Sometimes It Happens
Read Sometimes It Happens Online
Authors: Lauren Barnholdt
sometimes
it happens
ALSO BY
LAUREN BARNHOLDT
Two-way Street
Watch Me
One Night That Changes Everything
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
SIMON PULSE
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
First Simon Pulse hardcover edition July 2011
Copyright © 2011 by Lauren Barnholdt
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction
in whole or in part in any form.
SIMON PULSE and colophon are registered
trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
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to your live event. For more information or to book an event contact
the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at
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.
Designed by Bob Steimle
The text of this book was set in Cochin.
Manufactured in the United States of America
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Barnholdt, Lauren.
Sometimes it happens / by Lauren Barnholdt. — 1st Simon Pulse hardcover ed.
p. cm.
Summary: With help from her best friend, Ava, and Ava’s boyfriend, Noah,
Hannah is recovering from being dumped by her boyfriend, Sebastian, but on
the first day of their senior year in high school, Ava learns that Hannah and Noah
betrayed her while she was away.
ISBN 978-1-4424-1314-6 (hardcover)
[1. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 2. Betrayal—Fiction. 3. Secrets—Fiction. 4.
High schools—Fiction. 5. Schools—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.B2667Som 2011
[Fic]—dc
22 2010043368
ISBN 978-1-4424-1316-0 (eBook)
For Jennifer Klonsky, for being smart, savvy, and amazing
Acknowledgments
A million thank-yous to:
My agent, Alyssa Eisner Henkin, for being the hardest-working, smartest, most enthusiastic agent in the business. Alyssa, I cannot thank you enough for everything you’ve done for me.
My sister, Kelsey, for being Ally’s favorite, our Wednesday sleepovers, and for reading all my work.
My sister, Krissi, for her tattoo, our Old Navy trips, and always being there when I need her.
My mom, for her covert Facebook page, being my biggest inspiration, and always believing in me.
The best friends ever: Kevin Cregg, Scott Neumyer, Jessica Burkart, and Erin Dionne.
And of course, my husband, Aaron, for everything. Aaron, you came into my life and changed it one hundred percent for the better. I am so lucky to have you, and I love you with all my heart.
sometimes
it happens
I really should
not
be so scared. I mean, I’ve done this millions of times before. Okay, maybe not millions. But for the last twelve years, on every weekday minus summers and vacations, I’ve gone to school. And I’ve never been afraid before. (Well, except for maybe a little bit in kindergarten, but isn’t everyone a little afraid in kindergarten? And besides, even then I wasn’t freaking out or anything. Not like Layna Hodge, who threw up all over the play box in the corner.)
Today, the first day of senior year, I’m terrified. This is because there is a very good chance that at some point today I will:
a. lose the love of my life,
b. lose my best friend, or
c. have an awkward encounter with the boy who broke my heart last year. (Note: This is a different boy than the previously mentioned love of my life. [See a.])
I take a deep breath and grip the steering wheel of my new car, then pull into a spot in the visitor lot of my high school. I’m technically not supposed to be parked here, but the visitor lot is way closer to my homeroom than the student lot, and since it’s the first day of school, I’m pretty sure I can get away with it. Plus it won’t be as obvious if I have to peel out of here and make an escape.
Okay,
I tell myself,
you can do this. You are invincible; nothing can rattle you. You have nerves of steel; you are a confident, strong woman; you—
There’s a knock on the passenger side window and I scream, then immediately hit the automatic door locks.
I look over. Oh. It’s only Lacey.
She knocks on the window again, and I reluctantly unlock the doors.
She slides into the passenger seat, her long, red curly hair pooling around her shoulders. She smells like coffee and strawberry-mango shampoo.
“Hey,” she says, “What’s wrong? Why’d you freak out when I knocked on your window? And why are you parked in the visitor lot? It took me forever to find you.”
“Nothing’s wrong,” I say. Which is a lie, of course. But I can’t tell Lacey that. She knows nothing about what went on this summer. She knows nothing of the fact that my best friend Ava is coming back today, that everything is different, and that everything is horrible. That I’m going to see Noah, that I’m going to see Sebastian, that I’m going to maybe end up in a mental institution by the end of the day. Although,
a mental institution actually might be preferable to going to school, so that might not be such a bad thing, now that I think about it.
“Just normal first day of school nerves,” I say brightly.