by Lynn, Brandy
To Alexandria Bishop, for a kickass formatting job. Seriously, I can’t thank you enough for formatting my baby with such little notice. I’m so happy to have met you through this process. I cannot wait to work with you on more books! Thank you for making Dirty Dancing beautiful inside. You’re such a blessing.
To Jennifer Benson, for coming up with this brilliant idea. For bringing it to life, The Happy Endings Series. For allowing me to be a part of it. And, for selflessly giving so much of your time to make this series a huge success! When we finally meet in person, and one day we will, I’m going to hug you hard!
To The Happy Endings Series authors, I feel so lucky to be in such good company with an incredible group of seriously talented authors. Thank you all for all your hard work on this series. For believing in it. For participating. And, most of all for being part of making this series a success. You’re all superstars!
To all bloggers, thank you for taking a chance on authors. For reading our words. Supporting our work. And, sharing your love of the written word. We are forever grateful to you!
To my readers, for taking a chance on me. On this book. On my characters. I hope you fell in love with the characters the same way I did. Without you, none of this would be possible. Thank you for reading my words. Your support means everything to me.
To authors, for sharing your stories with us. You all inspire me every day.
About the Author
Brandy Lynn resides in Richmond, Virginia with her husband, teenage son, and eight-year old Miniature Pinscher. She has a strong love for the written word, which started several years ago. Eventually, that love turned into passion and Brandy Lynn found herself blogging to the world of book lovers about her thoughts on what she was currently reading. After two years of running a very successful blog, Brandy Lynn decided to try her hand at writing; ultimately finding happiness writing stories that you'll remember long after the book is closed. Her debut novel, Make Me Forget, is now available.
Where to Find Brandy Lynn
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Contact Brandy Lynn
Email:
[email protected]
Other Books by Brandy Lynn
Make Me Forget
The Art of Letting Go
M. C. Brightly
A Happy Ending’s Resort Series Novella
Prologue
When I ‘divorced’ my parents at seventeen, I decided to move from Lanesboro, Minnesota to Arden, South Carolina to start my new life. With the help of a caseworker I was able to discover I had an aunt here in Arden, who was willing to take me in and give me a place to live while I went to community college.
After everything I’ve been through, Minnesota was the last place on earth I wanted to be. The idea of escaping the cold, blistering winters for warm and sunny beaches in South Carolina was a hell of a lot better.
You’re probably wondering why I divorced my parents rather than just sticking it out and finishing up high school there, then be on my way to an independent life, away from my mother and father.
Most people might think I was some rebellious child who didn’t want to have to be told what to do by mommy and daddy. But trust me, I would rather be living in a house with loving parents, who set rules, make me do my homework, and eat my vegetables, while trying to deal with normal teenage attitude and rebellious behavior.
Believe me, that was so not my life—not even close.
I divorced my so-called mom and dad—if they even deserve to be called that—because they were drug-addicted, abusive assholes who made my life a living hell.
Even when I think back to my earliest childhood memory, there are no happy memories. I’ve had to deal with abuse and neglect from the moment I entered this world.
My father was a ragging alcoholic, who couldn’t control his temper no matter how hard he tried. My mom was never home. My dad was too busy drinking himself into oblivion in front of the television to care. So, I spent my entire childhood alone, fending for myself. I used to watch the Matilda movie over and over again on the tiny television I had in my bedroom. Like Matilda, I always wished I’d one day be saved from a loveless home and get my happily ever after.
Sadly, that never happened.
Whenever my mother did finally come home, she would just lock herself in her room doing god only knows what. By the time I started high school things with my parents began to intensify. They went from pretending I didn’t exist, to then believing I was the reason for all of their problems. As they slipped further into addiction, my situation became worse.
The mental and physical abuse I was enduring on a daily basis, soon became apparent to teachers at my school. They noticed how withdrawn I was; how what little clothes I did have were ragged and didn’t fit properly. But it wasn’t until my father began to slip up and leave bruises in visible areas that something was finally done.
One day I was pulled from class and taken to the guidance counselor’s office where I met the school’s child therapist. Over the course of a week, they talked with me and jotted down details I gave them about my family life.
I guess even though it seemed like a little too late and the system failed me by not helping me sooner, it could’ve been worse. I could’ve been one of those kids who slipped through the cracks and never get the help they desperately need.
A few days after speaking with the councilor and therapist, I was greeted by a case worker from Child Protective Services, who informed me that I would not be returning home after school. I’d instead be going straight to a temporary foster home.
I was grateful to be placed in a nice home with an elderly couple who lived near my school. Things were going good; my grades were improving. Then everything changed. One day my case worker showed up at my foster parent’s home to inform me that I would be returning back to my parents.
I was in complete shock. I never in a million years thought I’d be going back there. But I was informed they had completed rehab, were attending narcotics and alcohol anonymous. They took parenting classes and were doing better. Both even holding down steady jobs for the last three months.
The thing is my parents could tell me they were better and all that shit, and preach to the world that they had received the wakeup call they needed when I was taken away from them. But I wouldn’t believe it until I saw it with my own two eyes.
I was only back home maybe two months before things started going downhill again. They’d put on a show for the case worker every month when she came to check in on us and follow up. But slowly all the changes they had both made became a thing of the past as their old habits reared their ugly heads.
My father began drinking again, and my mother was gone all the time working, and then off somewhere scoring drugs after work. Once she came home, she passed out and pretended that her life wasn’t a shit show all over again, since she had ‘worked so hard’ to move past her problems to better herself and her family.
I thought that the constant verbal abuse and beatings were the worst things I would ever go through. Boy was I ever so wrong.
After six months of me being home, and a few months shy of my seventeenth birthday, my life finally hit rock bottom. My dad was laid off and my mother’s drug habit was taking up what little money we had. If it wasn’t for the food stamps we received from the government, we would’ve starved. More than a few times we were close to having the power turned off, but somehow mom always managed to come up with the money just in time.
So many times, I wanted to speak up to our case worker, tell her that this happy family act my parents put on for them was nothing but a joke. But I knew it was a waste of time. I’d be removed long enough to get settled in somewhere before they were all better again, and I was back in this hell of a life all over again.
The only thing helping me through each day was knowing I only had one more year until I gradu
ated and could get the hell out of that house and town.
I never thought in a million years my life could get any worse. Until the night my innocence was torn away from me.
I was sitting in my room trying to do homework and drown out the screaming match going on outside of my bedroom door with the radio sitting on my bed stand beside me.
Suddenly the screaming stopped as I heard the voice of someone else entering as the front door slammed shut with a loud thud, causing the entire house to shake. I thought maybe my mom or dad had left and I’d actually get to fall asleep without the sound of their argument pouring in through my bedroom wall. Sadly, that wasn’t the case. No, instead my worthless piece of shit parents were still there. No one had left, instead someone else arrived at our house. The second he appeared in my doorway I recognized him. I’d seen the man a few times come by when we were strapped for cash. He’d disappear with my mother into her bedroom and come out a few minutes later, would fill my dad’s hand with a stack of cash and then be on his way. I was sixteen, I was far from naive, so I knew exactly what was going on. My mother was sleeping with him for money. It was sickening to think my father not only approved of it but encouraged it.
I didn’t think they could sink any lower until that night.
That night the little piece of innocence I had left was stolen from me and I never once received a single ounce of remorse from either one of them. What I thought would be a onetime thing, turned into a weekly occurrence. The first time he raped me I fought back, and got a black eye and bruised jaw because of it. I learned quickly it was better to lie there, let my mind drift off to a safe place and wait for it to be over, rather than try to fight it.
Slowly I began to slip into a dark depression. I hated school because I had no friends. I couldn’t focus on the curriculum because of all the shit going on in my life, yet I got up every morning and went because it was my escape from the hell I was living. Even if it was only for a few hours.
Things got so bad that I became suicidal. The thought of living there for even another day, let alone one more year was too much. I would rather be dead than have to live one more day in the hell my parents had created for me.
I went into school one day, locked myself in a bathroom stall and downed an entire bottle of pills I’d stolen from my mother. I sat on the floor, propped against the door and slipped into what I thought would be the last sleep I’d ever take.
I guess a teacher discovered me in there while checking the bathroom for smokers after the bell rang. I awoke hours later in a hospital room, with a tube down my throat and monitors hooked up to my body.
The doctor said a few more minutes and I would’ve been dead. When I started to cry, they thought it was because I was relieved that I was still alive. In reality I wept that day because I didn’t die. I wasn’t free. I was so close to escaping the pain and the abuse, only to fail.
All thanks to fricking smokers and teachers with nothing better to do than hunt them down and send them to detention.
I spent a week in the hospital recovering from my overdose. While there I was visited by my social worker, who for the life of her couldn’t understand why I would try to kill myself rather than go to her for help. I had nothing left to lose, and knew there was no way in hell I was going to allow them to send me back to my parents’. So, I decided to tell her everything. She sat quietly, tears streaming from her eyes as she watched me cry while I unloaded everything on her. Along with the reasoning as to why I never asked for help.
My life finally changed for the better at that moment. She promised me I’d never have to go back, and spent the next few hours sitting beside my bed, explaining the process of emancipation to me.
She agreed to help me become emancipated from my parents, if I promised to seek professional help with my depression and talk to a therapist about everything I’ve been through. So as soon as I was discharged from the hospital, I was admitted into a small rehab facility for teens. I lived there for six months, where I was homeschooled, attended therapy sessions daily, one on one with a psychiatrist, followed by group sessions with other teens like me each day.
The day I left the treatment center I set out on the path to gaining my freedom.
She helped me get back into the same foster home I was in before. Mr. and Mrs. Brown were happy to have me back with them, but understood it was only temporary. They were simply a stepping stone toward my independence. Soon after moving back in with them, I earned my license, got a job at the small grocery store a few blocks away, and spent the next four months saving up every dime I made while working on graduating a year early.
By June, I had my diploma and enough money to travel to South Carolina to live with my aunt. The final step was getting legally divorced from my so-called parents. Thankfully they knew I was never coming back, and would sit in the foster care system for a few more months until I was legally released into the world as an adult. So, with little fight, they agreed to grant me my emancipation by signing the papers and finally giving me what I’d wanted for as long as I could remember.
Freedom.
Chapter 1
“Hartley!” I wake up to someone screaming my name. Tumbling out of bed, I open my bedroom door to see my aunt August looking angry.
I glance at her with a smile, walk back over to my bed, and sit down.
“What’s up, Aunt August?” I ask her, laying my head back into my pillow and closing my eyes.
“Hartley, you know damn well what’s up, so you better get up and get dressed. You’ve been living here for almost a year now and still somehow forget to set your damn alarm for school. Just because it’s college and not high school doesn’t mean tardiness is allowed.”
“I’m sorry, Aunt August. I’ll get to it right now,” I say somewhat sarcastically, while rolling out of bed, walking over to her, and planting a kiss on her cheek. She just rolls her eyes and walks back out of my room and down the hall to the kitchen.
I walk over to my bedside stand and pick up my phone to check the time; it’s 8:30 and my first class doesn’t start until 9:15. Quickly jumping in the shower, I get dressed in record time. I throw on a pair of black shorts and a My Chemical romance concert t-shirt with a pair of black and red Converse. I run the brush through my hair before pulling it back into a simple ponytail. Grabbing my messenger bag that’s sitting on the floor next to my bed, I stuff the books stacked on my desk inside, along with my phone charger. Slinging the strap onto my shoulder, I speed walk down the hall into the kitchen, grab a chocolate chip granola bar out of the cupboard before snatching my car keys up and heading out the door.
Glancing back down at my phone as I jog to the driver’s side door of my car, I see it’s now 1:09 and it takes about five minutes to get to my college parking lot. So I climb into my light-blue VW Beetle convertible and pull out of the driveway while praying I don’t get stuck behind any little old ladies doing five miles an hour along the way.
* * *
After sitting through three boring lectures that were each two hours long, I finally get to head to my job at Vinyl is Forever. It’s a small music store that specializes in selling vintage record players, along with CDs, and small trinkets like guitar pics, strings, drum sticks, sheet music, along with random items like headphones and phone chargers.
I look forward to going there every day just because music was such a big part of my childhood. I used it to comfort me or to drown out my parents’ current fight, the lyrics just hiving so much meaning. My Chemical Romance, Twenty One Pilots, Panic! At The Disco and many other bands like them sing about things that matter to me, including real-life problems. Some of the bands and musicians other kids at school listen to only sing about sex, girls and drugs.
I walk in to Vinyl is Forever, and see Jordan. I guess you could call him my best friend. I first met him when I came in looking for a job about a week after I first moved here. He gave me the job on the spot. He said I didn’t need to have any experience; I only had to be able to do
simple math and sort items alphabetically, along with having good people skills. But the number one thing I needed was a love for music, which was a given.
After about a month of working together we started getting closer and would text and hangout all the time. He introduced me to his friends, who I immediately clicked with and were so easy hanging out with. I could just relax and be myself. I’ve never had that before. Friends I could actually hang out with and have fun. Before I moved here fun was something I only read about or saw other people do. It feels amazing to finally have the life I’ve dreamt about.
“Hey, Hartley,” Jordan says, making me jump. “What were you thinking about? You seemed like you were off in another world.”
“Oh nothing. I just remembered something,” I tell him, walking behind the counter and clocking on.
“Okay, it’s been pretty slow today with it being Monday, so there’s not much to do,” he says dryly. This job is pretty boring, though being able to hang around the shop all day listening to the music as it fills the store from the built in sound system is great.
“All right. Well then I’ll just go dust off the records and sweep, if it stays slow I’ll do the windows.” Grabbing the Swiffer duster out from under the counter, I turn to face him, “Do you mind if I plug my phone into the sound system?” I ask, already knowing he’ll say yes, I walk across the black and white tiled floor over to the stereo that’s wired into the sound system.
“It’s a safe guess to say you would even if I said no, so knock yourself out.”
“Sarah Smiles” by Panic! At The Disco booms through the speakers, as I start cleaning. I reorganize the records and CDs and clean up the mess that is our sheet music area. People always dig into the piles, mixing up all the categories they’re organized neatly under.
