My Life in Reverse (18 page)
Read My Life in Reverse Online
Authors: Casey Harvell
Find out more:
http://www.caseyharvell.com/#!the-electric-series/c13nv
Trailer:
http://youtu.be/LIc_Mf7XsvM
The Decisions Series:
Righteous Decisions
eBook Always Free!
When Lettie, a misfit photographer, realizes her nightmares have become reality, she’s more than a little freaked out. But as her world gets turned upside down, and at the top of a paranormal hit list, she discovers more about herself than she ever thought possible.
Lettie has always felt as though she doesn’t quite fit in. She suffers from a nightmare disorder and has a constant thought at the back of her mind, that something’s just not quite right with her. She manages to maintain her blissful ignorance for quite some time, but eventually she must face her fate, particularly when circumstances throw it in her face, making it impossible to ignore. Lettie comes to the realization that she has to make some decisions. And these choices have an unimaginable domino effect, not just for her—but for humanity.
Thrust into having a new outlook on an imperfect world, Lettie discovers strength inside of her, unlike anything else. Her path of self-discovery is also the path to her salvation. With the help of a few friends, Lettie discovers herself and what she is capable of.
Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Decisions-Book-1-ebook/dp/B00EOSDBMI/
Harsh Decisions
Lettie’s pretty sure things can’t get much worse. Really, going to hell has to be a low point. But she’ll go anywhere and do anything to get Gabe back.
Join Lettie on the second installment of her journey. Battling demons and conquering battlefields, stopping and starting wars, and family feuds all have one thing in common: Harsh Decisions.
Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Harsh-Decisions-Book-2-ebook/dp/B00HFI4KK6
Always find more:
http://www.caseyharvell.com/#!the-decisions-series/c1c75
I flove indie and I hope you do, too! Here are my must read indie authors, from my library to yours <3
(In no particular order)
A.L. Wood
Julie Misher
Addison Kline
V. Stolte
Jean Kelso
Clara Fox
Michelle T Iannarelli
Delia Steele
Melissa Huie
C.A. Sanders
Jody Pardo
Briana Gaitan
Neeny Boucher
Mary E. Palmerin
Emily R Pearson
Amy Hale
Barbara Speak
Renee Fisher
A.M. Willard
That’s just to name a few. In the words of my Flovermuffin: #CollaborationNotCompetition
Continue for a sneak peek at Summer of St. George by Briana Gaitan!~
By Briana Gaitan
SOS: Summer of St. George
BUY now
When we were 16, we made a pact.
When we were 17, we decided to follow through.
When we were 18, we decided to spend our final summer together.
Because at the end of the summer, we would show them.
Our deaths would show the world- they can’t treat us this way any longer.
This is our SOS, our Summer of St. George.
Murphy and her cousin Poppy have been BFFs forever. They share everything- including a birthday.
When they make a pact to commit suicide after high school, they decide to have one last summer of fun with NO consequences and nothing holding them back.
As the Summer of St. George begins, things don’t go as planned. Murphy doesn’t expect to fall in love and she doesn’t expect to find a boy that makes her want to live. His name is Liam, and after spending two years in the Air Force living in Japan, he's trying to integrate back into American society. As a self-proclaimed "Jack-of-all-trades" he knows things about Murphy that she isn't quite ready to admit to herself. And he is determined to haunt her, peel back layer after layer of lies until she can't run from the truth anymore.
This is our SOS, this is our Summer of St. George.
(Note: This is a YA/NA dark romance/ suspense novel for ages 16 and up. It is loosely inspired by Pride and Prejudice, but is not a retelling of the original story.)
MURPHY
IT BEGINS AND ENDS WITH THE POP
Poppy Middlestone was one of those girls. Everyone wanted to be like her. In the third grade, when she bought a bright red bow and wore it like a tiara the next week everyone else bought the same bow and wore it the same way.
I bought a bow.
She turned heads. She made parents stop and comment with things like “I wish my daughter were as well behaved and polite as that Poppy.”
When Poppy decided to chop off her hair into a cute Peter Pan pixie cut, our entire sixth-grade class did the same.
I cut my hair, much to the grumbling of my mother.
I never felt like I lived in the shadows of my cousin. In fact, many times she took my hand and pulled me beside her. Our hands stayed clasped during big events like our first day of school and our first communion. Looking back, I realize we were each other’s strength. We’d grown accustomed to having the other near at all times. It’s hard to explain a bond like that, similar to a twin connection. From the moment we were born, we were like one. We shared a cradle sometimes, wrinkled hands clasped. Some say I even let Poppy suck my thumb when we were only hours old. I don't know if that's true or not, but I like to believe we were destined to be linked forever from an early age.
When Poppy’s parents got a divorce in the ninth grade, Poppy stopped being a leader. Instead, she started doing the opposite of what everyone told her. It was the biggest scandal of the town and fueled the rumor mill for weeks. She was caught in the middle of a multimillion-dollar custody battle that included two parents each trying to cause the other pain and using Poppy to do most of the dirty work. Her mother used her to spy on her father. In turn, her father tried to buy Poppy’s silence with lavish trips and gifts. He spent all his money on Poppy just to make sure his ex-wife didn’t get a penny. He even went all out and bought her a beach house. It was a beautiful lavish four-story home on the eastern side of St. George Island, just off the panhandle of Florida. He named it Poppy Manor, after his only daughter. We girls nicknamed it The Pop. That’s where my story begins and ends. The centrifuge of my life. If my life were a novel, The Pop would be the setting. The backdrop of my life.
Poppy took the present, but she emancipated herself. She took her trust fund and swore never to speak to them again. The court thought Poppy was an honor roll saint. They thought Poppy had a good head on her shoulders so it had been easy. Nobody knew her like I did. The real Poppy lived on the edge with her motorcycle driving boyfriends and taste for alcohol.
After that, Poppy spent most holidays with my family. We were happy, the four of us, and my parents loved her like their own. Sometimes it felt like they loved her more than me. She was the daughter they wished they had. Mother cooked dinner and father taught Poppy to drive and change a tire.
She was perfection. That’s why, when Poppy came to me the night before our eighteenth birthday, I listened to what she had to say.
“We made a pact last summer. Do you remember?”
I furrowed my brow, trying to recall that night. It was the night her boyfriend had left.
“Yeah. So?”
“You promised me that we'd always be together, and you'd always be with me no matter what.”
“Where are you going with this?”
“Let’s kill ourselves,” she begged me. “If I’m dead, maybe all this pain will stop.”
Poppy had a flair for being overly dramatic. “This isn’t funny, Poppy.”
Her wide-eyed stare told me she wasn’t kidding, so I tried to make it clear. “Don’t be silly. You're talking stupid.”
“Don’t act like you’re happy with your mundane life. You're a plain Jane. You live in this tiny house with parents who can't stand to look at you. They even put you in the garage apartment just to lock you away. How could anyone be happy living in such filth?”
That was the first time Poppy had ever been mean to me. Before, she’d never looked down at me because she was rich and I was poor. My mom married a starving artist while hers married a CEO. That day, something changed in me. I don’t remember what. I can’t pinpoint it exactly. It’s like when you think back to how you learned to drive. You study, you practice, but one day it just comes to you naturally. You don’t have to think about it every time you buckle up. The fluency is there, and you don’t know for how long. That's what depression is.
The next few days are kind of hazy, like a distant memory. It feels like so long ago, and when those horrible days begin to replay in my head when we had spent our eighteenth birthday at The Pop, I clutch my temple and groan in agony because of the pain. It radiates through me as if to remind me not to remember. After taking a nasty fall down the tiled stairs at The Pop that evening, I had spent most of my eighteenth birthday in the ER. I don’t like to think about it, so I don’t.
I can only guess that I took a step back and realized maybe I wasn’t so happy after all. I didn’t have a car or a trust fund. I wasn’t going to any special college. I wasn’t smart or overly cute. I wasn’t going anywhere, and I didn’t really have anyone. My life was already a shambled mess, and the wall between my parents and me had grown substantially in the past few years. Poppy was the one everyone loved. In a cruel world, I was all alone. For no reason, in particular, that day I fell into an abyss of sadness. I’d always had those dark thoughts curl up from the depths of my mind, but mostly I’d been able to pull myself out of it. It was as if everything that used to be special about me had disappeared into nothing. In a moment of weakness, for some awful reason, I accepted Poppy’s deal. We shook on it, each spitting into our hands before clasping them together like we used to when we were in grade school. We would kill ourselves, rid ourselves of the evil and pain in this world. The world couldn't toss us aside.
“You can’t back out,” she insisted.
“I know.”
“You swear to it?”
“Bible,” I say, repeating the words we’d used as kids. Bible meant we couldn’t take it back. It was the highest of promises. Greater than swearing on your mother’s grave.
Poppy breathed a sigh of relief after we were done. “Good, I’m too afraid to do it by myself. I’m scared of being alone.”
“You’ll never be alone.” I promised her. Neither of us would be alone, not if we were together.
Here I am. Talking about that day like it is the end of my story like it was so long ago, but it’s only been a year.
Things today are pretty much the same. I still live at home, no job, no car, and no college. Just me and a thousand romance novels. Surprisingly, my parents didn’t hound me too much about not going to college. I explained to them that this was my gap year. My year off. Poppy is doing the same thing, halfway around the world.
I know, you’re wondering why I agreed to this pact. My job is to follow Poppy because, without her, I would be nothing. Then began the downfall of my very existence.
