Page 127 of Fifty First Times (Sharing You 0.40)
see her
it is not so dark
after all
I kiss her throat
her skin pulls a little
vibrates
This is my sign.
This is my
fucking
Deaf heaven.
About the Author
HANNAH MOSKOWITZ wrote her first story, about a kitten named Lilly on the run from cat hunters, for a contest when she was seven years old. It was disqualified for violence. She’s the author of ten books, including Break, aYALSA’s 2010Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults, and Gone, Gone, Gone, a Stonewall Award Honor Book for 2013. She lives in New York City.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.
Going for Broke
LYLA PAYNE
One
Tressa
THE WEIGHT OF my best friend’s gaze tightens my back muscles into a cramp as I walk toward my ’85 Camaro. It’s only a matter of time before she tries one final time to convince me that this whole thing is a waste of energy. That it’s been two years since Noel and I have spoken, and it’s past time to let it go. That it’s selfish of me to disrupt what’s supposed to be the happiest day of his life.
But this is my last ch
ance to shake the regret that’s been dogging me for years. I refuse to live the rest of my life knowing that the first time I fell in real, heartbreaking, painful love, I didn’t ever say the words. If I don’t say them now, it will be like it never happened—Noel and me. As though I never loved him, and he never loved me, and maybe that I imagined everything we went through that summer and in the tumultuous months that followed.
“As your friend, I must advise against crossing the line from pathetic ex-girlfriend to stalker ex-girlfriend.” I turn around to receive Ashlee’s look, her brown eyes a typical mix of tough love and sarcasm.
Ever since I’d told her my plan to go see Noel before his wedding, she’d been none too subtle about her opposition to the idea. It’s the first time I’ve ever crashed a wedding, though, so who knows what will happen. I don’t expect Noel to call it off or anything, but some closure would be nice. Of the two of us, I’m the more optimistic. Which isn’t saying much.
“You know, we’re not living in a movie,” Ashlee soldiered on. “In real life, people don’t wait. They move on. He’s not going to be happy to see you. He’s going to think you’ve lost your ever-loving mind.”
“I’m pretty sure he already thinks that after our last meeting.”
“Case in point. You cannot expect him to still consider you viable relationship material after chucking pretzel sticks off a roof at his girlfriend.”
I banish the memory of that horrible night to the back of my mind, the night I’d been determined to finally tell him how I felt but had run into the slight snag of him having moved on and forgotten to tell me. And then I’d nailed my coffin shut by climbing on the roof, wasted and emotionally demolished, and hurling delicious, salty snacks at his now-fiancée. Not my finest hour.
“Do we have to rehash this? I know you think it’s crazy, I know he’s going to think it’s crazy, but I have to go. I’m twenty-two years old. I’m not living with this shit on my heart for the next seventy-five years.”
“Tressa, be serious. Have you seen the crap food you eat? No way you’re making it past eighty.” Ashlee gives me a smile, the signal that she heard me about dropping the subject.
We haven’t been friends for almost twenty years for nothing.
“Does this trip mean I’m covering rent this month?”
