It’s better this way. Plus, you have your trip with Becca coming up. You’ll be fine, Tru.” He rubs his palms down my arms in a gesture that’s anything but reassuring. “You’ll forget about me soon enough.”

  Devin is the guy everyone thinks is wrong for me. Newton High Sch
ool’s resident troublemaker. The bass playing, pothead with a chip on his shoulder. He went to class when he felt like it. He went home when he felt like it. The first time I got drunk, I was with him. The first time I got high, I was with him. The first time I dyed my hair—purple because he said it would look badass with your brown skin—was for him. I wanted to give him all my firsts.

  Maybe he’s wrong on paper, but he’s also the one I call when I wake up in the middle of the night crying because I miss my mom. He’s the guy who chases away all the guilt and resentment that I’d been drowning in since her accident. He’s patient. He’s kind. He doesn’t judge me or think I should be over it by now. He understands what it’s like to lose a parent.

  I can’t lose him too.

  “Don’t do this.” My voice sounds foreign. The tears I tried to hold in earlier fall recklessly down my cheeks. Devin is the best part about living in this goddamn town. He’s one of the only people who understand me. Now, he’s ruining me. Something he promised he’d never do. “Give me the summer. Give us the summer,” I beg. I’m begging him in front of half the school and I don’t even care.

  “Tru.” He lowers his gaze. My heart, the stupid, desperate thing, perks up. Maybe he’ll change his mind.

  “Give us the summer,” I whisper, though it feels like my entire voice reverberates off the walls of the auditorium, broadcasting my shame to the world.

  “I wish I could,” he whispers back, tucking a few stray hairs behind my ear and bopping me on the nose. It’s a poetic end to us, and maybe if I weren’t holding onto my sanity by a thread, I could appreciate it. Chaos blooms in my chest. My mind reels, searching for something, anything I can say to change his mind. Anything I can say to make him stay. My lips part, but before I have the chance to let my longing spill onto the stained carpet, my best friend’s perky voice pierces the air.

  “TRULY!” Becca races over to where we’re standing. I discreetly wipe the tears away, turning in time to catch her as she barrels into my arms. “God, I hate that my last name is Arnold and yours is Parker. We were on opposite sides of the auditorium all day.” She babbles on a bit more about some grad party later tonight but pauses when she gets a good look at me. Her voice turns cold as she glares behind me. “What did you do to her?”

  Devin throws his hands up in surrender. “Look, Tru. I gotta go, okay?”

  “G-g-go?” I stutter, stumbling forward.

  Becca grips my arm tightly, stopping me from chasing after him. “Let him, Truly. He’s no good for you.”

  “She’s right, Tru.” Devin’s lips turn down into a slight frown. A million emotions play out in his eyes in a millisecond. In that space of time, I allow my heart to hope. I hope and hope and hope…until he blinks, wiping away everything, but resolve. “I’ll ruin your life.” He turns to Becca. “Take care of her.” Then just like that, he’s gone.

  Something inside me breaks. I move forward again, and again Becca stops me. She angles her body in front of mine forcing my attention on her instead of Devin’s retreating back. Her blonde hair cascades in waves around her shoulders. Soft black coal rims her arctic blue eyes, and her lip trembles with worry. “What happened?”

  “He broke up with me,” I say as if it isn’t obvious. I try to shrug out of her grasp, but she holds firm.

  “At graduation?” Her perfectly sculpted brow arches. People smile and wave to her as they pass, but most of them ignore me. Becca and I met sophomore year. We’d both transferred from out-of-state—her from California, me from Chicago—and bonded because of our new girl status and desire to ditch small town life as soon as humanly possible. But Becca, with her blonde hair, boobs, and ability to stick a standing back tuck, flew up the social ranks, while I was the artsy sad chick who’d preferred to spend Saturday nights watching Golden Girls and eating carbs. Devin had been the one person in Newton who didn’t make me feel like an outcast or that he had to be friends with me because of Becca. He liked me for me.

  “He says it’s best this way,” I murmur, tugging on the sleeves of my gown. The jagged scar on my left arm itches, and my fingers twitch to scratch it.

  “He’s a tool, Tru. He turned you into someone you aren’t.” She lifts a strand of my flat-ironed, purple hair for emphasis.

  “I love him.”

  “Do you though?” she asks. For her to be Little Miss Sunshine, she’s annoyingly cynical, probably why we get along so well.

  “He was my first love. First kiss. And he’s the only person—aside from you—who knows about…everything.”

  She drops her hands on my shoulders, forcing me to meet her gaze. “I think...and don’t get mad at me for saying this, because I love you, deep.”

  “Deep, deep,” I mumble, begrudgingly. It’s been our thing since tenth. No matter how mad we get at each other, if one of us says I love you, deep, you probably aren’t going to like what follows it, but it’s coming from the heart.

  “Big deep,” she finishes. Her blue eyes turn stern. “I think you only showed him the person you thought he wanted to see. Sometimes, I feel like I don’t even know the real you.”

  I inhale but don’t respond. She’s right. He wanted a cool girl who’d skip class, listen to metal, and spray paint buildings. He made me feel special. He made me feel understood. So, I nearly tanked my GPA and got arrested for vandalism. I pierced my nose and put my camera down. I let him mold me into a shell of the girl I used to know. A girl who begs boys to stay when they so clearly want to go.

  “When did I become this person?” I ask, looking over at my best friend. She is my true north. She’s been there for me through some of the hardest parts of my life, and while I may not like her stuck-up friends, I love her.

  Becca is thoughtful for a moment as she glances around the now empty auditorium. A poster hangs on the far wall. She tips her chin in its direction. “Don’t sweat the small stuff, Tru. It’s only high school, and he’s only a boy.”

  The Bible talks a lot about faith. Faith in Him. Faith in things unseen. Faith moving mountains. It’s a concept that has been ingrained in me since birth. “Truly,” my Bible Belt born and bred Momma used to say. “If you ask for it in prayer, and you believe it, you will receive it.” The only thing she spouted more than scripture was Tupac lyrics.

  I’ve tried having faith since the accident that took my mother’s life. I tried to believe that God had a higher plan for me. We moved to Georgia so that I could be close to Momma’s roots. Then, I met Devin, and I thought God was finally working in my life, but maybe Momma was wrong. Maybe faith is a fallacy. Maybe life is cruel until the end.

  The jagged scar on my wrist itches as Becca’s car rolls to a stop behind a bright red Jetta. The license plate reads, 2Cheer4U. I slump further down in the passenger seat and groan. I’ve spent the better part of my high school career avoiding being in spaces with the stuck-up assholes who so lovingly refer to me as the stoner groupie. Now, I’m about to walk headfirst into the lion’s den. “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.”

  Becca snorts, flipping the visor down to reapply a thick coat of pink gloss to her lips. “That’s how you remember it?”

  I cross my arms over my chest and pout. “I didn’t ask to come to Ethan’s grad party,” I mumble. “I asked you to cover for me. You were the one who insisted I come here.” I couldn’t face my family after Devin had to go all king fuckboy and drop my ass at graduation. My dad already thinks Devin is going to knock me up and leave me stranded in Newton with his miniature attached to my hip. Though, before he took the job at the hospital, he was the on-call physician at Newton’s one and only free clinic. Unplanned teenage pregnancy is quite literally his nightmare.

  I couldn’t bear to hear the gleeful I told you so, while my heart is still raw and bloody, so I pulled up my big girl panties and jumped in Becca’s Malibu, even though I’d rather chew on rusty nails than party with her friends.

  “Let’s be real, Tru. If I left you up to your own devices, you’d be at The Grove r
ight now going full on bunny boiler on Devin’s ass. I saved you the embarrassment of a stalking charge.” She screws the lip gloss tube closed and presses her lips together, releasing them with a smack. “You’re welcome.”

  I lift my middle finger and flip down the mirror on my side. “Yikes,” I say to my reflection. Three hours of ugly crying in my best friend’s arms has left me looking more like a raccoon than an actual person, and I don’t need to give these assholes any more ammo.

  I snag a wipe from the bin Becca keeps in the back seat, which is her emergency kit, and it rivals the health and beauty section at Target. I clean the black from around my dark brown eyes, reapply my brows, and swipe on some Chapstick. I’m still wearing the two-piece midi-dress from the ceremony, and thankfully, the humidity hasn’t frizzed out my hair too much.

  “Good as new,” Becca tells me, giving me a once over before pushing her car door open. With one last look in the mirror, I resign myself to my fate.

  My chest aches as we make our way up the winding cobblestone driveway. The pain of heartbreak is as physical as it is emotional. It’s like I’m drowning. Sinking deeper into the depths of depression, while Post Malone’s Sunflower permeates the air. Voices echo through the early evening sky. They’re laughing. They’re happy, yet here I am, missing Devin. It’s stupid. He’s a total asshole for dumping me at graduation, but I can’t help myself. I just feel...hollow.

  “Promise you’ll at least try to be social,” Becca says as if sensing the shift in my mood.

  “I’m not social,” I remind her, staring up at the house for the first time since we arrived. I’m not even sure house is the right word. Manor seems more fitting. It’s the kind of place that should have a name, like Wilmore Manor or something as equally snobby.

  She giggles. “Well, promise you won’t be a bitch to anyone...undeservedly.”

  “I’m not that big of a bitch to your friends,” I tell her as we continue our hike up the massive driveway. “Remind me again what Ethan’s parents do?” Becca and Ethan have only been dating for a few months. Technically, this party is the first time I’ve even hung out with them outside of school. Devin didn’t really mesh with the cool kids, and the cool kids didn’t mesh with him.