FROM THE AWARD-WINNING AUTHORS OF THE CHEATER.FAKER.TROUBLEMAKER SERIES (WATTY'S 2016, FICTION AWARDS 2016, HACHETTE AUDIO 2017), JENNY ROSEN & KRISTEN MAGLONZO.
After bullies, braces, and brutal heartbreak shatters his faith in love, soon-to-be fre...
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NOTE: Lacey's back audiophiles & this is not a chapter to miss out on! Tune in to check out kaelking12 moving performance this week!
CHAPTER 30
Lacey
I've gotten used to not expecting things. To breaking my habit of building castles when it comes to believing that other people'll come through. Before Mission Bay, things were different. I was different. I had friends I thought I could trust, I had a family I thought I could lean on—I thought I had the whole world.
But having too much too soon makes you spoiled. Blind. Unaware that things can and do always change. Sometimes slowly. Subtly. Sometimes violently. Unexpectedly.
I lived through the latter.
But, if there's anything I learned from surviving a hurricane, it's this—the next time the sky darkens on the horizon, or the wind tingles with that little spark of electricity that always comes before the rain—lock your doors.
Board your windows.
And pray that the storm doesn't slip through the cracks.
Problem is, he's already slipped through mine.
***
Friday - A little after 7:00 PM
There's a storm coming. I feel it kicking and screaming under my skin. The weather report this morning only hinted at a chance of showers, but twelve and half hours later a rare California rain's proven the whole world wrong. Weirdly enough, the weather's not the only thing breaking expectations today.
It's 7:15.
My dad left ten minutes ago to head back to our church just to see if we left any late volunteers behind. I told him it was pointless, begged him to stay and finish up the event at Shoreline Assisted Living so we could end it, so we could go home, so I could stop hoping. But, in tried-and-true Pete Sanders fashion, he refused me with a proud smile and drove off to possibly pick up a boy who I never should've mentioned to him in the first place.
A boy who I haven't heard from since Monday.
I pull my phone out of my pocket for the umpteenth time and do my best to check my messages without dropping it into a bucket of cleaning solution. Texting isn't easy when you're rocking a pair of gigantic pink rubber gloves, but desperate times call for desperate messaging measures.
Technically, I'm supposed to be scrubbing dishes right now. Our volunteer church moms cooked sixteen trays of tacos, enchiladas, and pozole rojo for the Fiesta Friday event today, and now I'm stuck with the aftermath.
