Pretending He's Mine Read online

  But she’s not my girl. I can’t lay claim to her. I ignored her. And now…

  I’ve lost her.

  “So why did you shut her out? You’ve never told me, you know.”

  My psychologist loves to ask the tough questions, but that’s her job. I still hate answering them. “It’s the only way I know how to cope,” I admit. The truth slaps me in the face on a daily basis. I always run.

  It’s so much easier.

  I sought Dr. Morris out myself. No one else pushed me to do it. After we came back from Carmel, after I ditched Fable and left her that bullshit note, I withdrew into myself worse than ever. I fucked up my game play. I fucked up my grades. Winter break came and I ran away. I literally ran away to some crazy cabin in the middle of the woods I rented from some nice old couple in Lake Tahoe.

  My plan? Hibernate like a bear. Turn off my phone, hole up by myself and figure my shit out. I didn’t anticipate how hard it would be, though, being alone with my thoughts. My memories, both the good and the bad, haunted me. I thought of the bombshell my stepmom Adele dropped on me. I thought about my dad and how much the truth—if it really is the truth—would affect him. I thought about my little sister Vanessa and how she died. How she might not be my little sister after all…

  More than anything, I thought of Fable. How mad she’d been when I showed up on her doorstep, but she let me in anyway. The way I touched her, how she touched me, the way she always seemed to break down my barriers and see the real me. I let her in. I wanted to let her in.

  And then I left her. With a note that was rendered pointless because she tried her damnedest to rescue me and I wouldn’t let her. She sent me exactly two texts. The second one surprised me because I knew she was stubborn and I figured she’d give up after I didn’t answer the first one.

  How could I answer it though? She said all the right things. And I would’ve said all the wrong things. So it’s better to say nothing at all.

  She also left me one voicemail. I still have it. Sometimes, when I’m feeling really fucked up, I play it. Listen to her soft, filled with tears voice, those unbelievable words she says to me. By the time the message is finished, my heart literally hurts.

  It’s torture listening to it yet I can’t make myself delete that message either. Just knowing it’s there, that for one last minute she actually cared, is better than deleting those words and her voice, and pretending she doesn’t exist.

  “I’m hoping to help you with that. Your coping mechanisms,” Dr. Harris says, drawing me out of my thoughts. “I know how much she means to you. Fable. And I’m hoping that eventually, you’ll go to her and tell her you’re sorry.”

  “What if I’m not sorry?” I toss the words out, but they’re meaningless. I’m so sorry I can’t begin to explain how much of a screw up I am.

  “Then that’s another issue we’ll have to deal with,” she says gently.

  It goes on like this for another fifteen minutes and then I finally make my escape, walking out into the cold, clear winter afternoon. The sun is warm on my skin despite the temperature and I start down the sidewalk, heading for where I parked my truck. Harris’s office is downtown, in a nondescript building and I hope like hell I don’t see anyone I know. The college campus is only a few blocks away and students hang out at the little stores, cafes and coffee shops that line the street.

  Not like I have many friends but hell. Everyone likes to think they know me. No one really does. With the exception of one person.

  “Hey Callahan, wait up!”

  Pausing, I glance over my shoulder to see one of my teammates running toward me, a big grin on his goofy face. Jace Hendrix is a pain in the ass but generally a good guy. He’s never done me wrong, not that any of them ever really have. “Hey.” I offer him a wave and shove my hands into my jacket pockets, waiting until he stops just in front of me.

  “Long time, no see,” Jace says. “You sort of disappeared after that last failure of a game.”

  I wince. That last failure of a game had been all my fault. “I was feeling sort of fucked up over that,” I confess.

  Hell, I can’t believe I just admitted to my failures, but Jace doesn’t seem bothered. “Yeah, you and everyone else, man. Listen, what are you doing this weekend?”

  The way Jace brushes off my statement—hell, the way he agrees with it—blows me away. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s Logan’s birthday. We’re doing it up right at the new restaurant that just opened a few blocks over. Have you heard of it?” Jace looks excited, he’s literally bouncing on his feet and I wonder what the hell is up.

  “Vaguely.” I shrug. Like I care. The last thing I want is to be social.

  But then Dr. Harris’s words ring through my head. How she wants me to reach out. And act like a real person.

  “Party’s going to be there. Got a private room and everything. I haven’t been there yet, but I hear all the waitresses are gorgeous, the drinks are delicious and loaded with alcohol and Logan’s parents arranged for a private room. Rumor has it strippers might’ve been hired out for this momentous event. Logan’s turning twenty-one, so we want to get him all sorts of fucked up.” Jace waggles his eyebrows.

  “Sounds great,” I lie. It sounds like torture. But I need to go. At the very least, make a quick appearance and then jam. I can report back to my shrink what I did. She can give me a gold star for making an effort.

  “You’ll go?” Jace looks shocked and I know why. I rarely do anything with the guys and especially the last few months, since I’ve been like a ghost.

  “I’ll be there.” I nod, unsure how I’m going to work up the energy to make an appearance, but I’ve got to do this.

  “Yeah? Great! I can’t wait to tell the guys. We’ve missed you. Haven’t seen you for a while and we all know how those last few games were tough on you. They were tough on all of us.” Jace’s expression is solemn and for a minute I wonder if he’s playing my ass.

  But then I realize he’s sincere. Funny how I took full responsibility for those losses when I bet every single one of these guys on my team probably did the same thing.

  “Tell the guys I can’t wait to see them.” The words fall easily from my lips because they’re the truth. I need to stop wallowing in my own misery. I need to stop worrying about my past, worrying about my dad and my bitch of a stepmom and the little girl who died because I was too busy fighting with her mom and telling her to keep her goddamn hands to herself.

  That’s the one regret I have, that I never fully explained to Fable what happened that day. I know she assumes I was off screwing around with Adele. I would think the same. But that was the day I told her never again. Whatever she was going to try, I wasn’t interested. It was over. That was the day I became liberated.

  And also the day I became a prisoner to my own guilt.

  Forever.

  “See ya around, Drew.” Jace waves and turns, whistling as he walks away from me. I remain rooted to the spot, watching him leave until he’s a speck of nothing in the distance, wishing like crazy I could be that carefree. That my biggest concerns are my grades, what girl I can get my hands on next, and how excited I am for the big party coming up in a few days.

  Maybe, just maybe I could lose myself in the mundane for a bit. Pretend that nothing else matters but friends and school and parties. Doc says I can’t move forward until I face the past.

  But what the fuck does she know.

  Sneak Peek at Summer Stone’s young adult novel

  Hell’s Hollow!

  Dear Readers: Summer Stone is one of my critique partners and an amazing friend. I am so excited to share a sneak peek of her novel Hell’s Hollow, releasing March 15. Please note: this novel is not a racy romance. It’s a clean young adult paranormal romance and it is awesome! So if you’re in the mood for a teen love story set in a spooky town featuring characters with hidden abilities, check out her novel. Here’s the blurb, and then an excerpt.

  When Seraphina was younger, she heal
ed her best friend's injured hand. Terrified by the inexplicable cure, the girl shunned her. From that day on, Seraphina found herself without friends, a freak and an oddity. And so she obeyed her mother’s rule to refrain from using her innate ability, heeded her mother's warning that its use could land her in the local mental health facility alongside her aunt and grandmother.

  But when sixteen-year-old Seraphina finds a mysterious, wounded boy hiding in the hollow in the woods behind her house, she can't hold out against the overpowering urge to help him. She is drawn to him each night, and as they come to know one another, their irresistible attraction blooms.

  She longs to uncover his secrets—where he comes from and why he's hiding and how he came to be so wounded—and to share her own, though she knows it's forbidden. And while her healing touch seems to be helping him, it's hurting her. When the symptoms of psychosis—experienced by the women in her bloodline who used their powers—begin to plague Seraphina, she is faced with the unbearable choice of saving her sanity or the boy she’s come to love.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Days passed before I felt his tug again. It was late, and Mom had turned out her light hours earlier. Still, I opened the front door as carefully as I could so she wouldn’t hear me leaving. The creaking of the hinges seemed as loud as a scream. But no sound came from her room.

  Once I was safely on the path, I was so excited about finally seeing him again that I tripped over my own feet and slid halfway down the hillside.

  As soon as I saw his silhouette, I called out to him, “Zach! I’m so glad you’re here! I was afraid you might not come back.”

  “Shh!” he said, looking around as though he expected to get caught. “I thought I heard someone.”

  I couldn’t help wishing he might be happy to see me. “It was probably me. I fell.”

  “Are you okay?” he asked, sounding concerned, which made me smile.

  “Fine,” I said, coming closer to hand him a Mars bar. “Did you find the shoes?”

  “What shoes?” he asked, taking the candy and a step away from me.

  “Behind the tree,” I pointed to where I’d left them.

  He went back to the tree where I’d placed the box and returned with the hiking boots on his feet. The awkward way he walked made me think they might be too big. “Thanks.”

  “You should take some flip-flops, too, for hotter days.”

  “That’s okay, these are fine,” he said, sitting back on The Hollow and finishing the Mars bar. “That chocolate was really good. I don’t think I’ve ever seen commercials for that one.”

  “Do you watch a lot of TV?” I asked, prying for information wherever I could.

  He shrugged. “I guess.”

  I sat on the bank across from him. “There’s so much I want to talk to you about.”

  “Like what?” he asked, looking like he feared I might ask him something he couldn’t or maybe shouldn’t answer.

  “Like, why did you say you were afraid for me? And have you been hiding at Myra Clay’s, and are you her so-called ghost? But how could you be because it’s been there forever? And how come you don’t have any shoes and you always wear the same long clothes even on hot nights?”

  He started to get up, his face drawn tight.

  “Don’t go. Please,” I said, wishing I’d kept my mouth shut and wondering why I couldn’t. “You don’t have to explain. Just… sit with me.”

  “I really shouldn’t be here,” he whispered.

  “I won’t ask anything,” I promised. I moved a little farther from him to sit by the sequoia, needing distance from his pull. Why did I get so rambly around him? It was as if all the words I didn’t say in town got stored up and overflowed. “I don’t know why I can’t shut up around you. I don’t really talk … to people… that much.”

  “Why not?” he asked.

  “It’s hard to explain,” I replied. “It’s different with you, though.”

  His face changed in the moonlight then, as though I’d said something hurtful, and he started backing up.

  “Zach,” I said, “please don’t go.”

  “You don’t understand,” he said.

  “What don’t I understand?” I asked. “Explain it to me.”

  He shook his head, then spoke softly. “You’re sweet and kind, and… all I can bring you is darkness.”

  And then, as if this was some Hollywood movie, a cloud slipped over the moon, shutting out the light.

  “I’m not afraid of the dark!” I called. When the cloud passed, Zach was still sitting in The Hollow. “You didn’t run,” I said, surprised.

  “I probably should’ve,” he replied.

  I shook my head. “Why doesn’t The Hollow affect you? I’m sorry, I promised to quit asking questions.” What was wrong with me?

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “Guys usually can’t get close to The Hollow. The energy vortex … it’s uncomfortable for them. My brothers used to dare each other to go near it. It was different for them because they have some of my mom’s blood, so it wasn’t as bad as it is for other guys, who can get knocked down by it. But you sit on top of it like it’s nothing.”

  “I’m not normal,” was his reply, looking like he was still considering bolting.

  “You mean your scars?” I asked just to keep him there.

  “That’s only part of it,” he said. “Why doesn’t this energy thing affect you? Is it because you’re female?”

  “That’s only part of it,” I echoed.

  “What’s the rest?” he asked.

  “I’m not normal either,” I said, my heart pounding. I’d never admitted this before, not even to my once best friend, Sierra. Well, there was the time I’d healed her finger in kindergarten after she accidentally sliced it in the paper cutter. But I’d never explained how I’d done it. And neither Mom nor Sierra had ever let me forget what a dangerous mistake it had been.

  “How are you not normal?” he asked.

  My body trembled. He didn’t know me as the freak. “I’m not allowed to talk about it.” The rule was too deeply ingrained. I couldn’t just brush it off.

  “Me neither,” he said. And then he crept to my side of the bank and sat closer to me than he ever had before.

  The proximity of his need was like a crashing ocean wave against me. I didn’t want to offend him by backing away. Between The Hollow coursing through me and his need smashing up against me, I almost couldn’t bear to be in my own skin. If I could feel him so intensely that had to mean he was real, didn’t it?

  “Tell me,” he whispered, his dark eyes pulling on mine, filled with a different desperation. In the moonlight, I could see the scars on the right side of his face more clearly. They stopped just below his eye. I hadn’t noticed how long his dark lashes were before.

  His need mixed together with some strange new feeling of my own, a reckless desire. The words slipped out without my permission. “The women in my family have lived here beside The Hollow for centuries. Its power works through us.” My face got hot and I felt this crazy flip inside my chest. What was I doing? “Most of them go crazy from it.”

  “You’re not crazy,” he whispered.

  “Yet,” I replied. The moment passed. I could say no more. “Your turn. I’ve asked a million questions. Pick one to answer.” My heart beat against my chest like a berry-drunk bird crashing against the windowpane.

  He looked up to the sky as though the answers were there. “I don’t have shoes because I’m not supposed to leave the house.”

  “So you are Myra Clay’s ghost!” I gasped.

  “You can’t tell anyone,” he said.

  “Of course,” I promised. “I would never. Besides, I told you, I don’t talk to them much.”

  “Why not?” he asked. And the way his eyes held me was like nothing I had ever known, something I’d craved all my life without realizing it.

  “No one can know about us, my family I mean, about how we use The Hollow—or how it uses us. They�
��d be afraid again, like they were in the old days. I’d end up at Meadowland with the crazies. If I talked, I might accidentally spill. Why are you supposed to stay in the house?” I asked, horrified by the idea that he’d been stuck inside all these years.

  He shook his head, looked away from me.

  “Is that why you hide your socks behind the ivy?” I said softly, not wanting to upset him, but too curious to let it go.

  “How do you know about that?” he asked.

  “I came looking for you. The ivy seemed out of place, smashed to the side.”

  “I should be more careful,” he said. “It’s hard to get the dirt off them. I can rub it off my jeans so she won’t notice. But the socks… there’s no way to hide it. So I leave them in the ivy where she won’t find them.”

  “This is so messed up,” I said.

  He shrugged.

  “Do you need anything? Can I bring you something else?”

  He looked at me with this weird expression, like he wanted to move closer, but instead he scooted farther away. “Maybe a book?” he asked. “She used to bring me a different one every week. I still get the workbooks, and TV is cool and all, but predictable. I miss reading new books—not knowing what’s going to happen.”

  I nearly cried. “Sure, I can bring you lots of books. That’s easy.”

  “Only one… at a time,” he said. “I’ll have to hide it.”

  “She shouldn’t be imprisoning you like this. It’s got to be illegal. I could get you help.”

  “No!” he shouted, then quieted. “You have to promise. She has her reasons. I shouldn’t even be here.”

  “Okay, I’m sorry. I’ll bring you a book. Is there any certain kind you like?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “The ones I’ve read, they’re mysteries mostly, adventures, sometimes fantasies. I like them all.”

  An overwhelming desire to reach out and touch his hand swept over me. But I knew it was risky. I was too open. But if I touched him and I could feel his skin against mine, I could be sure. Still, I didn’t do it.

  “I wish I could bring you something,” he whispered.