Always and Forever PDF
Preview Always and Forever
Copyright 2012 Karla J. Nellenbach This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License. Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Noncommercial — You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works — You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Inquiries about additional permissions should be directed to: [email protected] Cover Design by Greg Simanson Edited by Nikki Van De Car This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to similarly named places or to persons living or deceased is unintentional. PRINT ISBN 978-1-935961-60-4 EPUB ISBN 978-1-62015064-1 For further information regarding permissions, please contact [email protected]. Library of Congress Control Number: 2012948759 For Dan & Jackie I couldn't have imagined better parents if I tried. Contents PART ONE: DENIAL ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN PART TWO: ANGER EIGHT NINE TEN ELEVEN TWELVE THIRTEEN FOURTEEN FIFTEEN SIXTEEN SEVENTEEN EIGHTEEN NINETEEN TWENTY TWENTY-ONE PART THREE: BARGAINING TWENTY-TWO TWENTY-THREE TWENTY-FOUR TWENTY-FIVE TWENTY-SIX TWENTY-SEVEN PART FOUR: DEPRESSION TWENTY-EIGHT TWENTY-NINE THIRTY THIRTY-ONE THIRTY-TWO THIRTY-THREE PART FIVE: ACCEPTANCE THIRTY-FOUR THIRTY-FIVE THIRTY-SIX THIRTY-SEVEN ACKNOWLEDGMENTS MORE GREAT READS FROM BOOKTROPE PART ONE: DENIAL ONE BARELY AN INSTANT AFTER THE BELL CLANGED, the halls flooded. I surfed through the crowd, letting the fast moving tide govern my direction. When I finally glided to the water's edge, I found myself at Ricki's locker. She laughed at my bewildered expression. “You like?” She patted the wide, neon pink stripe that had materialized in her hair sometime between lunch and now. “Brad did it last period.” “In the Chem lab? What did you use?” My voice rose with every syllable, fearing the poisons she and Brad might have combined to get this effect. Rolling her eyes, she laughed again. “Nah, in the girls' bathroom. We cut Chem. Brad heard Mr. Grant was handing out pop quizzes. So, we decided to bolt.” “Very smart of you,” I agreed, handing her my books. She slid them into her locker and pulled out her Biology book. For someone who hated science as much as she did, Ricki sure did take a lot of science electives. Physics, Chemistry, and now Biology. I could barely handle Bio, and that was mostly because I copied Ricki's homework more often than not. She frowned, sighed. “Tell me again why you're not coming to class. You know I hate sitting at our table all alone.” She made her patented Ricki pouting face, lips puckered with big glassy eyes like she'd burst into tears at any moment. I shifted my bag on my shoulder, tried for a shrug. “Mia, you're not even sick! I mean, look at you.” She waved her hands at me, then put them on her hips, an expectant look on her face. “Okay, truth time. You're not really going to the doctor. You're meeting your husband somewhere so you can, like, pick out China patterns or something.” “Ha. Ha. And Kal is not my husband.” I looped my arm through hers and turned her in the direction of our next class. The route there swung right by the principal's office, which was where Dad said he'd pick me up. “You know that.” “What I know is that you two keep pretending to be friends when the whole world knows you're not.” I just shook my head. This declaration of hers was not anything new. She'd
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