TRUE

CHAPTER ONE *EVERLY*

PROLOGUE

        In the instant before darkness, there are these things:

        a flash of light and heat and concussion that rolls over us,

        screaming that morphs into a drowning buzz,

        silence.

        And this thought: "I've just killed us all."

~CHAPTER ONE *EVERLY*

        I sit cross-legged on Violet's bed watching her sweep a thick coat of mascara onto her light lashes. I rarely wear makeup myself, so this is a source of endless fascination for me. Tate doesn't like makeup on women. He says it makes them look trashy and easy. I don't necessarily agree. I think makeup done right can accentuate someone's existing beauty. But it isnt worth the argument to defend that stance. Pick your battles, that's what I think. Especially when it comes to Tate, who has definite ideas on how a woman should present herself.

        Still, Violet DOES have very pale lashes to go with her very red hair. The mascara really makes her blue eyes pop. And she can wear all she wants because she doesn't have a pushy boyfriend. I sigh at this thought. Violet catches my eye in the mirror and raises a perfectly sculpted eyebrow at me.

        "What?" she demands. I give her a sideways grin, then shake my head.

        "Nothing. You look nice."

        "You want to put some on?" she offers. I shake my head again.

        "No, I'm good. It's your big occasion, not mine." Violet's smile spreads into a beam.

        "I'm so freaking excited to see him!" she gushes.

        Today, her older brother returns home from his four year stint in the army. Half of that, the most recent half, was spent in Afghanistan. The entire Sawyer family is busting proud of Julian, a service mechanic like his father before him. Having only known Violet since we roomed together our freshman year of college, I have never met Julian. I've seen pictures of a handsome, tousle- haired brunette with a seeming perpetual tan, a megawatt smile, and frankly the bluest eyes I've ever seen hanging all over Violet's parents' house. But I only really know him through shared family stories about him.

        Since graduating college, Violet has moved back home with her mom and dad and I have used some of my considerable trust money to get an apartment in the complex by the public pool. She is working at the hospital as a case manager. I have a shiny new job as a third grade English teacher at the elementary down the road starting in the fall. Until then, I am spending my last summer before the real world starts settling into my new place, reading, seeing my college boyfriend Tate in Pittsburgh, and spending too much time hanging out with Vi and her family.

        I fell in love with Violet first- the extrovert to my introvert, the mechanic's daughter to my Harvard professors' orphan, the laid back to my uptight. But the minute I met the rowdy bunch that she calls family, I was done for. Violet's mother is as big and loud as her father, her uncles, even her Aunt and cousin, all who live and work together at Sawyer Auto Parts and Repair. The garage has been around since the early 1960s, well known, busy, with an excellent reputation. The family is exuberant, quick to laugh and tease, and made me feel like one of their own the minute I walked though their front door. Shy by nature, they had me feeling at home in no time...and laughing so hard I cried. Having no real family since the deaths of my parents in a wintry car accident my senior year of high school, I eagerly accepted my unofficial status as daughter number 2. They are Violet's family first...but now they feel like mine as well.