Sarah Read online

  Sarah

  Teri Polen

  © Copyright Teri Polen 2016

  Published by Black Rose Writing

  www.blackrosewriting.com

  © 2016 by Teri Polen

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.

  The final approval for this literary material is granted by the author.

  First digital version

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Print ISBN: 978-1-61296-791-2

  PUBLISHED BY BLACK ROSE WRITING

  www.blackrosewriting.com

  Print edition produced in the United States of America

  To my Dad, who passed on to me his love of reading and allowed me as a little girl to stay up late with him and watch Chiller Theatre, forever warping my impressionable young mind. Looks like it paid off.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Black Rose Writing 20% off Coupon Code

  Chapter 1

  I might as well have been a ghost. Standing in front of the department store mirror as Erin fussed about me, tugging at the sleeves and bottom of the shirt she’d forced me to try on, I caught the reflection of two girls from my chemistry class giggling and whispering to each other as they enjoyed my obvious discomfort.

  “What was wrong with the shirt I chose? I liked it better.” She stared at the combination of clothes I was wearing, but didn’t see me. Not really. “Erin?” I tried again. Yep – I was a ghost. She couldn’t hear me either. So I waited, thinking about all the other places I’d rather be.

  “Cain, your wardrobe consists of hoodies, sports jerseys, and t-shirts. No one would ever confuse you with a fashion mogul. I think you should try something different, a new look,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest and frowning. “This one isn’t working. Stay here and I’ll get something else for you.”

  “I can’t wait,” I sighed. Erin and I had been together for the past three months. My dating experience was practically nonexistent and consisted of groups of friends going to movies, parties - stuff like that. Girls were like a foreign country to me and I didn’t speak the language. The few times I’d asked someone out had ended in soul-crushing rejection or dates filled with long spans of awkward silences because I never knew what to say.

  Erin was one of those girls everyone noticed – she was a cheerleader and always seemed to look perfect, never a hair out of place or chipped nail polish. Not that I knew anything about fashion, which apparently was the reason I was being held against my will at Rue 21, but I’d heard other girls talk about how much they loved the way Erin dressed. Yeah, she was hot, but someone I’d always considered out of my league.

  So when she began talking to me at a party, then showed up at my soccer game the next week and started hanging around my locker at school, shocked didn’t begin to explain how I’d felt. I couldn’t say exactly when it happened, but all of a sudden, I had a girlfriend.

  “Here, take these and try them on. Make sure to come out so I can see how they look,” she said, layering my arms with five shirts I had no interest in wearing.

  “We’ve only got forty-five minutes before the movie starts, so how about picking out the two you like best.”

  “Movie?” she asked, digging through her purse and pulling out a tube of lip gloss. “Oh, right. I didn’t want to see that stupid horror movie anyway, so I told Ashley and Nick we’d meet them at Blue Finn for dinner.”

  “But you know I’ve been waiting all summer for this movie to come out and we’d planned to see it opening night.”

  “Maybe we can get to it sometime this weekend,” she said, admiring herself in the mirror and flipping her hair over her shoulder. “Now hurry and get in the dressing room. I don’t want to be late.”

  “Fine,” I said, clenching my jaw. “But why are we going to Blue Finn? You know I don’t like sushi.”

  “Cain, you know it’s my favorite. I’m sure you can find something on the menu,” Erin said, flashing me the smile that used to make me light-headed, but I now knew was as fake as her nails.

  The first couple of months with Erin had been incredible and I couldn’t believe she’d chosen to be with a guy like me. But lately, not so incredible. I’d thought we had a lot in common - turns out that was Erin’s game. She lured guys in with her looks and the pretense of shared interests, then when they were hooked, she real Erin was unleashed. And she was not pretty. As my best friend said, she’s beautiful from a distance. Up close, not so much. He’d also pointed out her interest in me began around the same time I was named soccer captain for the upcoming season. By some ridiculous social hierarchy rules I was unaware of, dating athletes was a plus. Dating team captains was a bigger bonus. Seriously, who made up these things?

  For two weeks now, I’d been wanting to break up with Erin, but had no idea how to do it or what to say. Some couples broke up by text, but I wasn’t that harsh. Erin was a bit of a drama queen at times, creating very public scenes when things didn’t go her way. Like earlier in the summer when we’d gone to the beach and another girl was wearing the same swimsuit. Erin could have just laughed it off, but instead made loud, body-shaming comments about the poor girl, who was embarrassed enough to leave after fifteen minutes. I was mortified, being more of a ‘fly under the radar’ kind of guy.

  So, here I was, miserable and fearful of the reaction of the most self-absorbed mean girl I’d ever known - if I found a way to end our relationship.

  “Awesome. Ashley and Nick – sushi at Blue Finn.” If shopping at Citadel Mall wasn’t bad enough, now I was having dinner with Ashley, whose shrill voice matched the pitch of a dentist’s drill, and Nick, who was shallower than a kiddie pool, and had a constant vacant look on his face. Sometimes I wondered how he found his way home at night.<
br />
  Perfect ending to a perfect evening.

  . . . . .

  All through dinner, I kept thinking how I’d rather have been tied to a chair, eyes taped open, and forced to watch a marathon of the Kardashians than spend time with Erin and her friends. It was highly possible it would have been more intellectually stimulating.

  “Mom, I’m home,” I called, opening the door that led from the garage to the laundry room. Rounding the corner to the kitchen, I found my best friend, Finn, sweaty, smelly, and in need of a shower, sitting at the counter while my mom loaded his plate with chocolate chip cookies. “So I’m gone for a few hours and you get a new son?”

  Mom kissed my cheek, and placed a plate of cookies in front of me as I took a seat beside Finn. “Don’t be silly, sweetie, you know I’d never replace you. Finn came over to do the mowing and trimming.”

  “You didn’t have to ask Finn, I told you I’d do it this weekend.”

  “You’ve been busy around here all week cleaning out the garage and making repairs. I wanted you to go out with Erin and have some fun. Besides, Finn offered a few days ago to work for cookies.”

  I glanced over at Finn as he grinned at me, teeth riddled with chocolate, enough to make me lose my appetite - but not quite. It’s chocolate. Enough said.

  Since my Dad had died in a car accident last year, a lot of responsibilities had fallen to me. Not that I minded, but sometimes I felt guilty if I wasn’t here when Mom needed me for something. Finn McLachlan had been my best friend since second grade when we’d met on a soccer team, so we’d practically grown up together. My parents used to joke that he was their bonus son since he spent so much time at our house, especially when his parents went through a pretty nasty divorce a few years back. My Mom had given him a key and told him to use it whenever he needed to come over and spend the night or just get away from home for a while. And Finn had taken her up on it. There had been plenty of mornings I’d awakened to find him sprawled across the futon in my bedroom after letting himself into the house during the early morning hours, tired of listening to his parents’ screaming matches.

  When we’d moved to this smaller house after my Dad died, Mom had given keys to me, my sister Maddie, and Finn, saying each family member needed their own. With my Dad gone, Finn helped with the lawn, minor repairs around the house, errands and babysitting Maddie. He did this because to him, we’re his family. It was comforting to know if I couldn’t be here, Finn had my back.

  “The words Erin and fun are incompatible in a sentence and should never be combined,” Finn said, thankfully washing the cookies down with milk before speaking. “That girl could suck the fun out of Disney World and if your son would grow a set, Mrs. Shannon, maybe he’d take me up on my offer to blindfold her, drive her out to the middle of nowhere and turn her loose in the wild. Cain’s quality of life would be kicked up several notches.”

  Mom leaned against the counter, reached across and tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. “Cain, if you don’t care about Erin, it isn’t fair to keep stringing her along.”

  “In his defense, Mrs. Shannon, it’s Erin that’s stringing Cain along. She has a history of dating athletes, and with his total lack of experience with girls, Erin probably figured Cain was putty in her hands, ready to be molded to her liking.”

  “You know I can hear you, right?” I asked, shooting a sideways glare at Finn. “I want to break up with her, Mom. She makes me completely miserable, but I’m afraid of hurting her feelings. What if she cries? I have no idea what to do with crying women.”

  “You’re assuming she has feelings?” Finn asked. “The few times I’ve had to talk to her, I decided your cat crushes Erin’s score on the emotional IQ scale. Get rid of her, bro.”

  “I will. Just quit nagging me about it,” I snapped.

  “Then quit whining about her.”

  Mom gathered our empty plates, even the melted chocolate that had dripped from the cookies finger swiped and eaten. “Well, boys, I’ll just leave you to figure it out for yourselves. I’m going to make sure Maddie is actually sleeping and not sneaking and reading books again. Are you staying over, Finn?”

  “Naw, we’ll probably play a little PS4 for a while then I’ll head on home. My dad’s out with someone he met on one of those dating websites I convinced him to try, so I kind of want to see how it went.”

  “Well, good for him,” Mom said, patting Finn’s arm. “I hope it goes well. Goodnight, boys.” After standing on her tiptoes to kiss us both on the forehead, she walked down the hall toward her and Maddie’s bedrooms.

  . . . . .

  My bedroom was on the opposite side of the house from the others, so my late hours of gaming and trash talking with Finn didn’t keep anyone awake. As we walked into the room, Eby, my black cat, stretched and rolled over on my bed, lazily opening one green eye to stare at us.

  “Dude, you might want to consider putting Eby on a weight program. How much are you feeding him?”

  “He’s not fat, just a little over-fluffy, and he can understand everything you’re saying, so shut up.” Eby was now sitting up, fully awake, staring intently at Finn with a superior expression on his face. Now that I thought about it, that was Eby’s usual demeanor. Didn’t most cats consider themselves superior to humans?

  Finn and I took our usual spots in the gaming chairs in front of the TV. While I put in Destiny, my newest PS4 game, he picked up a half empty bag of barbecue potato chips from the floor and began munching. That’s the good thing about my room. If the zombie apocalypse happened tomorrow, I could survive for at least a month on the partial bottles of Gatorade and water, protein bars, chips, trail mix, and beef jerky littering the majority of horizontal spaces in my room. Mom called me a pig. I preferred the term survivalist.

  We played for a while and talked strategy for the upcoming soccer game on Saturday, while Eby stalked Finn, leaping across his lap occasionally just to keep him on his toes.

  “Told you not to make that remark about his weight. If he goes into stealth mode, you’ll never see the attack coming.”

  “So, you’re saying I should apologize to your cat,” Finn scoffed.

  “How long have you known Eby? If you ever want to sleep peacefully again when you’re here, I’d strongly consider it. Just saying.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement, but didn’t pay much attention, figuring it was just Eby nosing around the room. The next thing I knew, he hissed, let out a screeching yowl, and scrambled out of the room faster than the speed of sound, while Finn yelped in surprise, tossing his controller into the air as Eby leapt over him.

  “Cain, what’s wrong with your cat? I think he just tried to kill me.”

  “You’re still alive aren’t you? So stop complaining.”

  Finn picked up his controller again, mumbling something about catnip and hallucinogens, and we continued playing, traversing the surface of Jupiter.

  “Where’s that cold air coming from?” Finn asked.

  “Dude, we live in Charleston, the most humid city in South Carolina, where air conditioners keel over and die every few years.”

  “I know what the air conditioner feels like, and this ain’t it.” Turning in my direction, Finn’s gaze focused on something over my head. “Why is the attic door open?”

  Looking over my shoulder, I saw the wide open doorway, the light from the lamp on my nightstand forcing the darkness away from the first few stairs. The access door to the attic was in my room, but it was a normal-sized door, not the kind that pulled down from the ceiling. When we’d moved into this house, it made the job of lugging boxes upstairs a lot easier.

  “That’s weird,” I said, frowning. “I know it wasn’t open when we came in. We would have noticed it an
d Eby would have sprinted upstairs to explore.”

  “What’s even weirder is the frigid arctic air coming down the stairs from your un-air-conditioned attic in mid-September. The temperature up there should at least be in the nineties.”

  Finn was right. There was no air conditioning in the attic and I also felt an icy draft coming through the door. “Well, if I’m going up there to check it out, you’re coming with me,” I said, rolling out of the gamer chair to a standing position.

  “Fine. But if we see any spiders, you’re on your own.”

  I flicked the switch on the wall inside the attic door and the light at the top of the stairs came on. Gazing up, I halfway expected to see snow flurries, the air was so cold. I rubbed my hands briskly over the growing goosebumps on my arms and noticed Finn doing the same.

  We both trekked up the stairs, our feet landing heavily, probably loud enough to wake my Mom. I wondered if it was a subconscious attempt to scare away anyone – or anything – that might be lurking in the attic waiting for us. My imagination was vivid and I loved my horror movies and books, but I really didn’t think there was anything supernatural about the cold air flowing down from the attic. But it was fun to think about.

  As we reached the top of the stairs, I turned on the second switch, and dim light chased away the shadows in the storage area. Surveying the room, I saw it was just as Finn and I had left it in June when we’d moved in. Boxes full of holiday decorations, old baby clothes, some of my Dad’s belongings, and soccer trophies were stacked neatly on the floor. Nothing out of the ordinary. No one waiting with an axe.

  I’d nearly forgotten about Finn standing behind me and when he placed his hand on my shoulder, I bit back a yelp. “Maybe the air conditioning ducts are screwed up. You never know about the quality of work with these newer houses, they build them so fast. It might be pressure from within the house, you know, open one door and somewhere else in the house another one closes. Kind of like the laundry room door at my house when someone opens the back door.”