The Beauty in Between: Too Close (A Beautiful Series Novella)

by Lilliana Anderson

  Too Close: The Beauty in Between

  a Beautiful Series Novella

  by Lilliana Anderson

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2013 Lilliana Anderson

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Copyright 2013, Lilliana Anderson

  All rights reserved

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means without the prior written permission of the author of this book.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead is purely coincidental. Any actual places, products or events mentioned are used in a purely fictitious manner. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various places/products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission and is by no way sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Dedication –

  Lucas, for his love of all good things

  A single rose can be my garden... a single friend, my world.

  Leo Buscaglia

  Foreward

  When I created A Beautiful Struggle, it was meant to be a stand alone book. It was just a book about a girl and a guy who get seriously sidetracked on their way to finding each other. But, after it had been released for only a couple of weeks, I started getting emails asking me for a continuation of the story.

  As a result, I wrote A Beautiful Forever, thinking that that novel, would be the end of the series. I thought they would be A Beautiful Duo, and I’d end it there. But after releasing Forever, I continued to get emails and comments about both books.

  Readers wanted to see more of Katrina and David, both before and after A Beautiful Struggle. They also wanted to know more about Paige and her past. On top of that, I was getting emails asking me to continue the series with Naomi as the centre of the next book.

  My answers to most of these questions/comments are The Beauty in Between novellas. As the name suggests, they slot in between the Beautiful novels, to show you what happened.

  Right now, I have three novellas planned. First, of course, is Too Close (Katrina and David’s friendship before ABS, releasing July 30), second is Phoenix (Paige’s story, releasing September 30), and third is Commitment – I’ll bet you can guess what this one is about, although, I’ll tell you anyway. Commitment will follow on after A Beautiful Forever, it will follow David and Katrina home from the BBQ and explore their relationship leading up to their wedding.

  I don’t have a release date for Commitment as yet, because I’m also working on Naomi’s story, which is called A Beautiful Melody and is due to release November 30.

  So, get ready to have all your questions answered and more. Looks like the Beautiful world is going to have a fairly long life. I’ll write it, at least, until you’re all sick of it – that’s how much I love you all! MWAH!

  Acknowledgements

  First and foremost I must thank my beta readers for working so hard for me on this novella. Marion, Mary, Betchy, Billie, Joy, Anna, Celsey, Candice, Kim and Retha, without you all, my books wouldn’t be anywhere near what they become after your input. I love the heck out of the lot of you!

  A big thank you also goes out to everyone who has been watching my fan page closely while I wrote this, your encouragement has been what got me through the lonely writing process.

  Another thank you goes out to A.V Scott, for being my buddy and listening whenever I had something to moan about. She always pushes me to do more, to get out there more. For that I am very thankful.

  I also want to thank my family, especially my husband for supporting me while I write and my kids for cuddling up next to me while I type and waiting patiently until I’ve finished my thought – you’re all beautiful!

  The very last thank you is to you, the person reading right now – you are the whole entire reason that I have worked so hard to create this book. Enjoy.

  Prologue

  “Oh god Trina. Open your eyes, please be ok,” I beg as I burst through the doors to the emergency room at Nepean hospital, carrying her in my arms like she’s a baby.

  Frantically, I look around, ignoring the shocked gasps. I’m so overwhelmed that I just yell. “Somebody help me!”

  The entire room turns to stare at us. It's as if all the sound is removed from the room for a moment and all I can hear is the sound of my own heart thudding in my ears.

  Thump, Thump.

  Then all of a sudden, the sound returns to me as Katrina is pulled from my arms and placed on a gurney being swarmed by people who are asking me questions that I’m only babbling answers to.

  “Oh god! Trina!” I yell out as they wheel her away from me. I try to follow but there’s a man who’s holding me back. My hands go to my hair as I grab chunks of it, trying to somehow stop the thudding of my heart in my ears. It’s painful, and I desperately want to be with her. “Please tell me she’s going to be ok,” I say to the man in front of me.

  “She’s in good hands mate. You look like you’ve been through a bit too, why don’t you let me have a look at you, and you can tell me what happened?"

  I nod once and follow him into the general treatment area of the emergency room, where he gives me an ice pack for my swollen face, and cleans up the cuts and scrape marks on my hands and arms.

  “I can’t lose her. You don’t understand how important she is to me,” I ramble. I guess I’m in shock because all I can think about is the sight of all that blood over Katrina’s beautiful face. “She’s my world. I can’t lose her.”

  ***

  I’ve been sitting in the waiting room for at least two hours now. I don’t think my leg has stopped bouncing once. I lean forward on my knees and that’s uncomfortable, so I sit back and rest my head against the wall, but that feels horrible too.

  My guts just won’t stop swirling, and I need to see her. But no one will let me – I’m not counted as family, even though I’ve known her virtually all of my life.

  “David!”

  I look up and see Katrina’s whole family rush through the automatic doors with frantic looks on their faces. After answering all the questions I could about Katrina to the doctor, or nurse – I don’t know what the hell he was - I called them.

  As they move closer to me, Mrs Mahoney gasps upon seeing my swollen face and blood-stained shirt.

  “Oh god, is that your blood? What happened?” she practically whispers.

  I drop my head, feeling responsible for what happened and shake it slowly from side to side.

  “Where is she?” her father asks urgently.

  “I don’t know, they won’t tell me anything.”

  Mrs Mahoney spins on her feet and heads straight for the reception desk, asking after her daughter, with Mr Mahoney hot on her heels. Her brother Tom stays with me.

  “What happened?”

  Closing my eyes as the images of that day’s events flash through my mind, I shake my head in an attempt to clear them away. “Christopher happened.”

  “I knew I didn’t like that guy,” Tom says through gritted teeth.

&n
bsp; “He came home early, and you know he isn’t a fan of mine. But Tom, I never expected him to lose it like he did. You should have seen his face. It was all twisted up and vicious. He decked me and threw me out of the flat, locked the door. Then I heard her scream…” the rest of the words seem to lodge themselves in my throat as a weakness overcomes me, and I drop back into my seat.

  “What happened?!” he repeats, more desperately this time.

  “He put her through the glass sliding door. I’m sorry. I couldn’t stop it.”

  Chapter One

  I remember the first time I ever saw Katrina. I was probably ten years old at the time, and she was a little younger than me - the new kid in the school. I noticed her because she was so much taller than all the other girls, and she had two long braids that sat over her shoulders and were tied with blue ribbons.

  Something inside me, made me really want to either pull on her braids or undo the ribbons. But I restrained myself – experience had told me that girls didn’t really like that. Even though it was all in good fun.

  We both lived out in Cranebrook, which was the last stop along the bus route travelling from Penrith Primary School, and it took me a couple of weeks of watching her to finally decide that I was going to sit next to her.

  She just looked too lonely to me, and I figured that we may as well be friends since the bus was completely boring once everyone else got off.

  “Can I sit next to you?” I asked her. She had her bag sitting on the seat next to her. It meant that she didn’t want anyone to sit there, but I was going to try anyway.

  “I guess,” she said, bouncing her shoulders and pulling her bag onto her lap, hugging it close to her chest.

  “I think you get off at the same stop as me,” I told her, even though I knew this for sure.

  “Do I?”

  “Yeah, I see you get off the bus before me every day.”

  “Oh. Where to you live?”

  “Etchell Place, what about you?”

  “Tornado Crescent.”

  “We’re only a couple of streets away from each other,” I informed her. “How come you don’t catch the bus in the morning?”

  “My dad drives me.”

  “Lucky you…” I commented, thinking for a moment before I came up with, what I thought, was a brilliant plan. “Hey, if we become friends, do you think he could drive me too?”

  “I don’t know…maybe.”

  “That settles it then. Besides, you look like you could do with a friend.”

  “I do?”

  “Yeah. I’ve seen you around school. You don’t really talk to anyone much.”

  “I don’t have much to say.”

  “I’m pretty sure you’ve got plenty to say. You just haven’t found the right people to talk to.”

  “Maybe. Those girls don’t want to listen to me anyway.”

  “I want to listen you. You can talk to me all you want,” I said, attempting to peer into her face. She shrugged and turned her head and was watching the world fly past us through the bus window.

  “So how do you like catching the bus?” I asked, just trying to get her to talk a bit. I remember thinking it would be really cool to know someone from my school who lived near me. Not many kid’s parents were happy to make them travel so far for school, especially when there was a local one within walking distance of our house.

  “I hate it,” she said, turning to look at me. “I hate that my parents moved so far away from my school. I hate that I have to catch the bus. It stinks. It smells like armpits and butt holes and rotten fruit. The fabric on the seats prickles the backs of my legs and itches. It sucks!”

  I was a bit shocked when this tirade of words spilled from her mouth, but when she finished, I started laughing.

  “What so funny?!” she demanded, her face set in a scowl.

  “You’re right.” I laughed even harder at the indignant look on her face. “It does smell like armpits, butt holes and rotten fruit!”

  She looked at me for a moment. I guess she was trying to decide if she was angry with me for laughing, or whether she thought it was funny too.

  Thankfully, she chose to laugh along with me, because it was that moment our friendship started.

  Chapter Two

  While we were in primary school, it never seemed to be an issue for Katrina and me to be best friends. Sure we got questioned or sometimes, even teased a bit, for hanging out together, but once we showed them that we didn’t care. They didn’t either.

  Once again, our parents sent us to a high school that they considered to be ‘better’ than the local high school near our homes, and we were once again relegated to long bus journeys.

  Penrith High was a ‘selective’ high school. It’s a government school, but to get in you had to sit an entrance exam. They only took the brightest kids from all the primary schools in the Western Sydney area.

  If you’ve never been to Western Sydney, you may feel a little impressed. But seriously – it’s Western Sydney, sure there are some bright kids there, but it’s not like you’re competing with the biggest brains in the country. You’re competing against lower to middle-class kids. It’s a good school, and it gives the smart kids living in a crappy area a bit of a leg up in this world, but it’s hardly something to brag about.

  The moment Trina and I stepped foot through the gates on our first day, things were different. There were tight cliques of girls, and macho groups of guys, and we fell somewhere in the middle.

  For a while, we just stayed together, hanging out on our own as we didn’t really know that many people from primary school in our classes. But slowly, we started to make other friends.

  Katrina was asked to sit with a group of girls at lunch time. I liked to call these girls the ‘celebs’ because they seemed to be the most popular group in our grade, and everyone seemed to know all their business.

  I would spend most of my time out on the oval kicking a ball around with the guys. Trina and I still saw each other at school – it’s not like we were growing apart, we were just becoming what we were – a girl and a guy.

  As soon as school was over though, it was our time. I would either go to her house, or she would come to mine. But when my mum and dad started fighting all the time. I started spending more and more time at hers.

  My dad seemed to hate the sight of me for some reason. I don’t know if he resented having to take care of me and mum or whether he just hated everyone. He had a huge drinking and gambling problem and while they tried to act normal while I was around, they would fight like crazy at night. Each time they fought, I woke up and each time, I’d lay awake, listening to the argument.

  One night I was woken by the sound of a slamming door, followed shortly by the car starting and a crashing then a thud coming from the kitchen. I raced out of my room, thinking that something had happened to my mum. Instead, I found my father lying on the floor, a bottle of scotch glugging itself empty beside him as he clutched the base of a broken glass and snored loudly.

  “Shit,” I said to myself, leaning over to pick the bottle up and remove the glass from his hand, setting them both back on the bench. The liquid was being readily soaked up by his clothing, so I threw down a bunch of paper towel to soak up as much as I could while I cleaned up the glass.

  Once I finished, I tried to rouse him, so I could help him get cleaned up. “Dad,” I whispered, shaking him gently.

  Realising he wasn’t going to wake easily, I rolled my eyes and yelled instead. “Dad! Wake up!” I shook him more firmly this time to get him up.

  “Wha? What are you doing boy?!” he growled, sliding his knee up and nearly clocking me in the face with it. I quickly jerked my head back to avoid it, but in doing so, I managed to earn the wrath of my father. “What are you flinching for? You think I’m going to hurt you? You think you’re better than me? Don’t deny it. I can see the way you’re looking at me. Let me tell you something boy. You are me, so get a good look. This will be you in a few years. You’ll fu
ck up everything you touch. Just like I do.”

  He tried to stand, grunting and puffing as he stumbled back to the floor. I reached forward, offering my hand. “Dad, let me help.”

  Snatching his arm away from me, he pushed me backwards, causing me to fall on my arse. “Just fuck off. I don’t need the help of a good-for-nothing kid like you. Get the fuck back to your room.”

  After all the fighting I had overhead, I wasn’t a huge fan of my dad anyway. But having him speak to me like that planted a seed of hatred that I just didn’t feel I’d be able to shake. I looked at him, trying to recall a time that he had ever been nice to me and came up blank.

  I stood up and went back to my room, stinking of alcohol, vowing that I’d never help that man with anything again.

  For the next month, if I got home and saw my dad’s car in the driveway, I’d go back to Trina’s house and tell them no one was home, so they’d let me stay for dinner. I don’t know if my mum had spoken to Katrina’s mum about what was going on or not, but no one ever questioned anything. They just let me be.

  Katrina was my rock during this time. She listened to me go on and on about how angry I was with my father and never once rolled her eyes because I was repeating myself.

  On the nights he wasn’t home, everything was great. My mum and I got along really well, and she did her best to make the most of what we had at the time, even though my father was burning through the family funds faster than either of them could make the money.

  Neither of us wanted to talk about what was really happening, so most of our time together was spent reading. We were sharing George R.R Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice series. She read the first book years ago but had never read the others, so while I read that, she read the second and so on. I looked forward to these nights with my mum. I could almost pretend like we were one of those happy families they depict on tv shows, and I’d go to bed with the hope that I’d actually get to sleep through the night…