Single Wide Female: The Bucket List Mega Bundle - 24 Books (Books #1-24)

by Lillianna Blake

  Everyone was packing up their supplies. I was no longer the focus of attention. I dressed awkwardly, as if each piece of clothing I put on reminded me of my own nakedness. Maybe if I had stayed nude, I never would have remembered at all.

  “Thanks again, Samantha,” the teacher said once I was dressed. She gave me a light pat on the shoulder.

  “Of course.” I smiled. “It’s all just between us, anyway. It was actually a very enlightening experience. And it’s not like any of these paintings are going to see the light of day.”

  “Not so much the light of day, just the lights at the art show,” the teacher said with a laugh as she began straightening the items on her desk.

  “What?” I said as the words “art” and “show” spun through my mind so fast that I thought I might pass out.

  “Yes, didn’t I mention it?” the teacher asked.

  I was beginning to think this flighty behavior was all an act. No one could truly be so ditzy.

  “No, you didn’t mention it,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “All of the live studies will be entered into the local art show—it’s part of the class project,” the teacher explained. “It gives all of these budding artists the chance to have a real gallery experience.”

  “A real gallery experience with my naked body?” I said, recognizing that my voice was getting louder by the second. “Don’t I have to sign some kind of release for that?”

  “Well, actually, you did sign it when you signed up for the class,” the teacher said. “And since you volunteered to model, consent is implied.”

  “No, no—it is not implied.” I was feeling more than a little freaked out.

  All of the other students had already emptied out of the classroom. The teacher actually looked a little frightened of me.

  “I’m sorry for the confusion, but if we don’t have something to enter, all of the students will be left out of the show,” she said with a frown. “You wouldn’t want to ruin that for them, would you? Besides, you have nothing to be ashamed of. The paintings came out beautifully.”

  The paintings. My heart flipped. I wondered how people had depicted me. I knew that I never photographed well, so the paintings had to be pretty terrible. I was starting to panic.

  “This was a huge mistake,” I said, frowning.

  “Aw.” The teacher gently squeezed my shoulder. “Samantha, it was no mistake. One day you’ll see that,” she assured me. “I have to get going now,” she added and held up her key to the classroom. “We’re the last ones to leave.”

  Still in shock, I followed her out of the room. I watched her lock the door. Then we continued out of the school. By the time I reached the parking lot I realized the teacher was gone. I turned back to look at the school and was still stunned to think that there was a room full of naked paintings of me inside.

  Chapter 10

  That night I could not get to sleep. I kept thinking about the paintings. I didn’t want anyone to see them. I couldn’t believe what I had done. I had let myself get caught up in the ideals of an art teacher. She wasn’t the one that had gotten naked, now was she?

  Finally I climbed out of bed. I knew what had to be done. I dressed quickly and stepped out of my apartment. I found Max walking up to my door.

  “Can we talk?” he asked as I started to brush past him.

  “I have somewhere to be,” I said.

  “This late?” he asked, looking surprised.

  “Please, Max, not now,” I said quickly. I didn’t have time to discuss why I had been avoiding him.

  “Alright,” Max said with confusion in his voice.

  For once I didn’t obsess about what he was thinking. I needed to get to the paintings, and fast.

  When I arrived at the school I had no real plan, except that I had to get inside. The school was still dark. I could see that there were a few exit signs glowing in the front hallway. For a split second I wondered if there was an alarm system. The truth was, it didn’t matter. I was going in after those paintings no matter what I had to do.

  I tried the front door, hoping that by some stroke of luck I would be able to simply walk in. It was locked. I sighed and walked the length of the building. I noticed that there was a window open near a back door. It wasn’t open much. Maybe one of the high school teachers had cracked it during the day for a quick smoke and forgotten to close it. But it was open enough. I pushed it up the rest of the way and climbed inside.

  I hurried out of the classroom and down the hall to the art room that was reserved for our classes. I flipped on the light and was greeted by me, naked, and all over the room. I stared at the paintings spread out before me. I had broken into the classroom so that I could destroy all of the paintings, but now that I was looking at them, I felt a sense of amazement.

  They weren’t the ugly paintings I had expected them to be. Each person had painted my unadorned body with their own special perspective. Each one had accentuated a different aspect of my body, so that even I couldn’t find a way to deny the beauty on the canvas. I was so enthralled by the sight that I didn’t hear the quiet sound of the door behind me sliding open.

  “Wow,” Max said from behind me.

  I jumped and bumped into the easel in front of me.

  “Max!” I gasped and tried to shield the painting from view.

  There was no point, as there were more than a dozen nearly identical paintings spread out across the room for him to see. “Close your eyes!” I said. “Close your eyes this instant!”

  “Are these you, Sammy?” he asked with shock and delight in his voice. “Is this how you’ve been spending your evenings?”

  “Max!” I nearly shouted. “Please, don’t look.” My voice trembled. He looked over at me and met my eyes.

  “Don’t be upset,” he said softly. “They’re beautiful.”

  “Maybe they are beautiful, but they’re not for you to see.”

  “Is that why you broke in here?” he asked. “I followed you because I knew that you were up to something.”

  “I was going to destroy all of the paintings,” I said with a frown. “I didn’t want anyone else seeing them.”

  “Well, that would be a shame,” he said with a slight shake of his head. “One day you’ll have to accept your beauty, Sammy, whether you like it or not.”

  I stared back at him with disbelief. In the distance I could hear sirens. Had someone reported the break-in or was I just being paranoid?

  “Let me take you home,” Max said. “Leave the paintings.”

  “I can get there myself,” I said quietly.

  “Sam, are we okay?” he asked with concern in his eyes.

  “We will be. But I can get home by myself. And I can decide to get into trouble on my own, without you needing to get me out of it. I don’t need you to take care of me, Max.”

  “I know you don’t,” he said softly.

  “Good,” I said and pushed past him. If he followed me I didn’t know it; I didn’t look back.

  When I arrived back at my apartment, I sat down with my computer. I tapped out another blog post, detailing how startling it was to see my body through the eyes of others and how refreshing it could be to finally be able to see yourself from another perspective.

  I waited a few minutes to see if Blue would post. Then I shut off my computer and went to bed. Soon more people than had ever seen me naked would be seeing my body, as it was interpreted by a variety of budding artists.

  Surprisingly, I was okay with that.

  Single Wide Female: The Bucket List

  5 Run a Marathon

  By

  Lillianna Blake

  Copyright © 2015 Lillianna Blake

  Cover design by Beetiful Book Covers

  All rights reserved.

  LilliannaBlake.com

  Chapter 1

  When my alarm went off I was jerked out of an amazing dream. I was on a sailboat, journeying across a vast ocean. I was alone, but I wasn’t afraid. I was perfectly confide
nt that I was capable of making it to my destination. I felt vital and enlivened by the freedom that rushed through me with every rolling wave.

  When I opened my eyes to the reality of my life, I found myself instantly crushed by the routine of it. In an hour I would need to be at Fluff and Stuff to open it up for the day. Then I would have some coffee, read the paper, and obsess about the state of the world, country, or city depending on what article I read.

  Once a customer arrived to distract me I would lose myself in the routine of my work. I might be interrupted by Max showing up for a chat. I might flip on the old television and watch a soap opera just to spice up my day. But in the end, I would close up the shop and head back to my small apartment, alone, and with nothing more important to do than flip on the television so that I wouldn’t miss one of my several favorite shows. Lately, my life had been a bit more adventurous, but yet again I had settled into a rut.

  I wanted to be interesting—to be valid and worthy. I wanted to matter in some way. I wanted a reason to wake up before my alarm went off, with an eagerness to participate in my life rather than a sense of obligation.

  I climbed out of bed and headed for the shower. As I walked across the room I grumbled at the tension in my back, the soreness of my knees, and the general unpleasantness of waking up to a stiff body. I sighed as I walked past the tall mirror that hung from the back of my closet door. I had lost quite a bit of weight recently and my body certainly looked better, but it hadn’t changed much in the past few weeks. I had hit a plateau despite sticking fairly well to my diet.

  I knew that the main problem was lack of movement. I had been so caught up lately in my routine that I had forgotten to get out and exercise. I needed something more than just heading to the gym. I could do that any old time. It was boring. I wanted a challenge—something that would make me feel a little more competitive and a little less bored.

  As I walked the few blocks to Fluff and Stuff I noticed a few familiar faces. Since I walked on nearly the same schedule each day I’d become acquainted with certain sights. There was the blue-haired lady who walked her Pomeranian. There was the hot dog vendor who didn’t seem to comprehend that people did not want to eat hot dogs for breakfast. Then there were the runners. They were always moving too fast for me to name them in particular so I just named the group of them—the runners.

  They were always decked out in bright green or yellow running gear. Most of the time I avoided looking at them but today, for some reason, I couldn’t look away. Today it struck me that that was what I wanted. I wanted to wake up each morning and go after life, not at a casual walk, but at a run. I was sure that I could do it. It would take some time for me to build up my speed but I had the time to do that. I was so inspired that I sped up to a jog for the rest of the way to work.

  I’d worked up a bit of a sweat by the time I arrived at the laundromat. I unlocked the door and prepared for the day by checking all of the washers and dryers and making sure that the items in the small shop were all in the right places. But my mind was with the runners. The ache of my feet told me one particular thing, however. If I was going to become a runner, I would need better shoes.

  The thought reminded me of something on my bucket list. One of the items I wanted to accomplish, now that I had slimmed down quite a bit, was to run a marathon. It had seemed out of reach in the past. After my short jog along the block it still seemed very much out of reach. But it was on the list, and I was feeling just brave enough to check it off. Of course it would probably take several months of training to be ready, but before that, it would take one of my favorite things—shopping!

  I spent my free time at work researching running shoes on my cell phone. If I was going to do this, I had to do it right, of course. As soon as another employee showed up to cover the evening shift, I headed out to browse at the shoe store a few blocks down. I was determined that whatever I bought would not end up in my “closet of no return.”

  The “closet of no return” was a closet off of my kitchen. Inside this closet were the ghosts of exercise fads past. I had everything from balance balls to ab zappers in there. All things I was sure I would use every day—that had been relegated to the closet within a week. It had taken me a long time to realize that there was no quick fix, that I had to move forward with determination, no matter the speed.

  Chapter 2

  When I stepped into the shoe store, the scent of leather greeted me in a way that made me feel excited and a little frightened. This wasn’t a heel and pump store, this was a real sports store. There were images of athletes plastered all over the walls. Of course my body didn’t look anything like those on the posters, but I did my best to ignore that. As I walked down the aisles I reminded myself that I was on a journey and this was just one step of it.

  I stood in front of the rows and rows of running shoes. I had no idea which ones I should buy. I was someone who spent a fair amount of money on shoes to go with my dresses and fancier outfits, but I had rarely put much thought into what kind of sneakers to wear. Nor did I have any idea how many there were; and the variety of colors was mind-boggling. There was even a pair that I was sure would make my feet look like rainbows if I were to wear them. As I picked up a pair and studied them, I noticed someone a few rows down. It was Stephanie, a woman I had met in the art class that I’d been taking recently.

  “Hey, Stephanie.” I smiled as I walked up to her.

  “Samantha, it’s so good to see you,” she said. “I was wondering why you didn’t come back to art class.”

  “Uh, well—” I blushed a little. “—I figured that everyone had seen enough of me.”

  “I guess so.” Stephanie laughed a little at the inside joke.

  “Are you shopping for running shoes too?” I asked.

  “Yes, I was thinking about signing up for the Mountain Marathon.”

  “Me too,” I said, surprising myself. “I mean, it would be my first one, but I thought it might be fun to try something new—get out there in the community a little.”

  “It will be,” Stephanie assured me. “I ran in something similar last year, and the enthusiasm of the people is just incredible. I can’t wait to experience it again.” She paused a moment and looked thoughtful. “We should train together,” she added. “Would you like to? We could get together each morning until the race—I mean if you want to.”

  “That would be great,” I said, a little surprised that she was so willing. I was still getting used to having a female friend. I hadn’t been sure if she would still want to hang out after the last art class we’d shared. Not to mention that I was fairly certain she and Max were still seeing each other. I felt a little queasy at that thought. I was used to seeing the women Max was with as vapid and ditzy, and I didn’t see Stephanie that way.

  “Great, let’s meet tomorrow morning—around six?” she said. “We can run down by the pond off of Third. Do you know it?”

  “I’ve seen it.” I nodded.

  I was a little thrown by two things about her invitation. Actually I was more thrown by the idea of arriving somewhere by six in the morning, as well as the word “run.” I wasn’t even sure if I could sustain a swift jog, let alone run. I didn’t want to miss out on the chance to spend more time with Stephanie, though; and it was on my list, after all.

  “I can do that,” I said and then grimaced. “But I should warn you, I’m a little out of shape.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said quickly. “We’ll take it at your pace. No one starts out as a runner, Samantha,” she assured me. “Make sure you get some shoes with good ankle support. Wear them as much as you can so you can break them in.”

  “Alright. I will.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Stephanie called out as she headed to the register.

  I nodded and waved. I was sure that I should have told her “maybe” so that I’d have an excuse for not showing up that early, but I was hoping that the commitment would make me force myself to be there. Change didn’t happen
simply because I wanted it to, change happened because I actively made it happen.

  With this in mind I grabbed a pair of very bright green shoes and slipped them on my feet. They were a perfect fit. With these emerald shoes on, I felt as if I could run around the globe—I could run down highways and through tunnels. I caught sight of them in one of those ankle-high mirrors and started to step forward to get a closer look. What I hadn’t planned on was the tiny clear piece of plastic that tied the two shoes together.

  I stumbled and waved my arms through the air, attempting to regain my balance. Unfortunately the only thing around me to grab on to was a tower of shoeboxes. I knew that it was a bad idea, but in the split second before falling to the ground there wasn’t a lot of time to think these things through.

  I grabbed hold of the tower of shoeboxes as I fell forward. Of course the tower simply gave way as a result of my futile grasping, and the entire pile of shoeboxes fell directly on top of me after I had landed hard on the carpeted floor of the shop. From beneath the pile of boxes, I could hear the sounds of people gasping and muttering. I heard the distinct footsteps of someone in charge approaching me. I could only hope that Stephanie had made it out of the store before I had embarrassed myself so thoroughly.

  Chapter 3

  I hadn’t even thought about how I actually felt and whether I might have injured myself. Of course the thought that I might have twisted my ankle sparked some hope that I wouldn’t have to arrive anywhere at six in the morning.

  “Ma’am,” a deep voice asked from beyond the pile of shoeboxes. “Are you hurt?”

  I didn’t want to answer. I didn’t want to think about what had just happened, or how many people would be staring at me when I emerged from my cavern of shoeboxes.

  “I’m fine. I just need a minute.”

  “Ma’am, let me help you,” the voice said. Its owner picked up one of the shoeboxes blocking my face. I looked up into deep green eyes, curly blond hair, and about twenty years of life. I couldn’t help but notice that his pink lips were struggling to hide a grin. Reluctantly I sat up, knocking more boxes off my back. I did my best not to look at the stares around me.