Authors: Beckie Stevenson
I hold on
to her hand and squeeze once and then she’s gone.
I stand in the road, cold and
alone. Cabe rushes back into the ambulance and just before the doors close, I hear the faintest of beeps from the heart machine. The ambulance screeches away, leaving me on my knees in the middle of the road.
Real tears slide down my cheeks. I crumble there in that second and sob. The clouds start descending slowly from the sky, gathering around me and hugging me in their fluffiness. They’re tinged orange as if the sun is setting in them
, and they feel warm as they swarm around me. I can hear voices and soft, gentle music, as something inside of me starts to pull. I’m moving. My feet are drifting over the concrete and up toward the cotton candy-looking clouds.
I want to go, but
I couldn’t stop myself even if I wanted to now. My whole body is floating up toward the sky. The sun breaks through the clouds, creating a stream of light that falls out of the clouds and directly onto me. My whole body lights up. Every centimeter of my skin is alight with the colors of the rainbow as I enter through the clouds.
I’m home.
Read on for an excerpt of Book Two in the EXISTING trilogy…
Roisin
Williams has survived heartbreak, grief, and emotional and physical abuse.
She knows that in order to make her future something worth living, she needs to fix her past. But how can she do that when the boy she loves and the friends she trusts are thousands of miles away?
Cabe Evans
never wanted to fall in love, but then he met Roisin and everything changed.
When Cabe receives a letter from Rose’s Father, telling him he wants a fresh start for his daughter and begging Cabe to let Rose go, his world crumbles.
She’s his life now and after everything they’ve been through, he doesn’t plan on just sitting back while her Father takes her away from him.
Can Cabe find Rose? And if he does, will he like the person she’s become?
The sequel
to Existing will be available Summer 2014
Cabe,
I know I should be saying this face-to-face
and man-to-man, but the truth is, I didn’t want to give you the chance to change my mind.
I’m Roisin’s Father and I believe that what I’m doing is the right thing for her. It’s what she needs. It’s what Ava and I need.
If you’re reading this, then you’ve probably realized that we’re no longer in Cannon Beach. I thought moving from Utah would be a fresh start for Roisin, but I was wrong. Cannon Beach has turned into the place where most people’s nightmares became Roisin’s reality. I don’t want her to wake up in a place where the reminders of what she physically and mentally went through are staring her in the face.
I know you two
have a bond that doesn’t seem like it can be broken, but I need you to let her go. If she has nothing of her past to cling on to, then maybe she can begin to build herself a future.
I’m sorry, but this is something that I have to do. It’s what she needs more than anything.
I hope you can forgive me.
Lance
I stare out of my window, watching the palm trees that sway at the edge of the white sands and blink away my tears. Today my tears aren’t for Cabe. They’re not for Charlotte or Ashley. They’re not even for Ava. Today my tears are for my Mother.
Even though I was upset my whole life about losing my Mom at such an early age, it’s nothing compared to how I feel now. I feel guilt for hating her ghost. I feel gri
ef for losing her. I feel sadness for everything that she must have seen and heard, and more than anything, I feel my heart breaking for her. I can’t imagine how she felt when she discovered my Dad was having an affair with Hallie. I can’t bear to think about what was going through her head on the morning she left me with my Aunty Orla while she went to meet with the woman who was stealing her husband away. It’s like she has died all over again and I’m drowning in the sea of my grief.
I sniff and rub my face with the back of my hand.
We’ve been in Matecumb in the Florida Keys for three weeks, and I haven’t left my bedroom or my private backyard since the second we got here. Most of the time, I just sunbathe while listening to music or reading a book. If I’m not doing that, then I’m sleeping. I cry a lot too. Sometimes it’s when I’m listening to a particular song about love or loss. Sometimes I wake up crying and screaming in the middle of the night. It’s those times, when I feel like I’m the only person in the world who is awake, that I feel scared and lonely. What scares me the most about those nights is that I can’t even remember what nightmare it was that woke me in the first place.
I move on the bed and catch a whiff of myself. I wipe my face clear of tears, trying to r
emember when I last showered. It have to have been at least three days, which is disgusting by anyone’s standards. Just because I’m sad and pissed off with the world and everyone in it, it doesn’t mean I should smell too. I sigh and stand up from the bed and walk toward the mirror. I pull my nightie over my head and stare at the scars that are scattered all over my skin. I should probably hate them, but I don’t. They’re ugly and the one on my chest is still bright red and devastatingly raw, but they’re a part of me now and more than anything, they’re a symbol of how I’ve survived. I use them as a reminder of how strong I used to be. I wish I could be strong now.
I stare at my
now skinny, naked body in the mirror and the tan lines that have developed over the last three weeks and huff. When I turn to grab my towel from off the rocking chair that’s in the corner of the room, I see a boy walking across the sands, leaving a trail of footprints behind him. I gasp in shock at the sight of him as he walks past my window, carrying a fishing rod over his shoulder, looking like he doesn’t have a care in the world. I lean forward, feeling the pounding of my heart in my chest, and watch the familiar swagger of his hips as he heads toward the rocks. I can’t believe he’s here. I didn’t think I’d ever see him again and the knowledge that he’s actually here forces the blood to surge to my legs and propels me into the bathroom.
After my shower,
I walk into my bedroom with the towel wrapped around me and scrunch my wet hair with my hands. I spray some curling spray into it like Charlotte once showed me and pin one side of it up with a red flower-shaped clip. I pull open my drawers and rifle through the ridiculous amount of bikini’s until I find the matching red-string set. I wriggle myself into it and wrap a red ankle-length sarong around my waist. I slip my feet into my flip-flops, take one last look at myself in the mirror, and inhale a deep breath.
Before I even walk into the kitchen
, I can hear Ava chatting easily to my Irish cousins, Jack and Dylan. My Father must have called Aunty Orla while he was making his plans to get us away from Cannon Beach because they were already here waiting for us when we arrived. Ten year-old Jack and twenty year-old Dylan aren’t exactly strangers to me, but it feels weird having them live with us. I guess I should be happy they’re here because at least Ava has people to talk to. God knows why my Father decided to drag us all away from the new life we’d created because I’m not the only one who hasn’t left their room since we got here. How can he fix us all when he’s the one that’s completely broken?
When I step into the
kitchen, they all stop eating and talking. Silverware clatters on their plates and then a few seconds of awkward silence passes before my Aunty Orla turns to me and smiles, making her big, brown eyes crease up at the sides.
“Good morning, Rose,” she says, glancing nervously at Dylan. “Can I get you some breakfast? Toast, maybe?”
I shake my head. “No thanks. I’m just going for a walk.”
Dylan wipes his mouth with a napkin and stands up. “Do you want some company?”
I clear my throat and smile at Ava and the toast crumbs that are covering her chin. When I turn back to Dylan, I see his amber-colored eyes staring at me. He has the Italian-colored skin and dark hair like me, but his eyes are mesmerizingly different. They remind me of wolf eyes, the way they shine and fix on me. It’s a little unnerving, as if he’s staring into me rather than at me. “I’m good, thanks. I’m just going to get some fresh air. I won’t be long.”
Dylan shoots a look at my Aunty
Orla, but she not-so-subtly shakes her head at him. I lean down and kiss Ava and then head out of the house before it gets any more awkward.
It doesn’t take me long to find a fresh set of footprints. They’re heading in the exact direction that I thought they would be. I take a deep
, salt-filled breath and follow them.
I can feel the
scorching hot sun beating down against my back as I step down past the first big boulder. I can feel my heart hammering in my chest from the nerves of seeing him again. I climb down toward the shallow water, making sure I put my feet in the right place and stand as still as a statue when I see him.
He’s lying
on a towel, bare-chested and wearing nothing but a pair of khaki shorts with his hands folded behind his head. His eyes are closed but I know he’s not asleep. I stand and watch his chest rising and falling as the sun shines down on his already tanned skin. His fishing rod is propped in between two smaller rocks and the wire is floating on top of the water. He’ll never catch anything like that.
I step forward and watch my shadow fall across him. His eyes open and I see the familiar flash of bright blue. I step back when he leans up on his elbows and I watch the confusion and surprise spread across his face as he blinks up at me.
After the shock of seeing me has worn off, I watch his eyes fly up and down my body. The whole time he’s looking at me I can’t breathe. I try, but it just sort of gets stuck in my throat. I feel cold, even though it’s blistering hot.
“What do you want, Roisin?” he says, sounding annoyed that I’ve disturbed him. I watch his eyes move back down to my
breasts and then I see his eyes widen when they notice my four-inch scar that runs in between them.
I slowly let out the breath I’ve been holding and clear my throat.
“I want to talk to you,” I tell him.
“About what?”
“I want to try and explain stuff to you.”
He smirks and closes his eyes again. “What sort of stuff?”
“Last year,” I say, hoping he gets my meaning.
He huffs, sounding bored. “How come you’re talking to me?”
I step forward and sit on the edge of the rock that he’s lying on. “I just told you. I want to talk to you. I want to explain.”
“I tried to talk to you when we got back to school. Have you forgotten that?”
“No, Zak,” I sigh. “I haven’t.”
“Does your tongue only work in Florida or something?”
I shake my head. Cabe was right; I must have really hurt him last year and he’s obviously still pissed at me for the way I behaved. “It used to,” I tell him honestly, “but not anymore.”
“I’m not going to be your fuck buddy for the summer, if that’s your plan.”
I feel my mouth drop open in shock. I almost laugh. Does he really think I would want that from him? “I’m sort of dating someone,” I say. I hope that’s true and that Cabe can forgive me for the way my Father just plucked us from Cannon Beach and our lives there. I hate that we didn’t have time to go back to the house to grab anything. I don’t have my phone or any of my other things. I hate my Father for forcing me into this.
Zak laughs. “Well, just fuck off then. I’m not interested in fucking you and I don’t want to talk to you.”
I almost turn and walk away right then. Almost. Instead, I reach into my sarong and pull out the folded sheet of newspaper and hold it out for him. “Here,” I say, “this should explain some of it. If you want to talk to me about the rest of it, then I’m staying in the same condo as before. Number eight.”
I stand with my arm out for what feels like forever before he leans up and snatches it from my hand. I turn and start to walk back up the scattered rocks when I hear him call my name out. I turn around and shield my eyes with my hand.
“Yeah?”
He stares at me with those mind-numbing blue eyes and licks his lips. “You left,” he says. “You left without saying anything, not even goodbye.”
I stare back at him until he leans back down and closes his eyes. I want to tell him how sorry I am. I want to try and explain to him how difficult it was for me, but he wouldn’t understand. He needs to know what was going on in my life before him.