Release date: June 3rd 2014
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Purchase: Amazon
BOOK DESCRIPTION:
Colette has been bored and lonely ever since her best friend, Sadie, dumped her the summer before they stared high school. She tries to be perfect for everyone left in her life: her parents, her younger brothers, her church youth group, even her boyfriend, Mark. But Colette is restless. And she misses Sadie.
When Sadie tells Colette that she needs her old friend to join her on a family vacation to the Greek Islands, one that leaves in only a few days, Colette is shocked to hear their old magic word: need. And she finds herself agreeing.
Colette tries to relax and enjoy her Grecian surroundings but it’s not easy to go on vacation with the person who hurt you most in the world. When the reason for the trip finally surfaces, Colette finds out this is not only a fun vacation. Sadie has kept an enormous secret from Colette for years...forever. It’s a summer full of surprises, but that might be what Colette needs.
EXCERPT:
Dad pulls up to the curb outside the
international terminal.
When he looks at me, his eyes aren’t
so wild anymore. They almost look sad. “You ready?”
“what’s going on, Dad?” I ask. It
hits me that he somehow snuck me out of the house and now he’s ready to push me
onto an airplane to some distant island, but he still hasn’t said anything
real.
He shrugs. “Mom’s not always right,”
he says.
But she is.
His eyes fall to his lap. “Neither
am I,” he says. “Call your mother. Say good-bye.”
My hands shake as I finally turn on
my phone.
She answers before the first ring.
“Don’t get on that airplane, Colette,” she says, “Know that I don’t approve of
this.”
“You know?” I ask.
“Your father left a note.
Colette...” She trials off. “You heard me tell you not to go, right?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Well if you go anyway, be safe.
Protect your body and your soul. I changed your phone plan so you can only call
home, okay? It’s too expensive for you to call Louisa and Mark willy-nilly.” Mark. “But call when you arrive, okay?
So we don’t have to worry.”
“Okay,” I say.
My hands aren’t shaking anymore. I’m
relieved to hear her sound like any-old-mom.
“And, honey?” she says. She says it
so softly I think she’s going to tell me to have a nice time. Or that she loves
me.
“Yeah?”
“I hope you understand what a
terrible choice you’re making.”
She hangs up.
I stare at the phone in my palm.
“She okay?” Dad says finally.
I shrug.
We get out of the car and I spot
Sadie and her family climbing out of a limo curbed fifty feet away. She jumps
up and down as soon as she sees me, her now purple-and-blond hair waving across
her face. I can’t help smiling. I can see her mouth moving even from here. “You
came! You came!”
I give my dad a quick hug, pull out
my suitcase, yank up the handle of my rolly bag, and take my first step as the
new, imperfect Coley.
“Colette?” Dad says.
I turn around, ready for him to sit
me back in the car, to tell me this was all a test that I failed. Instead he
holds out his hand and shoves a stack of bills into my fist. “For whatever you
need, little lady. Have fun. I—we. We love you.”
Then he’s gone.
“Coley!” Sadie is running toward me
so quickly that I only have a second to open my phone and click on my
good-morning text from Mark.
“One more day! I love you!” the
message says.
My heart beats faster and salt water
threatens to escape from behind my eyeballs and I know he deserves so much
better than this, so much more explanation, so much more of me. And me, too. I
know I deserve a better good-bye than I’m going to be able to give him. But I
only have ten seconds before she reaches me, before it’s time, before the bell
rings on my perfect life and I dive into the drama with Sadie.
I type the seven letters i-m
s-o-r-r-y. Then I press Send.
Here we go.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Caela Carter grew up in Basking Ridge, NJ and Baltimore, MD. She's been writing since she learned how to pick up a pen but before the writing thing got serious she spent six years teaching English to middle and high school students in Jacksonville, FL and Chicago, IL. Her debut novel, ME, HIM, THEM AND IT was published in 2013 by Bloomsbury. When she's not writing, Caela is a teacher of some awesome teens in Brooklyn, a Notre Dame football enthusiast, and a happy explorer in New York City.
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment