Will it get easier? When her mom marries Elias, a dude with two teenaged sons, 17 year old Tatum and her siblings must uproot their lives and move across America to Salinas, California to "build a better life" (as Elias puts it). Everyone is eager for some sort of fresh start, to bury their addictions, regrets, regressions, maybe even planting flowers above the grave. Tatum grips the old and the new in both fists, struggling to let go and sway with the pendulum.
Short excerpt:
"'Wanna do something like really cringey and dumb?' Tatum giggled and looked at him fully, her freckled cheeks rosy and dimpling as she gave him a shy smile. Reed stuttered, and she interrupted before he could form a legible sentence.
'Hold still,' she said, making eye contact with him as her mouth pressed against the bong.
He watched her thumb flick the lighter and the strands of blond hair escape her clip, tickling her face as she bent her head down. Fuck, he needed to get a grip. Reeds breath hitched as Tatum lifted her head back up, trying not to smile as she held the smoke in her mouth. Tatum needed to redeem herself from earlier, and she couldn't tell if this was stupid and cliche or if she was pretty enough for it not to matter. As she drifted towards Reed, she gently cupped his jaw in her hand and pulled him towards her until their lips were almost touching. She felt them brush together only for a moment, but that was enough for her body to erupt in tingles. Shit, this was supposed to just be like a funny little thing."
trigger warnings:
sexual content
recreational drug use
mental health issues
mentions of eating disorders (NO specific numbers such as calories, weight etc are ever mentioned nor is anything graphic)
For with God nothing shall be impossible. (Luke 1:37)
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Jasper is a screwed up kid, yet no one cares enough to find out why. Bruises hide his arms and alcohol stains the walls of his house, but he pushes forward because it's the only thing left for him to do. His days are spent in and out of the school psychologist's office, while his nights are spent in fear of his father. His guitar and the secluded spot by the train tracks where he likes to play are the only saving graces in the hell that is his life. No one disrupted this normal routine until Callie came.
Callie is far from screwed up; she doesn't have family issues and doesn't understand the first thing about Jasper's world. Her house is filled with answered prayers and smiles of people who love each other. Her arms are clear and her head is full of optimism that Jasper doesn't buy for a second. She never second guessed her sunny disposition on life until she stumbled upon a boy and his guitar down by the train tracks.
Callie and Jasper weren't supposed to cross paths. She wasn't supposed to care and he wasn't supposed to let her get under his skin, but then again opposites weren't supposed to attract either. Callie saw the good in him where most people thought there was none ; she was captivated by Jasper because he made her question everything she knew about the world.
She thought it would be easy to teach him that there was still good left in the world, that there was more beyond all the bad he'd become accustomed to. She thought fixing him would be easy, but nothing worthwhile is ever easy and sometimes it takes more than one girl's overly optimistic persistence to pull a person out of the hell they've been living in; sometimes it takes faith and realizing that some things can't be done without it...
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-Highest Ranking: #8 in spiritual, 10/25/17 ; #1 in Christianity, 2019
-Wattpad Featured Novel: 10/19/17