In Every Way

  Amy Sparling

  Copyright © 2016 Amy Sparling

  All rights reserved.

  First Edition September, 13 2016

  Cover design by Beetiful Book Covers

  Typography from FontSquirrel.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems -except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews-without permission in writing from the author at writeamysparling@gmail.com.

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, events, and places portrayed in this book are products of the author’s imagination and are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Table of Contents

  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

  About the Author

  For Caoimhe

  Chapter 1

  Graduating high school was supposed to feel like becoming an adult. After so many years of slogging through early morning alarms, bumpy bus rides, and crappy cafeteria food, the day after graduation was supposed to be . . . different. Guess I thought I’d feel like an official adult or something.

  Besides the fact that I slept until noon, my life feels exactly the same. Some seniors from my school are planning to move across the country and become crazy party college freshman, but not me. I’m just stuck here in Louetta, Texas, a small town with a few good pizza joints, but nothing really exciting to brag about. I’ll be starting good ol’ community college in the fall, for what, I have no idea. Mom said she’d help me sign up for core classes. Dad said I’ll have a blast. I’m not exactly sure how true that is, since I’ve seen the campus and it looks like a combination of a thrift store and like, an old Walmart. Once college starts, I’ll have two years to figure out what I’d like to major in, and then maybe, I’ll feel more like an adult.

  Right now I’m just happy to have one last summer of not doing a damn thing except working at the family business, The Flying Mermaid. It’s a surf shop on the beach, passed down from my grandparents. It was a TV repair shop when they owned it. My parents turned it into a surf shop with a little section at the front for gifts and girly crap my mom loves. It’s a pretty popular hangout at Blue Beach, and working there has always felt more like fun than actual work.

  Of course, there are other things I aspire to do this summer.

  Like get a girlfriend.

  I know, I know. What the hell is wrong with you, Josh Graham? I spent most of my senior year swearing off dating because it never works out. After Elise broke my heart—the third girl in four years to do such a thing—I swore off girls. Not forever, but for a while. Having your heart ripped to shreds a few times will do that to you. It’s not like I’m some crybaby loser about it or anything, but it still sucks.

  My no dating self-promise didn’t exactly last very long, because I’ve been checking my dating app more times than I’d ever admit out loud. I guess I keep hoping I’ll refresh the stupid thing and see that I’ve matched with a girl who is perfect for me. My soul mate, found on a dating app.

  Right, because that’s how real love stories all start. Ugh.

  I run my finger along the Xbox games on Colby’s shelf. “Can I borrow this one?” I ask, pulling out a game. My best friend’s bedroom is like a video game utopia since he’s kept every console he’s ever had.

  “Sure,” he says, not even looking at it. He’s going through his drawers, tossing clothes into an open suitcase on his bed.

  I turn back to the games. “What about this one and this one?”

  “Take whatever you want,” he says, holding up a blue T-shirt and curling his lip as he decides to take it or not. “I trust you won’t bring them back scratched and covered in dried soda like that dickhead Bryce did to my Assassin’s Creed.”

  “Obviously,” I say, grabbing a few more. “I respect other people’s shit.”

  I’m over here at my best friend’s house to see him off on his glamourous summer vacation. I wouldn’t normally borrow so many games at once, but I’m going to be bored without him this summer.

  He’s only been dating Maddie for a couple of months, but her step-dad is loaded and he’s taking them all to his vacation home in Madrid for the month.

  Yeah, Madrid, Spain.

  And it’s not that I’m jealous. I mean yeah, Maddie is adorable and all, but she’s totally his type of girl, and I don’t have to have a girlfriend whose family comes with those kinds of benefits or anything—but it would be nice.

  Not the vacation home in Spain. (Not that I’d turn an invite like that down.) The family. Colby and Maddie’s family get along really well. She has a couple of sisters and they adore him, and her parents adore him, and they’re always hanging out and having a blast. I guess that’s the part that makes me jealous.

  Not only did my best friend land the perfect girl for him, but he found a whole new family. My last three girlfriends all hated my little sister, Abigail. Sure, she’s a kid and she’s annoying, but she’s thirteen now so I’d like to have the big family happiness thing like Colby has. So although I’d sworn off dating and had pretty much convinced myself I was happy about it, now I want a girlfriend.

  Bad.

  I want the friendship and love and even the stupid girly shit they like to do, like date nights and sappy nicknames. I want to be in love again, but this time I don’t want my heart shredded. I don’t want to be lied to, or cheated on, or used. I never even saw it coming with Elise.

  We’d been together over a year, happily—or, at least I thought we were happy. I was sneakily trying to figure out if she’d prefer white gold or yellow gold for this necklace I was going to buy her for her birthday. Her little sister let me inside when Elise was supposed to be at softball practice, and I snuck into her room to look at her jewelry box. The plan was to examine her jewelry and get a feel for what she’d prefer. The moment I stepped into her room, my plans were shattered. Instead of finding her jewelry box, I found her sitting on some guy’s lap while he fumbled with her bra strap.

  The worst part was she didn’t even seem ashamed about it. She’d told me we should have broken up a long time ago. That I should have seen it coming. That, didn’t I feel the same way, too?

  Uh no, I didn’t. To this day, I’m not sure if she really meant it, that she thought we both wanted to break up, or if she was just lying. Because in my mind, our relationship was great. We had fun and we loved each other, and we were in the popular crowd at high school. What more could we have wanted?

  I swallow the lump in my throat and hold the stack of video games under my arm.

  “So I’m guessing everyone speaks Spanish in Madrid, huh?” I ask.

  Colby nods. “That’s why Mads and I have been taking Spanish lessons. She’s way better than I am.”

  “You excited?”

  He looks up, a crooked grin on his face. “I mean, her parents are
going to be there, so it won’t be some romantic trip or anything, but yeah. It’s Madrid. I’m psyched.”

  I draw in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Hey man, at least one of us is happy.”

  “You’ll get there,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Of course, I thought you were against girlfriends? Didn’t your mom convince you that all young relationships are pointless?”

  I nod. “Yeah, but she was probably saying that to make me feel better about Elise.”

  He laughs. “Do what you gotta do, man. If you want a girlfriend, go get one.”

  I hold up my phone. “That’s what I’ve been trying to do.”

  Colby lifts an eyebrow. “Please tell me you’re not using that dating app again? That thing is disgusting. Nothing but weirdos on there.”

  I shrug. “Where else am I going to find girls?”

  Colby gives me a stare like I’m an idiot, and I mean, yeah I guess I am. “You find them in real life, you dipshit. Go outside. Meet girls.”

  I nod, running a hand through my hair. “That’s what I’ll do after my date with Jenny.”

  “Jenny?”

  I open the app and scroll to this girl’s profile. There’s not much on there, and only one picture of her face, but she’s pretty enough. She practically begged me to go out with her after we chatted through the app a few minutes. So far she seems kind of boring, or at least not very good at chatting online, but maybe an in-person date will fix that.

  I figured going on this one date can’t possibly hurt, and maybe it’ll lead to something good. I turn my phone around and show it to Colby.

  His brows pull together while he examines her photo. “Eh.”

  “Oh, come on. She’s cute,” I say, looking at the picture again. “It’s just one date. If it doesn’t work out, then I’ll take your advice and go outside.”

  He closes his suitcase and zips it. “I think you should go outside regardless, man. I literally met Maddie outside.”

  “I’ll be spending my summer at the Flying Mermaid,” I say, sliding my phone back in my pocket. “If things with this girl don’t work out, I’ll be spending plenty of time outside since the shop is halfway on the sand.”

  “With chicks in bikinis,” he says, fist-bumping me. “Nice.”

  I snort. When I was younger, I loved being at the beach for that reason. But after spending every summer of my life working at the surf shop, one bikini blends into another one and it kind of gets old. Unlike our friend Bryce, checking out hot girls isn’t the only thing on my agenda.

  I’d like to find a real girlfriend. The kind Colby has, and the kind I’ve always wanted. Maybe this Jenny girl will fit the bill. If not, I guess I’ll have to keep looking.

  Chapter 2

  The smell of maple syrup wakes me up on the first day of summer break. It’s not a bad way to wake up, that’s for sure. Grandma is an amazing cook, but during the school year I’m usually eating Pop-Tarts or cereal on my mad dash out the door. I’m not the kind of girl who wakes up two hours early to shower and fix my hair, and put on a ton of makeup with fifty different applicator brushes.

  Don’t get me wrong—I’d love to be that kind of girl.

  But look at me. Ew. There’s no point in “putting makeup on a pig” as this guy Bryce used to say in junior high. I remember the day clearly, the same way I remember just about every instance of being bullied. It was the first day back to eighth grade after the Christmas break, and Grandma had given me a makeup set for Christmas. I was in love. It was the good kind, from Sephora, this fancy makeup place in the mall. Until then, I’d only amassed a collection of drugstore lip gloss and some cheap powder that promised to eliminate shine. (Spoiler alert: it did not.)

  I’d been spending a ton of time online looking up makeup tutorials, and I guess that’s what gave Grandma the idea. I was so excited, I spent forty-five minutes just on my eyeliner. Things were looking up for me. I’d lost ten pounds since school started, and now I had beautiful makeup.

  And then, of course, Bryce ruined it all by calling me a pig. He said it in front of everyone in the cafeteria. Grandma had tried to comfort me by saying some of the students were probably doing their own thing and didn’t notice him say it, but it didn’t help much. Because I know he said it, and all of his friends laughed. Even one person knowing my humiliation was enough to ruin the rest of the year for me. It didn’t take long for me to gain back those ten pounds, and then about five more.

  I put that makeup in my drawer and didn’t touch it again until freshman year when Grandma and I went out to celebrate her sixty-third birthday. She wanted to go to this Thai restaurant two towns over, so I figured I was safe from the prying eyes of my peers. I’d felt pretty that night. I haven’t felt that way since.

  My mouth waters at the smell of breakfast rising up from the kitchen. As much as I want to stay in bed and begin my uber lazy summer of doing absolutely nothing until college classes start in August, it would be rude to make Grandma cook all by herself. The woman is my rock. She took over raising me when my teenaged parents moved out. Unlike most fifteen-year-old parents, mine actually loved each other and wanted to stay together. As far as I know, they still are together. They just didn’t think having a kid fit in well with their traveling-the-world-with-a-backpack scene, so they left me with Grandma. She’s somehow managed to be a mother, father, and both grandparents to me for my whole life. Her husband, my Grandad, died just a few months before I was born. She said I gave her back the life that was taken away from her.

  So yeah, there’s no way I can make that woman cook breakfast all by herself. She’s far too important to me.

  I crawl out of bed and climb over the mess of craft supplies I’d left on the floor last night. Although I consider myself a neat person, my room is kind of a disaster area right now. My dream is to become a kindergarten teacher, and although graduation is still four years away, I’m kind of obsessed with craft ideas for my future classroom. Plus, my cousin Aisha is a teacher and she said that coming up with creative teaching tools and crafts for the kids always gave you bonus points with the professors, so that’s what I plan on doing. Right now, I’m deep in the middle of about four Pinterest projects I found for kindergarten lesson plans. I’m having a blast, and I haven’t even started teaching kids yet.

  I slip into the hallway, past the empty cat bed in the alcove near the stairs. My heart aches as I blow a little kiss toward the bed. My cat, Missy, died a few months ago. She’d been with me for as long as I could remember, my little calico fur ball of a best friend. But old age got to her eventually, and we buried her in the back yard. I haven’t found it in me to move the cat bed. Every time I walk past it, I can almost pretend she’s just snoozing in the other room and that she’ll be back any minute.

  “Good morning,” I say, meeting Grandma in the kitchen. Though she works at an insurance company, I’ve always thought she would make an excellent chef. She has a way with food, and I’m not just saying that because I’m fat and love food.

  “Morning, hun,” Grandma says, flashing me a smile that is all white teeth and red lipstick. Even though it’s Saturday, you’d think she’s going to work with how nicely she’s dressed. My grandmother is the opposite of me in that way. I’m all pajamas and T-shirts, she’s all silk blouses and dress pants.

  “Can I help with anything?” I ask, opening the cabinet to grab plates to set the table.

  “No, I have it all covered.” Grandma takes the plates from me and goes over to the table, setting them down in our usual spots. “Why don’t you make yourself a cup of coffee? Breakfast will be ready in a second. I made your favorites: French toast, bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, and thin sliced toast with butter.”

  “That’s a lot of food,” I say, frowning. Usually we’ll have French toast or eggs and bacon, never both at the same time. I make some coffee and sit at the table. “I was actually thinking I might try to diet this summer so I can start out college as less of a fat cow.”

  Grandma puts
a hand on her hip. “You are not a fat cow!”

  I take a sip of coffee. “It’s literally in my name, Grandma. Bess. Short for Bessie, as in Bessie the cow.”

  “That is not what you’re named after,” she says, rolling her eyes as she piles several slices of French toast onto a plate that she puts in the center of the table.

  I’ve been called Bessie the cow since I was five. It wasn’t until around the age of seven that I got smart enough to shorten my name to Bess. Now that particular insult comes less frequently.

  I rest my chin in my hand. “We don’t really know what I’m named after, now do we?”

  I heave a sigh and Grandma frowns, but she doesn’t say anything. My mother named me “Bessie” on my birth certificate, but then she never explained what gave her the idea. Maybe she knew I’d be a fat cow when I got older and she was just preparing me for it.

  Grandma joins me at the table and we start filling our plates from the massive breakfast feast she’s prepared. “You didn’t have to do all of this,” I say, reaching for another piece of sausage. Then it hits me. I look up and fix her with an accusing glare. “Wait, why did you make all of this food?”

  Grandma dunks a piece of French toast in syrup and gives me this apathetic look. “I don’t think you need to diet, Bess. That’s just asking for stress, and stress makes you way unhealthier than a little extra weight.”

  I lift an eyebrow. “You didn’t answer my question.”

  Grandma is a large woman. She’s been round and happy about it for as long as I remember. She’s the kind of lady who is unabashedly in love with food and doesn’t let someone’s perceptions of what’s attractive or not stand in her way. Unfortunately, I inherited her love of food, but not her love of being happy with your own body.

  I hate my body.

  I point my fork at her. “Why are you buttering me up?”

  She waves a hand at me. “You’re being silly. I just wanted a nice breakfast since school is over. It’s to congratulate you on graduating, honey.”