When I Find Her
WHEN I FIND HER
by
KATE BRIDGES
BOOK SUMMARY
When I Find Her
by Kate Bridges
Now an award-nominated book, a powerful, heroic story of young adult romance for readers of all ages from USA TODAY bestselling author Kate Bridges. A story told exclusively through Luke’s point of view.
Luke Eric is left devastated when the irresistible new girl from high school who secretly shares his locker, Jennifer Marks, leaves town without a trace. The past year has been brutal. After fighting an unexpected illness, Luke is now strong and fearless. He’s ready to battle for the moments that could change his future forever.
Using magical red dice, nicknamed “Vegas apples,” Luke travels through time to correct three mistakes he made in his past – the first one being that he never kissed Jennifer Marks.
A gripping, emotional tale of forgiveness, undying love and fragile family bonds.
Time separates them and red dice reunite them.
When I Find Her
Copyright © 2015 Katherine Haupt. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright protected by the U.S. Library of Congress
and international copyright laws.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.
Cover Design by Samantha Haupt
Published by Kate Bridges
This story is a work of fiction. Characters, names, places, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, places, or businesses is purely coincidental.
ISBN paperback: 978-0-9940089-3-0
ISBN ebook: 978-0-9940089-2-3
CRITICAL ACCLAIM
“Luke seemed so real to me. He has a boyish charm and is relatable with his friends….I love a book that grabs my heart, twists it, yanks it almost out of my chest and then gives me my preferred happy ending….WHEN I FIND HER is a beautiful story about life, its hard knocks, and those cherished special moments that shape our future.”
The Zest Quest
"When Kate Bridges' pen hits the page she creates magic."
The Best Reviews
“High action, tangled romance, and a spirited heroine. My perfect recipe for a great read.”
Kelley Armstrong, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author
on
The Incredible Charlotte Sycamore
“...you won’t want to put this one down.”
RT Book Reviews magazine
on
The Incredible Charlotte Sycamore
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Dedicated to my family. Thank you for the laughter, adventure, and never-ending dreams.
CHAPTER ONE
“Luke, if you could go back in time and correct three mistakes you made in your life, what would they be?”
Dr. Burgen, my psychiatrist – I know, it’s strange for a sixteen-year-old to have one – asks this somewhere from the vicinity of his desk. His voice, friendly and soothing, rumbles through the warm, September light.
Plush leather squeaks beneath my head as I sprawl out on the sofa. I gaze up at the ceiling and think about the weird question.
Mistakes
. At six-foot-two, I barely fit on the cushions and have to cross my sneakers over the edge. I toss my basketball into the air and catch it. It’s my emotional touch-piece, Burgen tells me.
Dr. Burgen’s odd, yet I like him.
At first, my dad argued against having a psychiatrist. I didn’t want him, either, but my mom insisted I need someone to talk to, someone neutral. So here I am, another Tuesday after school. It’s funny how we picked him out, as if we were searching for a new pet. I was hoping for a loyal bulldog. My mom was looking for a cute chinchilla. I think we both got what we wanted. She was hoping for a doctor with a sense of humor, to go along with her theory of laughter therapy and endorphins. His sense of humor was evident as soon as we stepped into his Toronto office. Every picture on the wall hangs a little crooked, on purpose.
The thing I like best about Burgen is that he treats me like I’m normal. He asks about my future, where I’d like to go to college, and what’s the car of my dreams. Lamborghini Huracan. Seven-speed dual-clutch automatic, six-hundred-and-ten horsepower.
“Three mistakes I’ve made in my life,” I repeat. “What do you mean by mistakes?”
“Whatever you say. It’s your definition.”
“Then what’re you going to do? Hypnotize me to believe I’ve gone back in time? That I’ve changed the scene?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Think of me as a genie. I’m granting you three wishes for a mistake do-over.”
Peculiar guy. I grin. “Events in my past I wish I could change...”
“Right.”
My mom would be open to the question. My dad would hate it. He’d say,
“What kind of person asks a kid about regrets?”
But I’m not a kid. I’m sixteen. No one’s ever asked me about regrets. Not that I don’t have any, just that my family doesn’t talk about stuff like that.
Personally, I find it ironic that the word leukemia contains all the letters of my name. Like it was sitting and waiting for me.
Luke.
Fortunately, my last name is not Mia, so most people don’t make the connection. My last name is Eric. Luke Eric. The stubble growing back on my head might connect me to leukemia, but shaved heads are in, nurses like to tell me, and strangers don’t notice my weight loss. Fine by me, because I don’t want to talk about it.
It’s in remission. It’s gone.
It’s not gonna do me in.
It does not define me.
My mom, however...she’s always on the internet researching my condition. That’s where she discovered that laughter can trigger the natural release of powerful neurotransmitters in the body, called endorphins, that can wipe out pain and sometimes trigger magical healing.
So my family has decided we’re going to laugh this off.
Mostly, I like hearing
them
laugh.
They bring me comedy movies. They play reruns of my favorite sitcoms. If something serious is on TV, my older sister and younger brother are pretty good at changing the channel. So’s my mom. My dad, not so good. But we could watch comedy twenty-four-seven and still no one would ever speak to anybody with any level of honesty.
Except me and Burgen. He’s a no-bullshit kind of guy. Yesterday, when I accidentally bumped into him at the hospital, I asked,
“How’s it goin’?”
He said,
“Shitty.”
“Me, too,”
I said, amused. Then he bought me lunch in the cafeteria and things got brighter. At least for the next fifty minutes until I returned to the treatment room for more blood tests.
I think Burgen’s somewhere in his early forties, give or take five years. I’m not good at guessing ages. I think women like him, but I’m not a good judge of that, either. They look at him nice. He’s one of those guys who doesn’t wear a wedding ring, but he’s married and has a kid on the way, judging from the photos on his desk.
Burgen wears expensive shirts, but the backs are always wrinkled. He shaves a lot. Sometimes he takes out an electric razor when I’m in a session, turns to me and asks,
“Do you mind?”
I never do, so he turns it on and shaves his face. Like he is now. I think it’s like meditation for him. Maybe it’s
his
emotional touch-piece. Usually he comes up with a good idea right after staring up at the ceiling and listening to me talk about my stuff while rolling that humming metal thing over his skin. He’s got a private bathroom linked to his office, so it’s not like he’s gross. He cleans up in there. He even lets me use his bathroom – all I have to do is ask. It’s nicer than anything I’ve ever seen. It’s got black granite countertops, a black sink, and a shiny black toilet. I guess he’s rich. If I was rich, I’d have a black toilet, too.
So I look at him now, his short blond hair, the cool square glasses, and say, “I can tell you mistake number one.”
“Yes,” he says in a quiet, personal tone. He stops the hum of his razor, tilts back on his chair and focuses his thoughtful gaze on me.
I rest the basketball on my chest and inhale deeply. I’ve never told anyone. No one. Not in a million years. It’s too personal.
My hands get sweaty and my voice gets deep and crackly and stupid. “I never kissed Jennifer Marks.”
There’s a long pause. “Tell me about her, Luke.”
∞
Jennifer is a girl I met last year. It was the first day of tenth grade for both of us. My school has two thousand kids and there aren’t enough lockers to go around, so freshmen and sophomores have to share. It’s supposed to be guys sharing with guys and girls with girls, but somehow Jennifer and I got mixed up on the roster and both showed up across from the science lab at locker 328. She was reaching to put her lock on it, but when I appeared, she stopped.
“Hey I’m three-twenty-eight, too,” I say, like I’m some kind of NASA genius.
“You are?” She withdraws the lock. “But you’re a guy.”
“Must be an error,” I say, as if I’m still interested in the locker. Like lockers are my number one priority when I have this curvy girl with shiny brunette hair and sparkly brown eyes standing in front of me.
“I guess one of us has to switch.” She pushes the hair from her pretty face and turns to head to the office.
“Yeah.” I look after her as she saunters away, that crazy body in those clingy pants. Why didn’t I say anything cool? Do they give out awards in this school for biggest dumbass?
I groan and head to the science lab.
Later that day, I decide to leave two of my heaviest textbooks in my locker because I don’t feel like carrying the weights home. I withdraw my new lock from my backpack and go to unload my crap. Except when I open the locker, there’s already a little mirror glued to the inside a foot lower than my face, a girl’s pink sweater, and a geography textbook.
I thought Jennifer went to the office this morning to switch her locker, but I guess she thought I did. Huh. So why hasn’t she put her lock on the thing?
Maybe she’s testing me.
With a gulp, I shove my books inside, leave it unlocked, and wonder all the way home what will happen tomorrow.
The next day, we both pretend not to notice each other’s stuff. I bump into her at 328 between third and fourth period when I come to pick up my English text, and she’s reaching for her Math. She doesn’t say anything, just flicks her eyelashes at me in surprise, smiles, and runs down the hall at the sound of the bell.
I don’t trust myself to say anything to her for a whole week. Then one day after school, when she’s leaving an e-reader inside the locker, she turns and asks, “Want to know my number?”
She likes me! I knew it. What should I say to not embarrass myself? I keep it low-key. “Sure, I’ll put your number right in here.” I take out my cell phone to get it ready for her phone number.
She frowns and glances down at my screen.
What did I do wrong?
“I mean the combination for my lock,” she says. “We should lock this thing so my e-reader doesn’t disappear.” She giggles at my mistake and my face feels like I just inserted it into my backyard barbecue.
“Yeah, okay, give it to me.” I look down at my cell phone like I’m going to put her locker combination in there because I’m so embarrassed, I gotta keep up this charade.
“Five zero zero.”
My head snaps up. “You sure? That’s a crazy number.” What’s wrong with me? What do I care what the stupid number is? Do I think she made a mistake, that she’s so dumb she couldn’t read it properly from the package? Am I some mystic fortune-teller who has to read meaning into dumb numbers? Maybe I should pick a fight with her, too.
“Yeah, I’m sure.” Then she props her open lock on the latch for me to close, and leaves me standing there alone, like the loser I am.