End of the Line

The End of the Line
An Arcadia Story
The End of the Line
An Arcadia Story - #0.5
by Jesi Lea Ryan
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2014 by Jesi Lea Ryan
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real
persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Publisher
Jesi Lea Ryan
Cover by Rookery Creek Media
"Romance Fatal Serif" font (c) Juan Casco
For more information, please feel free to visit Jesi Lea Ryan’s website at www.jesilea.com.
The End of the Line
An Arcadia Story
“By any chance is the girl glaring at me like she wants me to spontaneously combust your
girlfriend?”
I glanced back in the direction of my truck. Lony stood leaning against the side, snapping
her gum, her eyes hard with jealousy. I sighed and turned back to Carly.
“Yeah, that’s her.”
Carly’s lips curled into a sly grin. “Does she realize we’re cousins and this isn’t Arkansas?”
Actually, Carly is my second cousin, and I hadn’t seen her in almost two years, so no, Lony
doesn’t know we’re related. All Lony sees is her boyfriend talking to a good-looking redhead
wearing a tank top cut low enough to stop traffic.
“Lony is kind of...intense.”
“Lony? You’re dating Avalon Day? I’ve heard of her.” Carly gazed past me again, nodding
with appreciation. “She’s pretty. Or would be if she smiled.” Carly shucked my arm with her fist.
“Kind of cliché for the football stud to date the popular cheerleader, huh?”
I lifted a half grin at her, but the comment cut a little too close to the quick. That’s exactly
what I’ve felt like lately, a walking cliché. When I started dating Lony, it hadn’t seemed a choice
so much as an inevitability.
Lony is gorgeous, all blond streaks and curves in the right places. Outgoing, crazy and fun...
She has a gravity to her that pulls people in, making her seem like the center of the universe. I’m
in awe of that talent. My popularity stems mainly from my throwing arm and my ability to knock
baseballs out of the park on more or less a consistent basis.
“So how was France?” I asked.
Carly’s eyes light up, and she starts telling me about her study abroad program in Marseille.
Lony’s stare burns a hole in the back of my head. I am so sick of fighting with her--or rather,
having her fight with me. Most of the time Lony yells and whines while I sit in silence. I know
my lack of outward reaction just pisses her off more, and maybe that’s why I do it. I don’t know.
But lately we fight more than we make up, and I’m exhausted. Impulsively, I reach up and brush
a lock of Carly’s hair back, knowing Lony is watching.
Carly stops speaking mid-sentence, flicks her eyes back to Lony and grins.
“Oh, I see what you’re doing. You’re purposely making it look like we’re flirting to tick her
off.”
I heave a deep breath and drop my hand. “Yeah, maybe.”
“Are you trying to get her to break up with you?”
I shrug with one shoulder. I don’t really think Lony will break up with me. Not that I’m such
a great catch or anything...more like her favorite fashion accessory. “Sometimes I think it would
be easier if she did.”
Carly squints and purses her mouth as if thinking and then breaks into a broad, devious grin.
“I like it!”
Stepping a little closer to me, Carly casually places her hand on my arm, tipping her head
back to laugh as if I just said something hilarious.
Before I have a chance to react, Lony slips up beside me, and grips my other arm with her
cool fingers.
“Cane, can I speak with you?” It’s more an order than a request.
Carly gives me one last knowing grin and waggles her fingers at me. “Bye, Cane. I’ll see
you soon.” Then she struts off, leaving me in Lony’s frosty grasp.
“W-T-H, Cane?” She growls, nails biting into my arm. I hate it when she speaks in text
abbreviations.
Maybe getting Lony mad wasn’t such a good idea. It’s the first Saturday night in September,
and we’re standing in a parking lot at the Mines of Spain State Park. Twenty or thirty other kids-most from our high school, but a few, like Carly, from neighboring schools--lounge on car
hoods or stand talking in groups. Matt Kutch runs past us chasing some girl from my gym class
in his awkward attempt at flirting, almost jostling into Lony. A few of the cars have their stereos
on and doors open, but not too loudly. We are all cautious to keep the noise level down so the
DNR won’t come and kick us out for being in the park after hours. The last thing we all need is
an eruption of Mt. Lony.
I place an arm around her shoulders and drop a kiss on the top of her head, hoping she feels
reassured enough from my PDA to let it go. Lony winds herself around my waist, her glare
temporarily turning to smugness as she glances to see if Carly watching. Of course, she isn’t.
“Hey!” Matt calls out, “Anyone wanna go for a walk?”
“Not on the cliffs!” Lony replies. “I’ll go if we stay in the low areas.”
The Mines of Spain, with its thick forests and steep, jagged river bluffs, are dangerous in the
dark. More than one person has lost their footing on the rocky trails and fallen to their death. I
don’t really want to go traipsing through the trees in the dark, but I won’t fight it. Lony always
gets her way.
Matt and I retrieve flashlights from our vehicles and walk toward the trail entrance. Lony is
there waiting with her friend Amy Sutherland and someone else who’s standing too far in the
shadows for me to see.
“Stick to the trail, Matt,” I warn. “Let’s just take the eastern loop along the river where it’s
nice and flat, and we can circle back inside a half hour. It’s getting late.”
Matt nods, “Sure.” He flicks his flashlight button on and off several times like a strobe.
I smack his arm. “Cut it out, dude. You’re going to burn your batteries.”
Matt straightens up and leaves his beam on.
As we approach the trail, my eyes meet those of the girl in the shadows, and my breath
hitches. I cover it with a fake cough into my palm. As always, she displays no outward reaction
to me.
Lony’s twin sister, Cady, unnerves me. Technically, the two are identical, but they couldn’t
be more different. While Lony’s mood swings like a pendulum, Cady is always the picture of
coolness. Hers is a quiet beauty, not made up and flashy like her sister. She dresses like a tomboy, runs track and shuns attention. And for some reason, even though she never gives me the
time of day, I can’t stop thinking about her. Man, I’m such an asshole.
Lony threads her fingers through my hand and pulls me along the dirt paths behind the
others. She babbles on about something that happened to her in school that week, but I’m not
really listening. My eyes drift to Cady, walking a few feet in front of me, her ass cupped
perfectly in her jeans, and I wish it was her hand I held instead.
I actually met Cady before Lony, although I’m sure she’d never remember it. It was the
summer we were thirteen years old. My mother had taken me out to the local animal shelter to
get a dog for my little brother, Tyler. Tyler is mentally handicapped, and even though he’s a
good kid, he has trouble communicating and connecting emotionally with people. Ty’s doctor
suggested a pet might help with his socialization. He goes to a private school for kids with
disabilities, where he gets a lot more one-on-one attention than he would in the public school.
That’s cool and everything, but it means he doesn’t get much of a chance to make friends with
the other kids.
I remember sitting in the passenger seat the whole way out to the shelter sulking. Not a
pretty picture, I know, but when I wanted a dog, Mom flatly refused saying I wasn’t responsible
enough to take care of one. Well, Tyler couldn’t take care of a dog, either, but apparently that
was different.
Mom pulled into a parking lot in front of a small brick building. When I opened the car
door, I heard the barks of dogs in the distance. Tyler’s face doesn’t betray much as far as
emotions go, but I could tell by the way his hands twitched and fluttered that he was excited. I
tried to swallow down my lingering resentment and focus on what a cool thing this was for Ty.
We walked into the building’s lobby, and Mom stopped to introduce herself to the man at
the front desk. My brother stared intently at a poster on the wall showing the different breeds of
cats. I stepped up next to him, pretending to study the poster also.
“So, Ty, you excited?” I asked. “I’ve always wanted a dog. You’re really lucky.”
Tyler made a small grunting noise of acknowledgment. It wasn’t that he couldn’t speak at
all. He had a vocabulary of a few hundred words or so, and he understood what we said easily
enough. But most of the time, grunts, nods and gestures were all he gave for answers. I was
fluent in his non-verbal language.
“Come on, boys,” Mom said, motioning with her hand to follow her and the man from the
desk. We cut through a back room and out a heavy door to a large covered patio lined on both
sides with kennels made of chain link fencing. Only about half of the kennels were occupied, but
the insane barking that our appearance set off was deafening.
Tyler’s hands pressed over his ears and his eyes squeezed tight with terror. I placed my arm
protectively around his shoulders and peeled back a few of his fingers so I could say, “It’s okay.
They’re just happy to see you. The doggies are saying hi.”
My brother’s eyes opened to guarded slits, but he still shook. The shelter guy noticed Tyler’s
reaction and led us out of the kennels to a field where there were several fenced in squares of
grassy yard for dogs to run around. It was quieter and less intimidating.
While Mom talked to the man about the kind of dog we were looking for, I approached the
fence and looked in. A girl stood throwing a tennis ball over and over for a horse-like Great
Dane to fetch. My first thought was how we could use someone with her arm on my baseball
team. Her movements were graceful and confident. As she ran, fat locks of her sandy brown hair
slipped the band of her ponytail, causing her to yank the band off and wind it around her wrist. I
could only see her profile, but when she opened her mouth to laugh at the dog’s clumsy chase,
something tightened in my gut.
“Cady,” Mark called.
She tossed the ball one last time and ran up to a gate in the fence where she ducked through
and walked over to us.
“Hey, Mark,” she said.
“Cady is one of our most dedicated volunteers,” Mark explained to Mom. “I’m the business
manager for the shelter, and my wife is the veterinarian. Kristy isn’t in today, but Cady works
closely with the animals. She can help find the right pet for your son.”
Mark recapped what kind of dog we were looking for. When he mentioned my brother and
his issues, I braced for the girl’s reaction. I was used to people becoming instantly uncomfortable
in Ty’s presence. I hate to say it, but Tyler’s a weird kid. I mean, you could tell by looking at
him he wasn’t normal. His head was a little too big for his body. His limbs moved in constant
sharp, twitchy movements, lacking fluidity. He had dark circles beneath his eyes which made
him appear middle aged, rather than eight years old. Cady must have seen all of this, but her
open, friendly expression didn’t flinch when she turned to my brother. Instead, she approached
him as if he were a timid animal, careful not to come too far into his personal space. She
crouched down and spoke to him directly.
“Hi, Tyler. I’m Cady. I spend a lot of time with these dogs. Would you like me to bring one
over for you to meet?”
My mouth dropped open. People, especially other kids, did not automatically talk to my
brother. Usually, they’d address questions to my mom or me and expect us to interpret for them.
Most wouldn’t even make eye contact with Ty until they had time to get used to him.
Tyler gave a brief nod, which made Cady’s pretty face light up.
“Good. I need to ask you a few questions first. How do you feel about big dogs?”
He grimaced and shook his head.
The girl chuckled. “Okay, no big dogs. Can you show me with your hands about the size of
dog you’d like?”
Ty looked to me for help. I held my hand a few feet off the ground. “This tall?” I asked.
My brother’s brow furrowed. Cady touched my wrist with one warm fingertip, sending a
shiver up my arm. My gaze flicked to meet her soft brown eyes. Her lips curled up at me before
pulling my hand lower. I had to stoop, and I was close enough to smell the fruity scent of her
hair. It made my head dizzy.
“How about this tall?” Cady asked. She still held my wrist in her delicate grip in a way that I
was sure she could feel my racing pulse. My other hand itched to touch her.
“No?” She watched my brother, completely oblivious to me leaning in a little closer to her
than necessary. “How about this?” She lowered my hand a few more inches.
Why won’t she look at me again?
Tyler tapped the top of my hand, causing Cady to draw it lower. We were both crouching,
my hand hovering about a foot off the grass. Tyler gave a sharp nod and stepped back.
Cady let go of my wrist and stood up. “Okay. Be right back.”
I dumbly watched her jog off, not realizing until Tyler tugged my arm that my mouth was
hanging open. I stood slowly and tried to shake off the fuzzy feeling in my head.
Cady returned a moment later carrying a floppy eared dog nestled in her arms. She took a
seat on the grass in front of Tyler, holding the dog in her lap.
“This is Snowflake,’ she said, threading her fingers through the dog’s long curly hair. “She’s
a three-year-old poodle mix who was brought in when her owner passed away. Very gentle. Do
you want to pet her?”
My brother’s expression was skeptical, and he made no move to approach. To encourage
him--and get closer to Cady--I sat in the grass and ran my hand down the dog’s back.
“See, Ty,” I said. “She doesn’t bite. Check her out.”
Tyler shook his head no and took a half step back.
Cady gave a sad little smile. “Okay, so no to Snowflake. Come on, girl.” She scooped the
dog up in her arms and set off to get another.
After rejecting four perfectly good dogs, Cady gestured that she’d be right back and ran into
the building. She emerged a minute later carrying a small bundle in her arms. She plopped down
on the grass in front of us cradling a small yellow cat.
“I know you wanted a dog, Tyler, but I was thinking Chloe might be more what you’re
looking for.”
I glanced over to where my mother stood with her arms crossed next to Mark. Jerry, my
step-father, wouldn’t like us coming home with a cat. He was one of those macho douche bags
who believed in boys playing manly games like football and GI Joe. He’d see a cat as too girly of
a pet, and by the look on her face, Mom knew it, too. But Tyler surprised us all when he stepped
forward, knelt on the grass and put his white-knuckled fist out for the kitty to sniff.
“See, she likes you,” Cady said. “You can pet her if you want.”
Ty’s lips tightened into a line, but he ran his index finger down her back in one long stroke.
When the cat didn’t react, he did it again with two fingers. Within minutes, my brother was
holding the purring cat in his lap and making grunting noises at it.
Mom shook her head in amazement. “Cady, you’re a genius. I’ve never seen him take to
anyone like that cat. What do you think, Cane? How do you think Jerry will like it?”
“It shouldn’t matter what he thinks. This is about Tyler.”
Mom contemplated it a moment before turning to Mark. “Okay,” she sighed. “I think we
have a winner.”
Back in the office, Mom worked on the adoption paperwork while Cady instructed Ty on the
best ways to hold the cat and brush its long hair. I stood transfixed on her. Not only was she
pretty, but she treated my brother in a way I’d never seen anyone outside of our family treat him.
Her manner exuded kindness, her eyes betrayed intelligence and for once, the girl completely
ignored me.
“Ouch!” Lony exclaims as she stumbles for the millionth time. Still, I refuse to let her cling
to me for support. For one, it’s too damn humid out. For two, she’s the one who wanted to go
tromping through the woods wearing platform sandals.
“Cane, wait,” she whines. I stop and wait for her again. Cady and the others are so far ahead
of us now all I can see is the distant yellow of their flashlight.
“Do you want to turn around and go back?” I offer. “I don’t mind.”
Lony’s mouth tightens. “In a hurry to get back to that slut?” she mutters just barely loud
enough for me to hear.
“What? Who are you calling a slut?”
“Huh? No one!” She says it like she can’t believe I’d accuse her of calling people names.
“But I mean seriously, who just does that? Hangs all over someone else’s boyfriend? And don’t
tell me she wasn’t trying to get you to look down her shirt because I watched her do it.”
My muscles bunch up with tension and a dull ache throbs in my temple. And here we go,
plunging head-first into another argument. My instincts are to do what I always do...shut down
and let Lony bitch away. But tonight is different. There’s something in the warm air, an energy
from the woods around us that makes me want to fight back. Fight back and be done with it.
Done with her insecure, shallow, the-whole-world-must-revolve-around-me bullshit.
“Lony.” Her name comes out sharper than I intend. I stop walking and face her. Her kohllined eyes widen in surprise.
I take a deep breath to try to calm myself. It isn’t working. “Look, lay off of Carly. She’s a
nice girl and completely not interested in me.”
“But I saw--”
“You saw what you wanted to see. What’s this really about? Attention? Jealousy? Whatever
it is, it has to stop. I’m tired of it.”
Lony’s speechlessness lasts only one beautiful moment before her eyes narrow and her
temper explodes.
“How dare you turn this on me, Cane.” She spits my name like a swear word. “I did not
imagine you flirting with that girl. Just like I didn’t imagine you with Bree Halston in the lunch
room yesterday. Or with Kayla Edwards at the movie theater last week. You have no respect for
my feelings as your girlfriend--”
“No respect for you? Jesus, Lon! All I do anymore is worry about how I’m going to offend
you next. I’m not going to apologize for talking to girls. They’re my friends, our friends. I’ve
known Bree since grade school. And you know as well as I do that Kayla and Brett are
disgustingly in love with each other. Those girls don’t want me. And even if they did, I don’t
want them. I don’t want anybody!”
Uh, oh.
“You don’t want anybody? Not even me?” she squeaks out in a tiny, pained voice.
“I don’t know anymore!” I tug at my hair and start to pace.
The sound of a sharp intake of breath lets me know that was not the answer Lony expected.
She stands frozen, the dim moonlight reflecting off of a tear rolling down her cheek. After a
moment she asks, “What are you saying?”
I place my hands on her shoulders so I can meet her gaze. She needs to see that what I’m
about to tell her is serious.
“I’m done, Lony. This isn’t fun anymore.”
“Not fun?”she hisses in a tone laced with venom. “I’m not fun anymore?”
I already regretted my word choice, but I need her to understand. “Relationships are not
supposed to be this stressful, Lony. Look at Kayla and Brett. Do you ever see them arguing? Or
Kayla going ape-shit when Brett speaks to someone of the opposite sex? No, because she trusts
him. She doesn’t have him kissing her ass all the time in fear of setting her off. All we ever do is
fight. I don’t have the energy for it anymore. I’m out.”
I set off down the trail again, thankful the break in the trees lets in enough moonlight now so
I don’t need the flashlight left in Lony’s trembling hands.
She trips after me, yelling between heaving sobs. I walk too fast for her, trying to put some
distance between us so I can think. I hadn’t planned on breaking up with her tonight. Not at all.
But if I’m being honest with myself, I knew it was coming.
“Cane! Don’t leave me here. I’m scared!”
There isn’t much in an Iowan forest to be afraid of, but I pause to wait for her anyway.
Whether I want to date her or not, I won’t abandon her in the woods. I’m not that big of a dick.
The trees open up to a clearing. We’re close to the river, and I spot Cady, Matt and Amy
walking along the train tracks snaked along the river bank.
Cady.
My chest constricts. What will she think of me now? I’ve gotten used to her indifference.
Will her loyalty to her sister make her hate me now? Only at that thought does my heart start to
break.
After the animal shelter, I didn’t see Cady again for over a year. But that didn’t mean I’d
forgotten her. Lying in bed at night listening to my stepdad scream at my mother about how her
son (me) was a worthless waste of life, I would remember the girl who saw past my brother’s
weird shell to the person he was inside, and imagine that she had seen the inside of me.
On the first day of high school, I walked into the auditorium for freshman orientation with a
few of my buddies. There was a swagger to my strut now, which came from my newly acquired
seven inches of height and thirty pounds of muscle. The boys and I had spent the last month of
summer in football camp where my strong throwing arm earned me the starting quarterback
position on the freshman team. In short, I thought I was The Shit.
While scanning the room for a place for me and my entourage to sit, my gaze caught on a
familiar girl sitting in the front row. My stomach dropped into my shoes. It was Cady, the girl
from the shelter, the girl I’d continued to picture in my mind on those nights when restlessness
prevented sleep. My memory couldn’t hold a candle to the real girl sitting only a dozen feet from
me, laughing with her friends. There was nothing flashy about her, and she was truly nothing like
the girls who hung around in my circle. Her face was clean, and her wavy hair looked like she
didn’t do much more than brush it once in a while. She wore faded jeans, a t-shirt and a pair of
sneakers with pen-inked doodles all over them.
Of course, since she was in the front row and this was high school, the long line of seats
beside her and her friends was empty. As I headed toward them, my friend Brett caught my arm.
“Where you going, man? Let’s go to the back. Michelle said she’d save us some seats.”
Without answering, I continued toward the front row, sitting down on Cady’s right. My
friends followed as I knew they would, grumbling about being up front under the watchful eyes
of the teachers. Cady didn’t look at me, but continued to talk to a freckley girl and a skinny boy
with over-gelled hair.
I wanted to speak to her, but I had no words. Instead, my palms broke out in a sweat and my
knee bounced nervously. Brett rattled on to me about the no-hitter Twins game the night before.
How could I think about baseball when my Cady was mere inches from me, our knees almost
touching?
A screech of sound system feedback startled me out of my obsessive thoughts. An older guy
with an ill-fitting suit stood at the microphone clearing his throat. Cady turned her attention to
the stage, placing her arm on the wooden rest dividing us. Heat radiated off her skin. Her
fingernails were bitten short, and she wore a thin silver ring around her thumb. My fingers itched
to trace the fuzz of her forearm.
The guy on the stage introduced himself as one of the guidance counselors and started in on
a memorized speech about how we were about to enter into the best days of our lives. Yeah,
right. Like if high school was so great, why did people stop going after only four years? Just
another myth adults liked to force on us along with Santa Claus, the danger of swimming after
eating, and that sex is over-rated and we should wait until we’re old to get it on. Okay, so I had
no firsthand knowledge on whether that last one was a myth, but if sex wasn’t fun, why did
everyone who’d done it once want to do it again?
I swallowed a groan. I should definitely not be thinking about sex with Cady so close. I drew
my notebook over my lap and tried to focus on last night’s baseball game.
When the assembly concluded, Cady and her friends were among the first on their feet and
heading toward the door. I moved to follow, but Michelle cut me off. She flipped her hair in that
annoying way girls do and gave me some passive aggressive bullshit about having to sit by
herself. By the time I extricated myself from her, Cady was long gone.
I saw her again in sixth period Algebra. When I entered the room, she sat in a desk off to the
left with the skinny boy from the assembly. I wondered if he was her boyfriend or something, but
when his eyes met mine, he gave me an appreciative look that I’d gotten often, though usually
from girls.
The desk behind Cady was open so I claimed it, hoping the teacher wouldn’t make us move
to assigned seating. All through class, I watched her doodle spirals and 3D boxes along the edges
of her notebook.
Just before class finished, the teacher handed out the syllabus to the students in the front row
and asked them to pass the sheets back down the line. When Cady turned to pass the stack of
photocopies, our eyes finally met. The brown pools were flecked with a gold that I hadn’t
remembered and made my stomach do a summersault.
I held my breath waiting for The Look. You know, that look girls give good-looking guys
the first time they make eye contact. The brightening of the pupils, the sharp inhalation of breath,
the rosy flush to their cheeks when they realize he sees them just as clearly. But with Cady, that
never happened. She gave a quick half-grin and turned right back toward the teacher, setting the
tone for how she would treat me the rest of the year.
Yes, I know I was conceited. In my defense, I was fourteen and new to the whole girl thing.
When puberty hit me, it hit with a vengeance. All at once, girls that I’d gone to school with my
whole life began to see me in a new way. The guys too. Not that my friends were hot for me or
anything, but they began to defer to me, to seek out my opinion and approval. It was a lot to deal
with, and I’m afraid I let it go to my head for a while. (Early sophomore year, my older brother,
Brandon, gave me a much needed kick in the pants, and I got over it.)
So while Cady was busy treating me like I didn’t exist, I hung out in my humongous group
of friends watching her discretely like a lonely puppy. She fascinated me. The casual observer
would probably only see a quiet girl blending into a sea of teenage faces. But I was no casual
observer. We may have only had one class together, but I sought out every opportunity to be
around her. Okay, this is going to sound a bit stalkerish, and I apologize for that, but I altered the
paths I took to my classes so I could pass by her locker. I sat in the same seat everyday at lunch
because it gave me the best view of her and her friends. During the fall when I had football
practice after school, Cady would run the track around the field with her cross country
teammates. When football was over, I immediately signed up to workout with the track team
whenever my baseball schedule would allow. I told my football and baseball coaches I did it to
keep in shape and improve my speed, but really, I just wanted a chance to be near her.
But no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t bring myself to talk to her. True, I chatted up
girls all the time, but those girls sought me out. Cady was different. While she was friendly and
kind to even the strangest of misfit kids, she didn’t notice me at all. I remember one day standing
in the lunch line behind her when she spotted a boy in a wheelchair having trouble reaching
things on the salad bar. Cady left her place to help him fill his plate and get a soda from the
fountain. It wasn’t that she helped the guy, but that she did it in such a way as to not show any
pity or make him feel incapable. After getting him situated, she invited the boy to sit at the table
with her friends. I spent the whole lunch period playing with my food and watching Cady talk
and laugh with that boy, wondering why she never laughed with me that way. At some point, it
occurred to me that Cady gravitated to those students who were marginalized, on the fringes of
student society. The more broken and messed up a kid was, the more Cady worked to connect
with them. I guess that’s why it surprised me she couldn’t see that beneath my Abercrombie
exterior, I was about as broken as a teenage boy could come.
Of course, her sister, Lony, was part of my group. Spending time with Cady’s identical twin
unnerved me at first, but it didn’t take long to figure out the two were completely different in
temperament and personality. Lony and Michele had this “frenemies” thing going where they
acted like friends, but continuously competed against each other. One of the prizes fought over
was me. That’s exactly how I felt, too, like a prize to be won.
One day at the end of the school year, classes were called off due to a plumbing break that
flooded the lower level of the building. It was rare for me to have a day to myself without having
to go to some sort of practice, especially a day as nice as that one. I was typing an email to my
brother Brandon who was away in the military when Lony texted to invite me and my friends
over to her house to hang out for the afternoon. My heart pogo-sticked through my chest. Holy
crap! Would Cady be there? I wanted to ask, but decided to play it cool. This was my chance to
connect with her in a way I never could in school. I was dying to have time alone with her, even
if it was only to talk. Although if I were being honest with myself, a tiny flicker of hope warmed
my belly at the idea of kissing Cady. I prayed I’d get the chance.
An hour later, I found myself sitting in Lony’s living room with a dozen other kids eating
pizza and watching some crappy reality game show on television. Lony’s older brother, Aaron,
was down in the basement playing video games with his friends, but so far, Cady hadn’t made an
appearance.
“I don’t care how much money is on the line, I would never eat a cockroach,” Lony
declared, her face twisting into a pucker. “These shows are so nasty!”
On the screen, two girls in bikinis were gobbling down plates of live bugs while the host
stood over them cheering. Reason #563 why I avoid reality television: It can make even the
hottest girls completely unsexy.
Lony’s knee pressed into mine for the tenth time as she sat closer to me than necessary on
the large couch. Again, I pretended not to notice.
“Where’s your sister?” I asked, trying to project a tone of indifference, but failing.
Lony’s eyebrow rose in curiosity and she studied me. “I don’t know. Why?”
I lifted one shoulder in a shrug and took a bite of pizza so I wouldn’t have to answer.
“I didn’t know you and Cady knew each other,” Lony said, asking a question without
coming out and asking.
I took a swig of my soda before replying, “We don’t really. She’s in my algebra class. I
thought she could help me with a question I had on the homework.” This was a complete lie, of
course. I might not get the best grades, but math has always come easy for me.
Lony’s face relaxed in understanding. “Oh, I see. For a second there I thought you wanted to
hang out with her.” She grinned and shook her head as if the idea was preposterous.
My jaw tightened. “What if I did? She seems nice enough.”
Lony tossed her hair over her shoulder and gave a quiet laugh. “Don’t get me wrong. I love
my sister. And she is nice. Nice and boring. All she cares about is her volunteer job, getting good
grades and running. She wouldn’t know a good time if it hit her on the head. She’s not like us at
all.”
Not like us. Us. I bristled at the idea of being lumped in with Lony, but a glance around the
room was enough to show me the truth in it. The group of us in the Day family living room
represented the most attractive, most athletic and most popular kids in our class. I should be
happy to be included in the high school elite, but instead, it somehow made me feel
uncomfortable.
Before I could brood on that thought further, the front door opened and a beautiful,
windblown Cady entered wearing workout clothes and running shoes. Her face was damp with
sweat and her cheeks were flushed pink from exertion...breathtaking.
“Hey,” Lony called out. When she didn’t seem to hear her, Lony yelled louder, “Cady!”
Cady glanced into the living room and popped an ear bud out of one ear. The cords trailed
down to a tiny iPod clipped to her t-shirt. “What?”
“You know my friend Cane, right?” Lony set her hand possessively on my thigh. “He has a
question about your algebra homework. Can you help him?”
Her eyes focused curiously on me, and I worried she truly didn’t recognize the guy who had
been sitting right behind her in class all year.
“Sure...hi,” she said with a polite smile. “Um, my books are in my room. You finish lunch
while I catch a quick shower. I’ll come down when I’m done.”
I nodded dumbly, and Cady disappeared up the steps.
I finished eating my pizza, but couldn’t taste it anymore. My mouth was dry and my mind
spun in circles with all the things I wanted to talk to Cady about. I wanted to know how she was
able to see people all the way down into their souls. What she saw when she to looked into mine.
Where she got all that quiet confidence. What she wanted to do with her life. I had no doubt
Arcadia Day was destined for great things, and I wanted a front row seat to cheer her on.
The one thing I hadn’t thought about as I waited for my dream girl to return was a question
about algebra. So when Cady appeared fresh-faced and hair still damp holding her school bag,
my brain completely checked out.
“You ready?” she asked.
I wiped my palms on my jeans, stood and followed her back to the kitchen. My gaze drifted
down the back of her body, loving the way her runner’s muscles filled out her jeans, and I
silently chastised myself for being such a pig.
In the kitchen, Cady tossed her bag on the breakfast bar and gestured for me to sit on a stool
beside her. She removed the fat textbook, a beat up notebook and a mechanical pencil from the
bag before setting it aside.
“So, is it one particular problem you have, or are you just confused by irrational
denominators in general?”
Nothing about the homework confused me. In fact, I finished it before leaving class
yesterday. But at that moment, Cady might as well have been speaking Japanese.
“Huh?” I replied.
Cady turned a kind smile on me. “The important thing to remember is that you can’t have an
irrational number in the denominator of a fraction. In order to clear it, you have to multiply both
the top and bottom sides of the fraction by the root. See?”
She took her homework page out and talked through the first problem. I nodded like an
idiot, but all I could think of was the fruity shampoo scent floating around her newly cleaned
hair. I just wanted her to look at me. To see past the All-American exterior and notice that there
was more to me than what I could do with a ball in my hand. Would it surprise her to know that
the golden boy who lived in the big new house in the rich part of town was once homeless? That
the first five years of my life were filled with hunger and pain? I never showed anyone the burn
scars on the backs of my thighs from where my bio-dad ground lit cigarettes into me. Not even
my friends knew about my life before Mom met and married Jerry, leading us out of squalor and
into a fancy home with a bedroom all my own. I didn’t like to talk about the dark things locked
up inside me, but somehow, I wanted to tell Cady. I wanted her to be the one person who truly
saw me.
“Do you want to see another one?” she asked.
Oh, right. Algebra. “Yeah, sure.”
Cady copied out the next problem from the book.
I cleared my throat, grasping for something to say. I’d just opened my mouth to speak when
Lony appeared, leaning against the doorjamb.
“How’s it going in here? My nerdy sister getting you all straightened out?”
Cady glared at Lony and replied, “Bite me, Barbie.” Then turning to me she said, “Maybe
you should try to work this one so I can see where you’re having trouble.”
I took the pencil from her, lightly brushing her fingers during the handoff. The brief contact
sent a shiver through me, but Cady didn’t seem to notice. Lony did, though. She crossed her
arms around her chest and pinned me down with her stare. Heat rose in my face, and I quickly
focused on the paper in front of me. Am I blushing now? I don’t blush! I struggled to keep my
hand steady as I started to work the problem.
Lony stepped forward and leaned on the counter in front of me, her neckline dipping low
enough to show off a line of cleavage. Not that I noticed. Okay, I did. What fifteen year old boy
doesn’t?
“You should come to the game tomorrow night,” Lony said to her sister. “Cane is the best
quarterback Dubuque has seen in ages.”
“I’d rather gouge my eyes out with a spoon.”
My head jerked up at the response.
Cady gave me a half smile. “No offense or anything. I’m sure you are great and all, but
watching team sports makes me break out in a rash.”
A chuckle bubbled up in my chest. I shook my head back and forth and turned back to the
paper.
“Yeah, Cane, my sister hates jocks. Even though she is one.”
Cady sighed. “A. I like to run and the track team lets me do that. That does not make me a
jock. B. I don’t hate anyone. I just don’t particularly like hanging out with people who are vapid
and insincere. And C. Why do you have to label people into groups all the time? It’s weird.”
Vapid and insincere. The hairs on my neck bristled at that. Lony continued to pick at Cady,
while Cady did her best to ignore her, but those words reverberated in my head. They struck a
little too close to home. I might not have been a guy who thrilled girls with my brilliant
conversation, but I wasn’t stupid. I just had other priorities than academics. I kept my grades up
enough so my coaches stayed off my back, but my main goal in life was sports. I needed an
athletic scholarship so I could get the hell out of Jerry’s house. My brother Brandon had kissed
off his chance of a scholarship when he got into trouble his senior year and ended up joining the
military. Now he was sitting in some shithole with sand up his crack hoping he wouldn’t be the
next in his battalion to get blown up. No thanks. The military was not for me.
So no, I didn’t think I was vapid, but someone as smart as Cady might think so. What really
cut me was insincere. The truth in that word rang in my ears so sharply I squeezed my eyes shut.
Everything about me was phony. A total poser. For years I’d crafted this facade around me in
order to hide the damage inside and blend into the world. Ever since my brothers and I were
little, Mom drilled into us the importance of keeping what went on in our home private. My
friends knew my police chief step-father was strict, but they didn’t know about the way he
manipulated and controlled all of us. Or how he reminded us every day that he rescued us from
the gutter and could dump us back there any time he wanted to. Or the way his words and insults
could dig deeper than my bio-dad’s burns ever did.
“Stuck?” Cady asked, her voice pulling me out of my lament.
My hand holding the pencil hovered over the page. “Uh, no.” Embarrassed to be caught
spacing off, I scratched out the answer.
She checked my work and then grinned at me. “You nailed it. Guess my work here is done,
but if you have a problem working your assignment tonight, just give me a call.” She slammed
the textbook closed and packed up her bag.
“Good, now we can get back to the others,” Lony sighed. “There ought to be a law against
doing homework on days off from school.”
As Cady stood up and heaved her bag over her shoulder, I desperately wanted to clutch her
arm and make her stay. Why did Lony have to butt in? Oh, I guess it didn’t matter anyway. Ever
since Cady uttered the word insincere, all hope of her ever liking me melted away. No one in our
school was more fake than me. Even if I could let Cady in, I’d never be able to drop my mask for
other people. And how much respect would she have for me then?
I watched Cady leave, and Lony watched me. After a moment she wound her arm around
mine and asked, “You okay?”
Her question yanked me out of my thoughts, and I looked down into her heavily made-up
eyes. I didn’t know why it surprised me to notice the same gold flecks floating in her brown eyes
like Cady’s. In fact, if I let my eyes unfocus, I could almost imagine it was Cady gazing up at
me, expression full of heat. But this Cady was an impostor, a fake. Just as fake and insincere as
me.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I lied. This fake girl didn’t want the truth. She didn’t want me. Not really.
She was only interested in the carefully crafted, perfect form of me that I put out to the world.
The real Cane was dark and complicated and not nearly good enough for an angel like her sister.
But maybe the fake Cane was good enough for the fake Cady.
Lony stroked the inside of my forearm with the tips of her fingers and parted her mouth in
invitation. She would be so easy. I wouldn’t have to change at all. I could continue to keep my
secrets bottled up inside and live my outwardly-charmed life. All I wanted to do was graduate
high school and escape my nightmare of a family. Someone like Cady would complicate things,
make me face my fears before I was ready and disrupt this carefully built house of cards that I’d
constructed all around me. Lony, though, was different. She wouldn’t try to scratch my golden
veneer to find the tarnish.
My decision made, I guided Lony so her back was pinned between the refrigerator and my
hard torso. Placing both hands on the sides of her neck, I tipped her head back. With one last
gaze into her Cady-like eyes, I dropped my mouth to hers and let all the pent-up passion I’d
harbored for her sister pour into her. What started off tender quickly ignited into an inferno as
our tongues probed and slid against each other. I squeezed my eyes tight and delivered a kiss that
said good-bye to one girl and introduced myself to another.
“Cane, please. Just stop.” Lony calls. I turn and wait for the umpteenth time while she picks
her way across the path in those ridiculous shoes. Her cheeks are tear-stained, and she sniffs
every few breaths. “Can we just talk about this?”
I tunnel my fingers through my hair. “There’s nothing to talk about, Lon. I told you. I’m
done. We’re over.”
The moonlight glistens off the moisture welling in her eyes. “But I love you! And I know
you love me, too.”
Nothing is more unattractive than a girl who whines. I have to put a stop to this. I don’t want
to hurt her, but I also can’t lead her on by making her think there’s still hope. I step closer and
place my hands on her shoulders.
“Lony, please listen to me. What I’m about to say is the most honest thing I’ve ever said to
you.” She nods. “I am not in love with you. I never have been. It was only attraction and like.
But lately, the like is fading and attraction is not enough to keep this going.”
Her lip trembles. “I’ll try not to get so jealous anymore.”
“It’s not about that. I don’t feel for you what you do for me. It’s not fair for me to keep
dragging this out.”
Her stare hardens. “Is there another girl?”
So much for her trying not to be jealous. “No, there isn’t anyone else.”
She pops her fists on her hips. “Liar. I know for a fact there is someone else. There’s always
been someone else.”
I roll my eyes up to the stars. “What are you talking about? I’ve never cheated on you and
you know it.”
“Maybe not, but I’m more perceptive than you know, and I know you’ve been pining away
after someone else the entire year we’ve been together.”
“Oh, really? Who?”
“My sister,” she hisses. The accusation hangs in the air, floating through the silence until it
becomes heavy with truth.
Unwilling to confirm or deny, I pivot and stalk off down the path across the clearing,
cursing myself for my idiocy. Shit, I know how this will play out. Lony will unleash all her anger
for me onto Cady and they’ll both end up hating me.
“She’s too good for you, you know,” Lony sobbed behind me. “As soon as she finds out
you’ve been using me to get to her this whole time, you won’t stand a chance. Cady would never
betray me for a guy.”
As much as I try to ignore her, I can’t help myself. “Like you betrayed her by swooping in to
steal a guy who was interested in her just to prove you could? Jesus, Lon, does everything with
you have to be a fucking competition?”
“So you admit it? You’ve wanted her this whole time? I bet every time you kissed me you
imagined I was her.”
Once. I only did that once. The first time we kissed against the refrigerator. After that, I’d
done everything I could to drive Cady from my mind. Unsuccessfully.
I lengthen my stride to put distance between us, determined to not answer her anymore. I am
so done fighting. My ears tune out the constant drone of her yammering behind me.
The warm, mud-scented air drifts over from the river, sending an electric charge through me.
As miserable as this night is, I feel like a 200-pound weight has been lifted from my shoulders.
This whole year has been nothing but me wasting time with a girl I didn’t care for in an attempt
to get over the one that I did. And really, it was a waste of time because my feelings for Cady
have only grown stronger. I think I’m finally ready to let my walls down and introduce her to the
real me.
It threw me for a loop yesterday when I saw her walking to class with some new student.
The dude definitely appeared interested, but Cady was her usual oblivious self. It might make me
a douche to break up with one sister and ask out another right away, but I need to make a move
before this new guy does. Yes, I risk her hating me, but she might hate me anyway after Lony
talks to her, so I have nothing to lose.
Hope buoys my resolve and adds a little bounce to my step. I reach the train tracks that run
along the curve of the river. Up ahead I see the silhouettes of three people perched on boulders,
Matt’s flashlight beam flicking on and off again like a strobe. I step from rail to rail toward the
girl I love. Yes, love.
A rumble in the air precedes the bright yellow beam twisting around the limestone cliff to
shine directly on my face like a warm sun.
“Come on, Lony,” I call behind me. “Get off the tracks.”
***
If you enjoyed this story and want to know what happens next, I encourage you to
continue on with the Arcadia series.
About Arcadia’s Gift
"Cady--short for Arcadia--is an appealing heroine, and I enjoyed cheering for her as she
confronted the tragic death of her twin sister, the collapse of her family, the vicissitudes of
teenage romance, and the amazing discovery of her gift." --Mike Mullin, Author of Ashfall.
"Arcadia's Gift" is a poignant story of loss, love and hope. A must read for all young adult
paranormal romance fans!" -- Charlotte Abel, author of Kindle bestsellers, Enchantment and
Taken
Most people who experience death don't live to tell about it.
When sixteen year old Arcadia "Cady" Day wakes in a hospital after experiencing what can
only be called a psychic episode, she finds her family in tatters. With her twin sister gone, her
dad moved out, her mom's spiraling depression and her sister's boyfriend, Cane, barely able to
look at her, the only bright spot in her life is Bryan Sullivan, the new guy in school. When
Bryan's around, Cady can almost pretend she's a regular girl, living a regular life; when he's not,
she's wracked with wild, inexplicable mood swings. As her home life crumbles and her
emotional control slips away, Cady begins to suspect that her first psychic episode was just the
beginning...
About Arcadia’s Curse
“The build of the story is a slow burn, like a fuse curling through an empty storehouse
ONLY to find out that the fuse is attached to ten tons of fireworks. Holy Climax, Batman!” ~
Shannon Mayer, author of The Rylee Adamson Novels and The Nevermore Trilogy
Think high school sucks? Try being an empath who has to experience everyone else’s
suckage on top of your own. (Literally.)
In the months since her family life imploded and her psychic gifts began to arise, Cady has
struggled to figure out how she can fit into her normal life without going crazy from the constant
presence of emotional energy. Her grades have tanked. Her best friend is afraid of her. And she
begins to have doubts about why her boyfriend, Bryan, is really keeping her around. But a
chance meeting with another gifted girl online opens up a whole new world of possibilities.
Unfortunately, this new world comes at an awful price.
About the Author
Jesi Lea Ryan grew up in the Mississippi River town of Dubuque, IA. She holds bachelor
degrees in creative writing and literature and a master’s degree in business. She considers herself
a well-rounded nerd who can spend hours on the internet researching things like British history,
anthropology of ancient people, geography of random parts of the world, bad tattoos and the
paranormal. She currently lives in Madison, WI with her husband and two exceptionally naughty
kitties.