Release Date: 07/07/15
Entangled Teen
305 pages
Summary from Goodreads:
The best place to hide is in a lie…
I could never fit in to the life my parents demanded. By the time I was thirteen, it was too much. I ran away to New York City…and found a nightmare that lasted three years. A nightmare that began and ended with a pimp named Luis. Now I am Dirty Anna. Broken, like everything inside me has gone bad.
Except that for the first time, I have a chance to start over. Not just with my parents but at school. Still, the rumors follow me everywhere. Down the hall. In classes. And the only hope I can see is in the wide, brightly lit smile of Jackson, the boy next door. So I lie to him. I lie to protect him from my past. I lie so that I don’t have to be The Girl Who Went Bad.
The only problem is that someone in my school knows about New York.
Someone knows who I really am.
And it’s just a matter of time before the real Anna is exposed…
And it’s just a matter of time before the real Anna is exposed…
There’s
a strange tapping on my window. My heart pounds in
my
chest as I remember the last time. Nothing happened then, but I do
sort of wish I had Zara with me now. I take a deep breath and tiptoe
to the window and peer out. A happy face peers back at me. I blink
and then slide open the window. “What the hell are you doing here,
Jackson?” His eyes are bright and alive, and I realize I’m very
happy to see him. I want to show you something,” he says. “Normal
people come to the door, you know?” He shrugs. “You told me your
parents were strict—figured this was the safe way.” I shake my
head. He’s crazy. And sneaking around my parents with a boy, even
a boy as innocent as Jackson, probably isn’t the best idea in the
world. Especially after what happened at dinner. I narrow my eyes.
“Is it important?” He nods eagerly, and I sigh. Good thing I
didn’t change out of my school clothes yet. Besides, the chances
of my parents coming to my room are nonexistent. After that big
speech, my dad will want to bask in his own glory while he gives me
time to think over his “lesson.” I grab a pair of tennis shoes
from my closet, flick off the light so my parents think I’m
sleeping, and climb out the window. “Okay, what’s so important?”
He
grabs my hand and laces his fingers through mine, which makes my
heart patter in a completely idiotic way. And then he runs, pulling
me with him. I notice he’s wearing a backpack. We run down the
street and behind one of the houses, back to the field with the
honeysuckles and my mini Central Park. Then we stop. The sky is a
dark blue, but there’s still alittle bit of light peeking out over
the horizon. The field is right in front of us, with the little
specks of lights flickering in the darkness. “Fireflies,” I say.
Jackson turns to me, his eyes bright. “You are human!” he says
with a sly smile that makes my stomach tumble. At least my cheeks
don’t get hot. I do have some composure. “But they’re actually
called lightning bugs.” “What? You made that up.”
“Did
not!” I laugh, and we both grow quiet and watch the little specks
of light in the dark field. “My family used to go camping in the
summer when I was little,” I say. “My mom and I caught fireflies
together. But we haven’t done it since I waseight or so.” “What
happened after that?” “I don’t know. My dad started working
more, we stopped talking to our cousins and even my grandparents for
some reason, and my parents got stricter and stricter.” I shrug,
wondering if that was actually the beginning of the end of my
parents’ relationship, and I just hadn’t seen it. The same way
they didn’t see the way those changes affected me. “That’s
around the time that everything changed for me because they wouldn’t
let me outto play with kids my age, and they stopped playing with
me, too.” I’m telling him more than I’m supposed to.
“Loneliness sucks.” I nod. He takes off his backpack and pulls
out a jar. “Maybe we canmake her a present.” “My mom? You
don’t think she’ll say they’re too...you know...childish?”
He takes my hand. “Maybe. But maybe she needs to remember what it
was like when things were good.” “What do you mean?” “Just
some things you’ve said... It sounds like you guys haven’t been
happy in a long time.” He’s right. It’s been a long time since
we were happy. Not just me. My mom. My dad. Then he tugs on my hand
and brings me into the field, thankfully saving me from having to
confirm or deny anything. I wonder why they’re even still here,
the fireflies. It’s September; aren’t they usually gone by now?
There aren’t as many as there are in the spring and summer, but
there’s enough for me to catch about ten in Jackson’s jar. When
we’re finished, he pokes tiny holes in the lid of the jar and
hands it to me. We walk back to where he left his backpack, and I
set my jar down. “Is the night over?” he asks, his eyes alight
with something else. Something very unchildish, and it kind of
scares me. My whole body feels alive. At his look, heat rises into
my cheeks. Thankfully, it’s too dark for him to see. I don’t
know what Jackson and I are, but I do know that I don’t want to go
home. Not yet.
Stacey Trombley lives in Ohio with her husband and the sweetest Rottweiler you’ll ever meet. She thinks people are fascinating and any chance she has, she’s off doing or learning something new. She went on her first mission trip to Haiti at age twelve and is still dying to go back. Her “places to travel” list is almost as long as her “books to read” list.
She wants to bring something new to the world through her writing, but just giving a little piece of herself is more than enough.
Keep a look out for her debut novel NAKED, coming from Entangled Teen in 2015
Keep a look out for her debut novel NAKED, coming from Entangled Teen in 2015
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