A Life, Forward: A Rowan Slone Novel Read online

  I can imagine students devouring this book quickly because of its high interest and non-stop action. Every chapter is a cliffhanger...

  ~ Readers’ Favorite ~

  Wow. This is such a great young adult book. It touches on so many problems that can beset young people today.

  ~ Voracious Reader ~

  Raw, gripping, and powerful. “A Life, Redefined” tackles the emotional and physical issues that haunt so many teenagers and young adults of today. Meyer is a modern-day Judy Blume and brings to her writing a realness that grabs hold and doesn’t let go. This is an exceptional book and should be required reading in school.

  ~ The Traveling Reader ~

  ...Powerful and compelling look into the life of a troubled girl. I thoroughly enjoyed Meyer’s “A Life, Redefined.” I found it to be well-written and insightful. It helped me understand the mindset of someone that hurts themselves, something which seemed incomprehensible to me prior to picking up this novel...

  ~ M. McGuinness, reader ~

  The title of this book could well have been “characters, clearly defined.” I was hooked by the end of the first chapter.

  ~ F. Evans, reader ~

  All poems contained within were written by

  Tracy Hewitt Meyer

  Copyright © 2014 Tracy Hewitt Meyer

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published by

  Cerulean Publishing

  Print Edition ISBNs

  ISBN-13: 978-0616004166

  ISBN-10: 0616004168

  Sometimes I feel like the luckiest girl in the world. To be able to do what I love and have the support of those around me is an incredible, inspiring feeling. I would like to thank Julia, Randi, Mel and Chris for reading these novels and providing me with valuable feedback and gentle critiques. If they didn’t love Rowan’s stories, I’m not sure this series would have seen the light of day.

  I would also like to thank Blue Harvest Creative, cover artists extraordinaire yet so much more. Never could I have imagined that this company would turn into my largest support team and my loudest cheerleaders. I am humbled, moved and so grateful for what they have done for me.

  I would like to thank my mom and my Elsie who are the perfect examples of what women and mothers should be.

  There would have been no courage to write these novels if it weren’t for my three babies, so I would like to thank them for their sweet kisses, tight hugs, and the beautiful way they let me love them.

  I would like to thank my husband, Chris. Each time he finishes one of my books, he stumbles toward me, wide-eyed and speechless. After a deep breath, he says, “I don’t normally like this genre…but this is a really good book.” I love you, honey.

  Finally, I would like to thank the readers of these novels. Rowan’s story is not an easy one, but I feel it is a story that needs to be told. Rowan may be a fictional character, but her strength is not.

  MY BREATH formed tiny crystals as I left the animal shelter after another day at work. Janie, my boss, was still inside closing up for the day. I wanted to ask to leave early so I could see my boyfriend, Mike, who was supposed to be coming home from college. The only problem was he had been promising this since August. It was now January. I had only seen him once, and I didn’t want to get my hopes up.

  He should have been home right before Christmas, the same night he finished his last final. But a player on his soccer team got hurt, and Mike took his place at an indoor tournament. He should’ve been home Thanksgiving, but his soccer team entered a last minute scrimmage against another school. The same story had repeated itself too many times to count.

  I was happy for Mike.

  I was heartbroken for me.

  My teeth chattered, and my hand shook as I tried to unlock the car door. It was dark out, clouds obscuring the stars, the moon. The trees that peppered the rural landscape were bare and stark.

  I whispered a prayer that the snow would hold off until he got home, assuming he had actually left the university town five hours away. A string of possible excuses marched through my head, but I immediately dismissed them. He would come home this time.

  The streets were empty except for two pickup trucks hauling muddy four-wheelers. Despite my best effort not to get excited and end up disappointed again, I pushed my foot on the gas and sped toward the only home I had known since last May.

  The Andersons lived in a typical upper middle-class neighborhood where the lawns were green, the weeds didn’t grow, and the streetlights never seemed to burn out. Row after row of two-story, red brick homes sat stoically along the tree-lined streets. The childhood home I left was not in this neighborhood.

  After a few quick turns, I was on the Anderson’s street. Up ahead their front porch light beamed like a beacon, urging Mike to come home.

  Come home.

  It was eight o’clock and despair lingered, threatening to swallow me in its tidal wave. I had made it through a string of holidays without him, just me as a pretender—a poser acting as if I were a part of his family. How much more could I take?

  The Andersons took me in when I could no longer live with my family. Mike and I had just started dating, but that showed the extent of their goodwill. They welcomed me with arms spread so wide I almost got lost in them. It was their kindness and Mike’s love that kept me from plunging off the proverbial cliff. I didn’t think I could go much longer without seeing him.

  Snow fell in tiny white bombs on the windshield, melting into water almost immediately. As I came upon the Anderson’s home I kept my eyes straight ahead refusing to look at the driveway, ignoring my fear that he wasn’t home, wasn’t coming home. When the house loomed to my right, I had no other choice but to turn. My heart plummeted confirming my fears. Mike’s car wasn’t in the driveway.

  Wasn’t in the driveway yet, I told myself and pinched my thigh.

  The empty space was like a giant, gaping hole, not only in the driveway, but also in my life. This driveway needed his car in it. Didn’t he realize that?

  As I shuffled toward the house my cheeks stung from the cold, and my nose started to run. I tried to hurry inside toward the warmth and away from the empty space that mocked me. Except I couldn’t. The path was icy. I managed an ungraceful attempt to stay on my feet until I couldn’t hold on any longer, and I landed on my knees. Pain shot through my thighs; I tasted blood from where I bit my tongue.

  “Dammit!” I tried to stand, slipped again, and finally managed to find my feet. Levi, my dog, was barking inside. His chocolate eyes watched me from the window where he stood on his hind legs, front paws on the sill. I tried to wave but I couldn’t, my arm too stiff. Snowflakes melted into my long hair and eyelashes.

  Levi pawed at the window, barking. The Andersons would be awake, but I was always afraid my animals—Levi and my cat, Scout—were too much of a nuisance, an inconvenience. I tried not to dwell on the inconvenience of me.

  I used my key to let myself in, but I didn’t need it. The Andersons hadn’t locked the door. They would be willing Mike to walk through it as strongly as I was.

  “Hi, Rowan. How was your day?” Mrs. Anderson, Mike’s mom, clacked into the foyer on her nude pumps. She was dressed in her comfortable clothes, which
for her meant pressed khaki slacks and a sweater set. She didn’t wear pearls although they would have fit right in with the outfit. Her brown hair was perfectly styled, her makeup lightly applied.

  Behind her, light from two table lamps cast a warm glow to the room. A fire roared in the large fireplace, the flames reflecting off the silver framed family pictures that sat on the mantle.

  I swallowed, trying to moisten my throat so my voice would sound less strained than it actually was. “Hi, Mrs. A. My day was good. A dog got adopted, the one with the broken leg that healed funny. We weren’t sure anyone would take her.” Levi, all eighty pounds of him, sat by my leg licking my hand. I stroked the top of his brown head and forced a smile that I knew he wouldn’t believe.

  “Well, that’s good.” She glanced out the window, lifting to her toes. Like that would help. Not seeing what she wanted, she turned back to me. “You look cold.” However, she was the one rubbing her arms.

  I took off my wet coat and the snow boots Mrs. Anderson gave me when we had the first big snow of the season. They were her old pair and a little big on me but warm. “It’s snowing pretty hard. And the roads are getting slick.”

  She sighed and smoothed the sides of her hair. “I wish he would get home. I don’t like him driving in this weather.”

  She frowned. The Andersons had four children, but Mike was their youngest and it was obvious they missed him. I understood their feelings completely.

  “Has he called?” My breath caught in my throat, threatening to stay stuck if the answer was the wrong one.

  “No. I just checked the home phone and my cell.” Her eyes fell on me. “Did he call you?” She folded her arms. “You did take your phone today, didn’t you?”

  I set my wet boots out of the way and avoided her stare. She wasn’t comfortable with me not carrying my phone. I couldn’t tell her that the number of times I checked my phone, yearning for Mike to call or text, bordered on obsessive. It was making me crazy always seeing the blank screen, listening for a ring that wasn’t coming. So I left it home to avoid the sinking feeling that came each time it didn’t do what I wanted.

  I shook my head. “No. I didn’t take it.”

  “Oh, Rowan. I wish you would.” She turned back to the window. “It worries me to think you can’t be reached.”

  I put my coat in the closet. “I’m going to run upstairs and shower. I’ll check my phone and if he’s called, I’ll let you know.”

  She nodded. Levi followed me as I hobbled up the stairs, my knees aching from the fall. There was a pain in my chest, too although it was entirely unrelated to the slippery ice outside.

  My phone sat on the nightstand by the bed where I slept. This room was their daughter, Tabitha’s, but she left home years ago. And now, after her company offered her a position in Australia, she’d taken the job and moved far away. That meant that the Andersons never saw her and the room had become mine.

  There was no message on my phone so I padded down the hall to the bathroom that I shared with Mike when he was home. Many of his things were still here—his toothbrush in the holder, his hair gel under the sink, his razor in the medicine cabinet. The only thing missing was him.

  Soon steam filled the small space, a thick fog masking the reflection in the mirror. I ran the heel of my hand over the smooth surface, creating a clear oval where my face could stare back at me.

  It was a face that had changed since I moved in. My gray eyes had grown brighter, my long brown hair shinier. Within a month of leaving my childhood home, I had gained eight much needed pounds, becoming the healthiest version of myself that had ever existed.

  Now, though, the face in the mirror was starting to show the same prominent cheekbones and dark circles that I had before. It was hard living in Mike’s home without him here. I missed him so much I was literally fading away.

  In the shower the water scalded my skin. I didn’t change the temperature and took longer than necessary on purpose. Even if Mike showed up in the next five minutes, his parents would want to see him. I didn’t want to interrupt their time together.

  I shampooed and conditioned my hair, trying to wash out the stench of the shelter, then ran a prickly loofah over my skin, careful of my left arm where a dozen ugly lines and a very prominent A covered the inside, evidence of why I lived with the Andersons and not with my own family. The cuts, forged by the steel of a razor blade, were healed well enough, but old habits died hard. I was so used to not touching that arm that avoiding it was automatic, like brushing my teeth before bed.

  When I walked down the hall back to my room, I listened for voices. At first, it was quiet. Not again. I felt so low I wasn’t sure I could handle another disappointment. How could he not come home again? Then I heard it. Mike’s voice. My breath stopped for a second as I listened.

  I hurried to the window at the end of the hall that looked over the front yard and the driveway. The empty space was filled with Mike’s blue Mazda.

  He was home.

  Mike was home.

  I yanked a brush through my hair, pulled on yoga pants and a warm sweatshirt. I darted out of my bedroom and then tried to take slow, deliberate steps. I didn’t want to go flying into the room like a maniacal squirrel. And I wanted him to have some time with his parents.

  But the harder I tried, the faster my feet moved until I was hurdling down the stairs, soaring through the front hall, and catapulting myself into Mike’s arms. He tried to catch his balance but fell onto the couch with me on top of him.

  He laughed and my heart swelled. “Rowan. Oh my God. It’s so good to see you.”

  I inhaled deeply, pulling his scent into my body. He smelled the same as I remembered; so uniquely Mike—musky with a hint of his hair gel—that I thought I had died and gone to Heaven. A drowning man didn’t clutch a life preserver as hard as I held onto Mike.

  Finally, I released my grasp so I could look at him. Stubble darker and thicker than I remembered covered his face. There were circles under his eyes, and his skin was pale.

  “You look tired,” I said. What I didn’t tell him was that he was still the most handsome guy I had ever seen.

  “God, I’m exhausted.” He shimmied out from underneath me. His parents sat in opposite chairs. Mrs. Anderson’s face lit brighter than a bulb, and Mr. Anderson’s splashed with a look of contentment I hadn’t seen in months.

  Delilah, Mike’s bulldog, struggled up onto his lap. “Hey girl.” She licked his face and Mike laughed. The sound had been absent so long from the house that his parents and I sighed at the same time. The three of us relaxed and our smiles grew. He was home.

  Mike put his arm around my shoulders, and I scooted into his body, wanting it to absorb my own. Delilah flashed me a look with her droopy brown eyes that told me that Mike was her territory, but I didn’t care. She was all wrinkled fur and heavy chest and tenderness beneath the gruff exterior. Levi licked his knee, and Mike rubbed his chin.

  “I’ll get you something to eat.” Mrs. Anderson hopped up from the chair and started toward the kitchen. “I made dinner and it’s warming in the oven. Chili. Your favorite.”

  “I’m not hungry, Mom. I stopped on the way home.”

  “Well, you need to eat. You look like you’re getting too skinny.”

  Mike patted his flat, hard stomach. He not only didn’t look skinny, he looked bigger—more muscular and fit. I ran my hand over his thigh, feeling the strength that got him a position on his college soccer team, careful not to run my hand too high in front of his dad. He glanced down at me and winked.

  “How was the tournament?” Mr. Anderson sat back in the chair and crossed one leg over the other.

  “Oh, man. It was great! We won with only thirty seconds to go. It was amazing.”

  “Who scored the last goal?” Mr. Anderson rested his chin on his fingers.

  Mike was quiet, and I glanced up. His pine-colored eyes sparkled in the dim light of the living room. His mouth formed into one of the biggest grins I had ever see
n. “I did.”

  “Son, that’s great!” Mr. Anderson swatted Mike’s knee.

  “What’s great?” Mrs. Anderson returned carrying a tray filled with a pitcher of water, cups, a plate of cheese and crackers, and a bowl of chili.

  “Mike scored the winning goal in the tournament,” Mr. Anderson said.

  “Sweetheart! I can’t believe we missed that!”

  “Well…” His arm tightened around my shoulders. “Maybe you can come to the next game.”

  “When is it?” Mr. Anderson asked, his eyes earnest. They hadn’t been able to attend as many soccer games as they wanted. With Mr. Anderson’s dental practice and Mrs. Anderson’s church obligations, the weekends were often filled weeks in advance. Plus they did have someone else living in their home. It wasn’t as if they were on their own.

  Mike’s jaw clenched, a hint that I wouldn’t like the next words that came from his mouth.

  “In two days.”

  “In two days?” Mrs. Anderson poured the water then sat down in a chair, her bright eyes dancing in the firelight. “Where? A home game?”

  “Yep.”

  “A home tournament?” Mrs. Anderson clapped her hands. “In two days?”

  He nodded.

  Mrs. Anderson looked at her husband. “With the holidays over, I can get away. How about you? You’re due for a little vacation. Honey, let’s go!” She scooted to the edge of the seat, her knees bouncing up and down.

  Mr. Anderson pulled out his phone to check his calendar. “Sure. I need to rearrange a few things, but I think we can make it work.” He tossed the phone on the side table. “I’ll call Danielle tomorrow and see if she can reschedule some appointments.”

  Mike looked at me. “What about you, Rowan? Can you come? I’d love for you to see one of the games.” He squeezed my shoulder.

  I hadn’t watched Mike play since he went to college. With school—I was a senior this year—and work at the animal shelter, my life was busy. It made getting away on the weekends difficult, especially since Janie had started giving me more hours and more responsibility. And this tournament in two days…well, I couldn’t make that either. “School starts Monday.”