Give Me You (41 page)

I hope to hear from you soon.

All My Love,

Fallon

Elastic Heart
– Sia

Mayday
- Cam

Free
- Broods

Peter Pan
– Kelsea Ballerini

Titanium
– David Guetta feat. Sia

Scars to Your Beautiful
– Alessia Cara

Try
– Pink

Red High Heels –
Kellie Pickler

Gasoline
– Halsey

Make You Miss Me
(acoustic version) – Sam Hunt

Hands to Myself –
Selena Gomez

Close
– Nick Jonas & Tove Lo

T-Shirt
– Thomas Rhett

Love the Way You Lie
– Skylar Grey

Till Dawn (Here Comes the Sun)
– The Weeknd

Clean
– Taylor Swift

Why Do I Feel
– Dierks Bentley

Just Over
– Luke Bryan

Don’t Need Nobody
– Ellie Goulding

Lost Boy
– Ruth B

Die A Happy Man -
Thomas Rhett

Next to Me
– Emeli Sandé

Keep Me Still
was Layla and Landen’s story and I knew how it played out before I even typed the first word. What I didn’t plan for was the amount of love readers had for Skylar and Corin. People wanted to know what happened between them those times they went off alone to give Layla and Landen their privacy. As time when on, I realized I wanted to know too.

But Corin was stubborn. Private and guarded. And she didn’t want her story told. So it took a while to get it out of her.

When she finally started talking to me steadily in my head, I was worried about publishing
Give Me You
. Her story isn’t pretty, isn’t linear, and isn’t quite as clear-cut and relatable as readers might prefer.

In other words, it’s not the fairytale as she is fond of reminding you. But I like to think we all have our own version of what makes up a happy ending. Maybe we raise other people’s children, or have unplanned pregnancies, or have to battle depression after a miscarriage. Point being, while the specifics of our triumphs and tragedies may be different, we all get our hearts shattered to hell and back along the way in one way or another. Maybe we suffer through soul-staining experiences and heartbreaking disappointments, but in the end, life is a gift and a beautiful one. Corin realized that and as I told her story, so did I.

I would be remiss not to mention Fallon. She is a complex young woman who many would’ve have easily painted as the villain. It’s a tempting road to take, but as I got to know her, I realized there was so much more to her than a pretty face. She was born from my years of teaching in wealthy school districts where I had students who talked more about time spent with nannies than parents. Please don’t misunderstand, I don’t mean to generalize or stereotype and it was only a handful of children who lived like that, but they made an impression on me.

One in particular who I suspected but was unable to prove was frequently left in care that was less than ideal while her parents were out of town for either work or leisure. Two years after I left teaching, I learned that she’d committed suicide due to an unplanned pregnancy. I won’t name her because she was a minor and her family would probably not appreciate that very much, but for all the girls trapped in the darkness, I pray you find the light. That the right teacher or trusted adult is able to help you find it. I will never forget my “Fallon” and I will always wish I could’ve done more to help her.

In some ways, Fallon is a version of Corin that Corin could’ve become under different circumstances. I never intended for them to be similar, and yet, Corin pointed out to me that they were.

And finally, if you are a close reader who has done the diligent duty of placing
Keep Me Still
and
Give Me You
side by side to compare the parts where they overlap, you may have questions. Certain scenes are skipped—either glossed over or ignored completely and here’s why: While specific events might have been pertinent to Landen and Layla, they simply weren’t that life changing to Skylar and Corin. Since this is Skylar and Corin’s story, they got to call the shots about what was vital and what got left out.

I hope you enjoyed
Give Me You
and that you will check out my other books! Keep reading for a sneak peek at my next indie project, a suspense-filled southern romance that takes place deep in the Mississippi Delta coming this fall.

For regular updates on my releases, sign up for my
newsletter here
.

Coming September 2016

729

“I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret,

between the shadow and the soul.”

-Pablo Neruda

PROLOGUE

B
lood isn’t really red. Not like you see in the movies anyway. Not crayon red, or lipstick red, or whore’s panties red as the nun’s at school would say.

Blood is so dark it’s nearly black.

It’s thick and thin all at the same time. Slippery. Messy.

And it stains.

When you’re covered in it, really covered in it, it looks more like oil than anything else.

That’s what stands out in my memory. Not the fear, not the paralyzing realization that the people I loved were dead. Not even the screams.

It’s the blood I remember.

I dream of it, dream I’m trying not to make a single sound as my bare feet slide through the warm wetness on my way out of the house.

My dreams are so vivid I wake up covered in damp sweat and my trembling hands still check. No matter how many times I have the same exact nightmare, I still have to check each and every single time to make sure that it’s sweat I’m covered in.

It’s been ten years. Ten years of the same silent scream-filled dreams. And I still have to check.

It’s clear, thin perspiration every time.

Until it isn’t.

1

“M
iss Carson has no recollection of the events, Your Honor.” His dialect is local, so my last name comes out more like ‘Kaa-Sun.’ The man speaking is dressed in a nice suit, a sign that he is likely wealthy. I know from the novels in my room that you can tell such as that about a person by looking at what they wear.

I glance down at my own hospital issue gunmetal gray top and pants. They are thin and slightly rough. As if they were made from a type of paper. Non-descript. Like me.

“Be that as it may, Mr. Dawes, this is a competency hearing. Not a murder trial.” My gaze drifts over to the man with the thicker southern drawl sitting behind the tall wooden structure. There’s a framed picture behind him with an American flag and an eagle on it. The frame is gold. A color I find garish and am not fond of. In front of him is a woman in a plain white shirt with buttons and a navy blue skirt. She clicks steadily on a machine. “If she can’t speak on her own behalf, and there’s no one here to speak for her, then I—”

“I can speak for her, Your Honor.” I look over at the woman who has spoken. My lips curve into a smile when I recognize her.

Aleatha Rose. She’s been my favorite nurse for as long as I can remember.

The man behind the structure motions with his hand and she steps forward.

“State your name for the court,” the man says.

“Aleatha Rose Goodwin, Your Honor.” Her tiny dark-skinned hands grip the wooden gate she stands behind. My attention is focused on the steady tremble of them. Years of focusing on details, of forcing my mind to concentrate on minute things so that the dark looming memories that shadow my every thought don’t take over, has taught me to pay attention to little details.

“And how long have you known Miss Carson, Mrs. Goodwin?”

Her hands grip the gate tighter as she responds.

“Ten years, Your Honor. I was on duty the night they brought her in.”

“You’re an employee at the institution, I assume?”

Her hands begin to steady until finally they are still. “It’s a private hospital, Your Honor. And yes, I’m an RN.”

The man standing in the middle of the room in the suit speaks up before anyone says anything else. “Mrs. Goodwin has been a registered nurse for fifteen years and her husband is a Colonel in the United States Army, Your Honor.”

A gentle quiver begins to rattle around inside of me. I twitch in my seat to stifle it. The tingling begins in my stomach and rises to my throat. It takes me a minute to realize that the impulse to laugh is threatening to overtake me in this quiet room full of stern and somber people. Not because anything happening around me is particularly funny. Only because it is making me strangely uncomfortable that everyone refers to the man as Your Honor. What does one do to be regarded in such a way?

Surely that cannot be his name. What an odd name that would be.

The man in the suit came to see me yesterday. He explained that I would be appearing before a judge, which I suppose is exactly what I’m doing. But he never said they’d be calling the judge
Your Honor.
I wish he had warned me so that I could’ve been prepared for this.