FINDING NORTH
By Rachel Dunning
Copyright © 2013 Rachel Dunning.
Cover Design Copyright © 2013 Rachel Dunning.
Cover Photo Copyright © 2013 FXQuadro.
Obtained from Shutterstock and used with permission.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
For the one who is on this rollercoaster ride with me.
You are my North.
You always will be.
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
EPILOGUE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PROLOGUE
They say love conquers all.
They say love will find a way.
They say it is better to have loved and lost.
They don't say...that these things are all lies.
Conall Williams was my first, my last, my everything.
He is my North. He always will be. Even if I am no longer his.
CHAPTER ONE
-1-
I never had problems. I was never beaten, molested, cheated on, taken nude photos of and had them put on the internet (uh, yeah, I do know a few people that's happened to!) I wasn't bipolar, depressed, angry, upset, worried, afraid, or any of the other cliché things that girls brought up in First World countries with First World problems all tend to feel.
No, I had it all.
And I was bored.
Sure, my mom had been divorced like a gazillion times and was never home. Sure I hadn't seen my dad in weeks and I was about as good in the boy department as a snail is at running the hundred yards. But who isn't? I drove around in a limo, I had a pretty good body, I wasn't a dumbass with my grades. So, problems? Nah. Not really.
Kayla had just dumped her boyfriend after she'd found him screwing her second best friend at a drunken college party and she was real pissed because she would've slept with more than three of his friends first if she'd known he was such a cheat. (Honestly, a guy with that many ripples on his stomach is clearly taking steroids, and if he's taking steroids, he's gonna wanna get him some!)
Bianca was distraught by the E she'd gotten in calculus even though her parents had donated heavily (and several times) to the Convent of Superlative Teaching's library. And pool. And teacher's lounge. And an upgrade to the teacher's lounge.
Bianca was being consoled on the stairs by her cronies, and speaking loud enough for just about everyone who was leaving school that afternoon to hear her.
Mr. Snidel had been caught sleeping with Mrs. Whinters. Now, a Mister sleeping with somebody else's Missus is not unheard of in my part of town (heck, it's practically part of the vows) but when it's done with said Missus bent over a school desk, in an age where the only people who seem to not have heard of modern technology (read: mobile phone cameras) seem to be those endlessly suffering from it, and when an anonymous video is uploaded to YouTube (and then promptly taken down because of its R-Rating) as well as to several soft (and not so soft) "adult" (ahem) website on the internet; and when said couple-who-are-idiots-in-modern-technology work for the Convent of Superlative Teaching; and, last, but certainly not least, when said Mister and said Missus were also part of extorting (ahem, sorry, requesting) funds for said library and pool and teacher's lounge..., why, let us just say that "You're fired!" is not so much the phrase that was spoken—more like an odd silence in the room of the Headmistress while said Mister and said Missus said, quietly, "We, um, resign, Headmistress..."
In short, in the fall of my seventeenth year on this earth, life was as it always had been.
And I was going, silently, and excruciatingly, insane because of it.
-2-
Kayla (yes, that Kayla: the one with the ex-boyfriend and the drunken college girl) met up with me on the steps (yes, those steps where suffering-from-depression-because-I-got-an-E Bianca was sitting and moping to her cronies.)
"What's up?"
I was bored out of my bracket. I shrugged.
Finally I asked, "So, you and Macho Man gonna get back together?"
She made a raspberry sound. "Yeah right!"
An awkward silence hit us.
"Heard about Snidel?" she asked, hoping to titillate my mood with some juicy gossip.
I yawned. "Yeah..."
"God, Leora, what's up? You're like a frickin zombie today..."
I didn't tell her. Maybe because I wasn't sure myself. More likely because I had given up trying to convince my mom to let me go to Europe for a year so that I could learn about life on the other side of the pond there. "It's nothing..."
Kayla, however, knew me to well. "For fuck's sake! If you wanna go to Europe just fucking go!"
"Yeah, and then? Have my accounts closed? You know my parents have signing powers on them until I'm eighteen."
"Oh woe is fucking me. The Upper Class girl with Upper Class—"
"Knock it off!" She'd pissed me off. (Of course, because she was right).
Kayla did not have the upbringing I had. She'd had a pretty bad one in fact. Abusive mother. Abusive father. Currently she was staying with the aforementioned abusive mother because the aforementioned abusive father's tactics were a little more disgusting than the aforementioned mother's.
It was a wonder Kayla wasn't more fucked up than she was. Actually, I didn't think she was fucked up at all. I thought she was pretty damn cool. Which is why we always hung out together.
"You know, I hate it when you use that shit against me," I said.
"Why, because it's true?"
Kayla was sitting in her typical bad-girl pose. She had on thigh-highs (which was not allowed at school) which were visible as she sat like a tomboy, legs a little too widely opened, skirt sitting a little too high, arms on her knees, and looking out at the city like she owned it.
I fucking admired this chick so much. She was bad. I mean, she had guts! Me? Well, I'd never been drunk (not really), I'd never slept with anyone, the furthest I'd gotten with anyone doing anything was second base (third, if we count that one very awkward moment with that pimply kid I don't even want to recall...) And I sure as fuck had never tried drugs (and never would...)
But it was none of those things that, perhaps secretly, made Kayla my frickin role model. It was her "fuck you" attitude to the world and its problems.
I secretly wanted to be like her. I just wanted to—
"Thinking a lot today, aren't you?" she asked.
"Er... Right, sorry." I felt my skin blush.
"Coffee?" I asked.
She rolled her eyes. "Sure. It's Friday afternoon and school is out. Of course I'd like to get coffee and not a fuckin beer..."
-3-
We went over to Starbucks (no, I didn't drink beer. Too many calories) and Kayla asked the barista if they served Irish coffee. Mr. Pimply Barista stuttered and hemmed-and-hawed (and blushed) at her request, y
et Kayla kept quite cool with him, her face as serious as if she'd been considering the purchase of a diamond necklace for the Queen of England.
"So, do ya?" she pushed.
"Um, well, ma'am, I—we"—he gave a nerdy chuckle—"um are not allowed"—he coughed—"to, um, serve alc—alc—alc—"
"Lemme see your manager!" she said, loud enough for rest of the line to hear.
I was snickering quietly to the side now. Barista-dude did not notice it. Where did they get these people?
"Uh, s—s—"
"Aw, knock it off, Kayla!" I said. "Look, dude, she's just screwing with you. She'll have a Venti Caramel Frappuccino with cream and an extra shot of espresso—"
"And extra syrup!" she butted in. "See the sign there? 'If you're unhappy—'"
"Yeah, yeah, he knows the sign," I said, now hardly able to suppress my laughter. "And I'll have a filter coffee."
"Wow," said Kayla, "living on the edge, heh?"
Kayla didn't give a shit about calories. She was thin—very thin—but had no muscle tone. Of course, she didn't give a shit about that either. And it certainly didn't stop her from getting laid or even attracting guys. She had one of those body types that sucks in food like a Hoover and doesn't put on any weight.
Her dyed red hair was shaved on one side (also not allowed at school, but what were they gonna do, artificially inseminate fully grown hair into her scalp? She got suspended for three days after that. And, you guessed it, she didn't care about that either.) She had eight piercings along her right ear, seven along her left (this was allowed) and two in her eyebrow (not allowed). She had a yellow and red butterfly tattoo on her left shoulder-blade and a red she-devil with a trident through a heart on her right inner waist (so not allowed!)
"Still watching your weight?" she asked me, flicking my stomach. "Whoa! You got rocks on there!" she said.
I shrugged. Great good they do me, I thought.
I worked out five times a week, had no tattoos, had to beg my mom to get an earring on the top of my right ear (she finally gave in the year before) and had light brown hair that reached to just above my shoulders (on both sides). You see, I had one of those body shapes that, if you don't work it out, it gets flabby. I wasn't skinny. Far from it. I was actually a little stocky. But my body fat was low. Very low. It was the best I could do for my short frame. And it sure as hell beat carrying around a muffin-top in a pair of skinnies.
"Her you go." Coffee-guy gave me my filter coffee. I gave him my Starbucks card and then we spent another minute while someone showed him how to run it. When we were done, Kayla fluttered her eyes at him and he blushed even more and, when he turned to serve the next person in line, he was so flustered by her flirtations that he said, "Can I screw your— Oh, sorry! Can I take your order?"
I could only imagine how he planned on ending that line...
"How do you do it?" I asked Kayla.
"Do what?" She licked the cream off the Frappuccino like a dog slavering over a bone, then dug her straw into it and dug out chunks of it to eat.
"That!" I pointed to the blushing pimply barista. "How do you, I don't know, act yourself so much and still meet guys and..." I didn't know how to finish the sentence.
"Christ, you frickin first-worlders. Can never have enough, can you?"
"Kayla... C'mon. I know you been through a lot. But... I don't know. I'm so fucking bored! And I don't wanna be the typical 'Oh I got an E so please suck on my fanny so I can feel better about myself' chick—"
"Oh, you caught that as well with little miss Bianca, huh?"
"Damn. Could it have been more obvious?"
"Worst is: some dildo is probably gonna fall for that shit and actually give it to her. You know how she is: Puts herself out there like a fucking 'Oh woe is me give me your dick so I can pretend to need love when I'm really just a lowly whore who's a secret sex addict bitch!'"
I cracked up. It was too much. And Kayla was really pissed!
"You really don't like her, do you?" I asked.
Kayla rolled her eyes. "Like? Christ. If I caught her in an alley I'd ram my fist up her— Never mind." She sucked her straw, buried her eyes in the cream. There was something more to this...
"Kayla?"
"Ah, fuck her. Fuck C.O.S.T. Fuck..."
"Whoa! Hold up... What is it?"
A tear welled up in her eye.
"I need the bathroom." She dumped her cup on the table and fired away from me. I looked after her, saw her wiping her eye as she ran off.
-3-
When Kayla came back I knew very well she didn't want to talk about it. She never did. And I'd learned not to ask. Maybe that's why I was friends with her, because, inside, she suffered. She suffered real pain, and lived with it, dealt with it. Me, I was caught in the dying wind of suffocating ennui.
Mom had won the lawsuit against her third (fourth? Yes, fourth. I never met the third) husband and raked in another Everest of dough for us to live on (like we needed any more...) She was never home which I guess is a good thing because we never got along when she was. I'd given up asking her about the trip to Europe. Just as I'd given up asking her about college (I didn't want to go), or how she was, or anything.
Mom had become a person that I saw sometimes during the week. She was hardly ever home, not even sleeping there. Lately it had gotten even worse, opting, instead, to spend the night at our other condo, supposedly because it was closer to work. (It was also closer to the more affluent nightlife. But I never asked her about that.)
I secretly felt bad for her. Actually, I worried quite a bit about her. Most of the time when I wanted to spend time with her it was because I'd seen the deltas of wrinkles form on the sides of her eyes, that empty look of too much lost love, too much success with so little fulfillment. But, most of all, I worried about my mom because I saw myself becoming her: Having everything you need and still having nothing. Right, first world problems. I never admitted to being depressed. But I sure as fuck wasn't goddamned happy either.
"Wanna party tonight?" asked Kayla, still aloof from whatever had sprung inside her at the mention of Bianca.
I didn't really wanna party. But Kayla was freaking me out. And I sort of felt like I needed to be around her. "Sure. Where?"
"Cringe."
My heart sank. The hot coffee in my mouth went cold. My hand on the cup trembled. "C—Cringe? Why would you want to go to that neighborhood?"
"I'm in the mood for trouble."
-4-
We got to Cringe at ten P.M. after Kayla had sufficiently drowned herself in a bunch of booze my mom had in her bar. (Mom never noticed, or never said anything...) Dressed as sluttily as possible with skirts to the tops of our thighs and bustier's that mother lode of navel, not to mention Kayla's boisterous shouting which made it clear she was in the mood to parteh!, the bouncer called us to the front of the line and we got in without waiting.
Rule number one of going clubbing: Never go with a guy, and always dress like a slut if you wanna get in before everyone else.
The place already smelled of too much poppers, and smoke machines made it difficult for me to see Kayla had it not been for the light-chain she had wrapped around her neck and the neon lipstick she had on. As the strobe lights thrummed to the suggestive beats I saw the side of Kayla that I always loved the most: The carefree side. The don't-give-a-fuck about anything side.
The "I'm human despite my bravado" side.
Of course, it didn't take long for her to spot some meat only three or four bodies away from us: A rock-solid dude in the abs department with tits so big that my mouth watered by just looking at him. I looked away, momentarily embarrassed.
Kayla gave a smirk and didn't ask my permission to go over and talk to him. She knew I'd find my way around. Normally it wasn't long before I had slavering dogs offering me drinks of my own and, more often than not, we'd end up kissing somewhere but I always called it off before said dog started getting to close to home with his gropey hands.
I du
nno. Hot or not. I've just never been a "get laid on a semen covered couch with everybody watching" kind of girl. I've also never been a "behind the alley so the dumpster can ante up the romance" person. Just me. Old fashioned.
Kayla spread her arms out and made it all-too-obvious what she planned on doing with macho man by jutting her pelvis out and letting him rub against her with his own.
Christ! That was making me hot... I looked away again, but only briefly.
She turned, stood akimbo, stuck out her booty, then swayed. Hard-as-hell Muscle Dude (who's glistening abs had me almost completely in a trance) stood akimbo himself, stuck his pelvis out toward her—
Fuck! I need a drink!
I went to the bar.
Now, being as short as I am, getting a drink is not as easy as it seems. You see, my boobs stand up above the counter of course, but bartenders tend to notice the six foot blondes first (of which I have always been amazed at how many there are in clubs. What, is it like the equivalent of a book club for them?)
That there were three lines of scrunched up bodies I had to get through before being able to make it to that counter only made my task that more daunting.
I wrestled with everything from guys with Mohawks to girls with even less clothes on than me (yikes!) to, believe it or not, a dude or two in a suit (one of which was very nice indeed...)
I finally made it to the counter (elbows firing any which way so back off before I smack you one!) and rammed my elbows onto—
"Hey!"
Shit. I hit someone. A guy. I turned. "Sorr—"
Yeah, um... You know that moment when you have your mouth open and, if there were flies in the room, you'd sure as fuck get one in that big-ass flytrap of yours because it's just staring at someone for so long? Good. Now, take that moment, and put a sexy guy in front of you. No, not "rippling-body-and-all-he's-interested-in-is-shagging-some-babe-at-a-drunken-college-party" kind of hot. More like: Unbe-frickin-lievably gorgeous because he's got blue eyes that look like a fucking pool in the Mediterranean and black hair and a smile that melts lead.
Finding North (Naïve Mistakes Series) Page 1
