Authors: L A Cotton
Lucky Penny
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L. A. Cotton
Chastity Falls Series
Standalone Novels
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Published by Delesty Books
First eBook Edition
Copyright © L. A. Cotton 201
5
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.
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“D
o you think about life after this place, Blake? About what will happen?” Penny gazed over at me as if I was her world, causing my stomach to knot tightly.
I wanted to be—her world. I wanted to give her the moon and the stars and everything between. She deserved it and so much more. She deserved life; one better than the shit we put up living with Derek and Marie.
“All the time. Come here.” I looped my arm around her neck, not caring if anyone spotted us, and drew her in tighter as we lay beyond the yard staring up at the night sky. Tiny lights sparkled like diamonds on a smooth black canvas. It was beautiful. A little slice of heaven in our own fucked-up version of hell. “Eighteen more months, Penny, and then we’re free and it’ll be just you and me.”
Penny sighed beside me. It was full of hope. I felt it in the way her hand lightly squeezed mine, and how her body relaxed into the ground as the breath left her lungs. We both wanted more. More than the shit hand we had been dealt. We had dreams and hopes for the future, just like any other sixteen-year-old kid. Except we weren’t like most other kids. We had already lost so much… lived so much.
It was what brought us together in the first place, but now… now, things were different between us. Sometime in the last two years, my best friend had become my reason for breathing.
My everything.
“Eighteen months. We can make that, right?” Her voice was unsure, and I hated them for taking away the last shred of fight she’d had when she arrived at the Freeman group home with just one bag and a shitload of nightmares.
I rolled slightly to face Penny, my eyes taking in her delicate features. Chocolate brown eyes set against pale skin with a peppering of freckles that covered her perfectly shaped nose framed by loose dark waves rolling over her slim shoulders.
Trying to push down all of my anger for the things she’d faced in this place, I choked out, “You’re my lucky Penny. With you by my side, we can survive anything.”
“I
t’s not you, Pen. It’s me.”
I winced at Cal’s words, but not for the reasons most girls would. Most people experienced being dumped in their lifetime, usually more than once. As a rite of passage, relationships began and they ended. Friends turned to lovers and fizzled back into the friend zone. Personalities clashed and partners decided the grass was greener. Or sometimes, the spark that was once burning so brightly simply flickered out into the darkness. Sure, they all lived to tell the tale, but that was usually after weeks of drowning their sorrows in a bottle of whatever liquor burned away the hurt or at the bottom of a carton of the sweetest ice cream.
Anything to forget.
Just for a little while.
But I didn’t wince because Cal had finally decided to cut me loose. My eyes weren’t pooling with tears for the loss of our love. No, it wasn’t that his words didn’t cut deep.
The truth cut deep.
And the truth was that it wasn’t Cal, it was me.
It would
always
be me.
After hugging me awkwardly, Cal held me at arm’s length as if he no longer recognized me. He offered me a weak smile and left. I watched him disappear into the distance before I strolled back through Tuttle Park. My arms held me together as I watched the world go by. It was a warm evening, which usually brought out a crowd. People walked their dogs, couples in love walked hand in hand making plans for their futures, and families played tag with their children. And here I was again.
Alone.
Despite the sliver of regret stabbing at my heart, I knew it was for the best. I’d tried—really tried—to make things work. Cal was my third attempt at a normal relationship in the last four years. A year older than me, he had a steady job, a nice apartment in Indian Springs, and he was motivated. If Mom were around, she would have called him the perfect guy.
I knew there was something different about him when I had let him touch me. It had taken four months, a lot of persuasion, and two panic attacks, but we had finally managed to be intimate in ways I hadn’t been with anyone else. But in the end, it wasn’t enough. Cal had wanted more—something I couldn’t give. And although I’d seen the signs long before today, when Cal started to pull away, I let him. I couldn’t blame him. What twenty-four-year-old guy wanted a girlfriend who struggled with simple touch, let alone intimacy? And besides, I wasn’t planning to stay in Clintonville forever. Really, our relationship was doomed from the beginning.
Just like your life.
By the time The Oriental Garden came into view, daylight was disappearing on the horizon and taking with it the last shreds of my deteriorating mood. I’d lived above the takeout restaurant for almost two years, but it still didn’t feel like home. Nowhere ever did. When I’d viewed the supposedly renovated one-bedroom apartment in Clintonville, the owner had failed to mention the hand-me-down kitchen and touched-up damp walls. Add to that the lingering smell of fried egg rolls and the window that overlooked the back alley of the local student bar, dumpsters and all, and I wouldn’t call it homey. But it was all my meager wage from Vrai Beauté could afford, and it was better than the last place I'd lived—and the one before that.