The Year I Became Isabella Anders (Alternative Edition) (Sunnyvale Alternative Series Book 1)

by Jessica Sorensen

  “You’re still the same,” he remarks. I can feel his eyes on me.

  “I’m a little different,” I reply without looking at him. “But yeah, I’m kind of the same, too.”

  “That’s not a bad thing, Isa.” He brushes his fingers right above my injured knee.

  I jolt in the seat as his touch ripples across my body and zaps my heart like a defibrillator. What in the wild, wild crazy land was that?

  “I know it’s not a bad thing. I know I’m weird, and I’ve always been pretty okay with that. I just wish I knew why.” An unsteady breath eases from my lips as I peek down at Kai’s hand on my leg then over at him.

  He quickly withdraws his hand and places it on the steering wheel. “Why what?”

  “Why I am the way that I am. I’ve never fit in with anyone, especially my family. And then I found out that Lynn isn’t my mom, and I kind of … I don’t know … felt relieved, which probably makes me a bad person, but that’s how I feel.”

  “That doesn’t make you a bad person at all. I’ve heard some of Hannah’s stories about the stuff they’ve done to you. You should hate her.”

  “She’s told people about the things she’s done to me?”

  Nausea sets in as I think about all the incriminating pictures she snapped of me doing embarrassing, dorky things.

  He offers me a look of empathy. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought that up.”

  “It’s fine.” I scrape at the black nail polish on my fingernails. “Sometimes, I wonder if Hannah’s always known that we don’t have the same mom, and that’s why she’s always treated me so bad.”

  “Hannah treats you bad because she’s a spoiled princess.” Kai downshifts the car. “She’s basically gotten everything she’s wanted since we were kids.”

  “I know … I don’t get why people even like her.”

  “Because they’re afraid of her. They’d rather be her friend than her enemy.”

  “So, you were afraid of her, then?” I ask. “Because you liked her once.”

  “I never liked her.” He grinds his teeth. “I told you I just hit on her because I knew Kyler had a thing for her and it would piss him off. There was never anything more to it.”

  “If Kyler had a thing for her, then why isn’t he dating her anymore?” I attempt not to sound bitter and fail epically.

  “He liked her when he was younger, but he grew out of it,” he explains, making a right down a side road that weaves between the rolling foothills. “It’s probably the one smart thing he’s ever done in his life. The whole dating thing at the beginning of the summer pretty much happened only because Hannah’s pushy as fuck when she wants something.”

  “I completely agree.” I restrain a smile, though it’s difficult when I just found out Kyler never really wanted to go out with Hannah. He was probably being nice.

  “So, you’re still obsessed with him, huh?” Kai asks, jostling me of my Kyler lust trance.

  “What? No! I’m not …” My cheeks erupt in flames. Fortunately, it’s dark enough that there’s no way Kai can see my mortification.

  “Relax, Isa.” He pats my uninjured knee, all buddy-buddy-like. “It’s not really that big of a secret.”

  I frown. “It makes me sound pathetic—obsessing over some guy for years, who I have no chance in hell of ever going out with.”

  “Why don’t you have a chance?” he asks, genuinely baffled.

  “Um, because I’m me.”

  “Yeah, so? He asked you to his football game, didn’t he?”

  “I guess he did.” I replay the two-second conversation I had with Kyler, trying to remember if, when he asked me, he was sending out date vibes. I don’t know since I have zilch experience in the boyfriend department. “You think he was asking me out?”

  “Probably.” Irritation creeps into his tone. “He’s shallow enough that he would.”

  “Why would him asking me out make him shallow?” I ask, offended.

  “Because he doesn’t know you, which means he was only asking you out based on the fact that he thinks you’re hot now.”

  “That’s kind of harsh. Maybe he knows me and likes me.”

  “How could he possibly know you?” Kai asks, flipping the blinker. “You two haven’t ever talked.”

  “We hung out a couple of times when I taught him how to improve his free throws, and he used to stop Hannah from picking on me,” I tell him. “There was this one time when he even stopped his own friends from picking on me. A couple of his football buddies had me cornered because Hannah basically had a choke collar on them. He came up and said something about them being late for practice so they’d have to leave.”

  “He should have called them out on what they were doing, not just fed them a lame-ass excuse to make them stop without making himself look bad.” He makes another turn, this time down a street lined with single-story, seventies-style homes.

  “You didn’t do that for me, either.” I clench my hands into fists as they begin to tremble.

  I hate memory lane. Let’s not go there ever again.

  “Yeah, well, I was a fucking asshole back then. Still am most of the time. I don’t want to be when I’m around you, though.” He parks the car along the curb at the end of a very long line of vehicles. “My brother, on the other hand, walks around pretending he’s all high and mighty, when really, he’s a fucking arrogant prick who always puts himself first.”

  He slides the keys out of the ignition. “You may not want to believe this, but you’re too sweet and smart for Kyler. It’ll never work out.” He shoves open the door to get out. “He’d be better off with your sister. The two of them are pretty much the same, except your sister doesn’t give a shit that people think she’s a douche.”

  With that, he climbs out of the car, leaving me to wonder if he’s right. Could Kyler really be the asshole Kai seems to think he is?

  Chapter 16

  I’ve seen a ton of movies that featured high school parties. I figured the rowdy, loud music and tons of people crammed into a house were Hollywood’s played-up versions. When I catch sight of the single-story home the party is taking place at, though, I start to think the movies nailed it dead-on.

  The small living room is jam-packed with sweaty, unruly, stupidly silly drunk people. Music is booming and vibrates the floors. The smell of sweat, beer, and cigarette smoke laces the air. And I’m pretty sure I just stepped in a puddle that I think might be urine.

  “Ew!” I shiver as I stare down at the yellow puddle on the linoleum floor.

  I’m distracted just long enough by the grossness that when I look up, I’ve lost Kai in the crowd. I stand on my tiptoes, panicking as my gaze surfs the crowd. There are just too many people to tell who’s who.

  “I’m never going to find him.” Those old feelings of ridicule sneak up on me, and I hug my arms around myself, noting every glance in my direction.

  They have to be staring at me. And you want to know why, Isabella? Because they know you don’t belong here.

  “Hey, I know you, right?” Bradon, Kai’s friend and the guy throwing this shindig, stumbles through the crowd and stops in front of me. He has overly long hair, his eyes are red, and his clothes smell like smoke with a kick. “You’re that chick from my school.”

  I want to point out there are a lot of chicks who go to our school here, but I’m guessing I’ll probably just confuse him.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “You know Kai, right?” He wags a finger at me. “You’re that girl who was by his locker.”

  Great. I went from being That Chick at School to being That Girl by Kai’s Locker.

  I stick out my hand to properly introduce myself so he’ll stop giving me lame nicknames. “I’m Isa.”

  He eyeballs my hand, then wraps his fingers around mine, brings them to his lips, places a kiss on my skin, and then licks me like a dog.

  I screech, loud enough to make a scene, and people glance our way. Apparently, drunk people have a short attention
span, though, because five seconds later, they’re all doing their own thing again.

  “Sorry. I couldn’t help it.” He laughs at me as I wipe my hand on the side of my skirt. “I’ve never had a girl try to shake my hand before.”

  “If it happens again, you should probably just shake it back,” I offer.

  “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.” He noticeably checks me out before peering around the crowd. “So, did Kai come with you or what?”

  I inch forward as a guy staggers past me and jabs his elbow into my back. “Yeah, he did. I don’t know where he is, though. I lost him the second I walked in here.”

  “Yeah, that happens a lot.” He looks back at me. “How about I help you find him?”

  I nod, my anxiety going down a drop or two. “That sounds great. Thank you.”

  “No problem.” He nods for me to follow him as he pushes his way through the crowd. “We can get you a brownie from the kitchen, too.” He throws me a toothy smile from over his shoulder. “I make killer fudge brownies. They’re actually pretty famous.”

  “I bet they are,” I remark, remembering Kai’s warning to stay away from the baked goods. “I actually don’t like brownies that much.” Huh? Never thought that sentence would ever come out of my mouth.

  “That’s because you haven’t ever tasted mine.” He raises his voice as an upbeat song blasts through the speakers, and everyone gets all riled up. “One bite will change your mind.”

  As I get jostled all over the place by the crowd, I thank the heavens that I’m wearing boots; otherwise, I’d be knocked flat on my ass by now. Heels were never my thing, something I learned every time I tried to wear them out to a club. I’d either trip, fall down completely, or my feet would end up hurting so badly that I’d have to sucker Indigo into swapping shoes. The only ones I can tolerate are platforms, but after wearing them to school last week, I’ve decided they might be as demonic as stilettos.

  I struggle to maintain my balance, and Bradon snags my arm and tugs me out of the room, only letting me go when we make it safely into the kitchen. There are a few people hanging around a keg, but other than that, the room’s pretty empty.

  “Brownie time,” Bradon announces as he lifts a paper towel off a plate.

  Underneath it are the gooiest and most delicious looking brownies I’ve ever seen, and my mouth starts to salivate.

  Bradon picks up the plate and moves it toward me. “Try one. I promise you won’t regret it.”

  I literally have to stab my nails into my palms just to stop myself from snatching one and gobbling it up. “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, because … they have pot in them, right?”

  He chuckles at me. “You’re adorable. I can see why Kai likes you.”

  Before I can even wrap my head around what he said, an arm drops down on my shoulders.

  “There you are,” Kai says casually, though I can feel the tension in his arm. “I look away for, like, a second and you disappear on me. What happened?”

  “I stepped in piss and got distracted,” I explain, glancing down at my boot. “Or, at least I think it was piss.”

  Bradon puts a finger to his lip, seeming way too fixated on me. “Seriously adorable.”

  Kai gives me a questioning look. “How did you end up with Bradon?”

  I lean in, keeping my voice low. “He found me in the crowd, licked my hand when I tried to introduce myself, then brought me in here, offered me a brownie, and called me adorable when I asked him if there was pot in it. I don’t know why. I haven’t done anything that could remotely constitute being called adorable.”

  Kai presses his lips together as he angles his head so he can look me in the eye. “You asked him if his brownies had pot in them?” he asks, struggling not to laugh.

  “Why is that so amusing?” I feel like the butt of a joke I don’t get. “You told me not to eat them because they have pot in them, right? I just wanted to make sure.”

  Kai glances at Bradon, who’s still staring at me like I’ve sprouted a unicorn horn out of my forehead.

  “Can I borrow her for the night?” Bradon asks Kai, his bloodshot eyes drinking in my every move.

  “I’m not on loan,” I quip then shrug. “Sorry.”

  Kai chokes on a laugh while Bradon blinks at me, confounded.

  “Okay, how about we go get you something to drink?” Kai says to me, steering me across the kitchen and away from Bradon.

  Once we reach the counter lined with all sorts of differently shaped alcohol bottles, he lifts his arm from my shoulders.

  “So, what’s your drink?” He holds up his hands. “No, wait a minute; let me guess. A wine cooler.”

  “I’ve never had a wine cooler before,” I admit.

  “Then what did you drink when you were overseas?” He reaches for a bottle filled with red liquid that has tiny little flakes at the bottom, picks it up, pulls a face, and then sets it down.

  “Lots of stuff. Whenever we’d do shots, though, Indigo would always make us do vodka.” I shudder, remembering the scorching burn.

  Kai muses over something then moves for the fridge. When he returns, he has a beer in his hand. “How about a beer? I don’t think it’ll make you pull that face you just made when you mentioned vodka.”

  I gratefully take the beer and twist the cap off while Kai grabs a plastic cup and fixes himself a drink using soda and whiskey.

  “Now what do we do?” I ask as he screws the cap back on the whiskey.

  “Whatever you want.” He downs a large swallow from his cup.

  I smile artfully at him. “Okay, well, if that’s the case, then I want to chase a unicorn, run on a rainbow, and swim in a lake made of gold.”

  He rolls his eyes at me, a smile playing at the corners of his lips. “We can do whatever you want within the realm of reality.”

  “Reality’s no fun.” I pout.

  “That’s not true,” he says, his gaze drifting across the room. “I bet you’ve had fun in reality before.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” I sip my beer, remembering the time I probably had the most fun. “I did have a lot of fun on my trip.”

  “Okay, that’s a starting point.” He swishes around his cup. “What did you do on the trip that was so fun?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know. I saw a ton of cool stuff and did a crap load of crazy things. You saw the pics on my blog, right?”

  “I saw the pics,” he says. “But I want to know about these so-called crazy things you did. Because a lot of those photos were of places, not you.”

  “We did a lot of stuff. I guess one of my favorite things was when we went clubbing.”

  His brows shoot up. “You went clubbing?”

  “You don’t have to sound so shocked about it.” I chug down half my beer as my social anxiety jumps onstage and takes over like a puppet. I know it’s insane, but it feels like his surprise screams, “You don’t belong here!”

  “I’m sorry,” he tells me sincerely. “You just threw me off. I mean, the Isa I knew didn’t dance.”

  “Well, she can dance now.” I straighten my shoulders as the beer swims through my veins. “And let me tell you, she’s awesome.”

  “Is that so?” he remarks, rubbing his jaw.

  I cringe, seeing where he’s heading with this. “Yeah, but only when I’m in clubs.”

  He nods toward the living room where people are packed together like sardines, grinding together like they’ve been drinking liquid hormones. “This place is kind of club-ish.”

  “Not really.” I fight back the panic strangling my throat. “Kai, please don’t make me dance in front of all these people. I know some of them.”

  “It’ll be fine. I’ll even dance with you.” He guzzles down a huge mouthful of his drink, tosses the cup into the garbage, threads his fingers through mine, and then hauls me toward the living room.

  Before we dive head-on into the dancing orgy, Kai lets go of me and walks over to the stereo system in
the corner of the room. Bradon is sitting near it, sipping on a drink. When Kai approaches him and says something, Bradon makes a face and promptly shakes his head.

  “No way!” Bradon shouts, standing to his feet and placing himself in front of the stereo. “That’ll never happen, dude.”

  “Oh, come on!” Kai begs, reaching for the stereo. “Just let me do it.”

  Bradon swats his hand away. “You know I don’t take requests like that unless it’s from a hot chick.”

  Kai throws a quick glance at me then leans in and says something to Bradon. I don’t know what he’s saying, but I have a feeling he might be using me to get his song request past Bradon.

  Bradon frowns then reclines back over the table and presses a few buttons before he sits up. The room grows quiet, and people immediately start complaining.

  “Turn the fucking music on!” a lanky guy not too far away from me hollers.

  “Bradon, quit being a dick!” a girl wearing a flowing floral dress shouts, red-faced and pissed as hell.

  “You owe me, dude,” Bradon grumbles as Kai struts back toward me.

  He gives him a thumbs up without turning around, walking right for me.

  “All right, it’s dancing time,” he says, rubbing his hands together.

  “What’d you get him to turn on?” I ask before the song clicks on, and I have my answer. I giggle. “You picked a Katy Perry song?”

  “What? She rocks!” he replies, owning his song choice. He snatches hold of my hand and drags me through the people who’ve started dancing again. “Now, come on; you owe me a dance.”

  “How do you figure that?” I stumble after him as he shoves his way to the center of the room.

  He elbows people out of the way to clear some space then his fingertips press down on my wrist before he spins me around so my back is aligned with his chest. “Because you never gave me the wand you promised me.”

  I start to laugh then stop myself. “You never gave me a chance to give you the wand. Three days after I promised you I’d make you one, you decided you were too cool to walk home with me anymore.”

  “I came to your house after that happened,” he says. “You could’ve given it to me then.”