Read Where It Began Online

Authors: Ann Redisch Stampler

Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Love & Romance, #Social Issues, #Adolescence, #Drugs; Alcohol; Substance Abuse, #Emotions & Feelings

Where It Began

This is what I remember:

How everything leading up to the party is nothing special.

Me and Billy in the front seat of Billy’s car.

Billy pulling onto the front lawn of the house on Songbird Lane. Heading toward the big front door that opens and then shuts out three and a half hours of my life.

My life, which, by the time I wake up on the ground clutching the car keys with my head bashed in, is pretty much over.

Only I don’t know that right away.

“A terrific read! Ann Redisch Stampler puts you in Gabby’s head and keeps you there until the gripping conclusion. A writer to watch!” —
ALEX FLINN
, #1
New York Times
bestselling author of
Beastly

ANNSTAMPLER.COM

Sometimes the end is just the beginning.

Gabby lived under the radar until her makeover. Way under. But when she started her senior year as a blonder, better-dressed version of herself, she struck gold: Billy Nash believed she was the f lawless girl she was pretending to be. The next eight months with Billy were bliss. . . . Until the night Gabby wakes up on the ground next to the remains of his BMW without a single memory of how she got there.

And Billy’s nowhere to be found.

All Gabby wants is to make everything perfect again. But getting her life back isn’t just difficult, it’s impossible. Because nothing is the same, and Gabby’s beginning to realize she’s missed more than a few danger signs along the way.

It’s time for Gabby to face the truth, even if it means everything changes.

Especially if it means everything changes.

Where It Began
marks Ann Redisch Stampler’s YA debut. She is the author of several picture books, including
The Rooster Prince of Breslov
. Her books have been an Aesop Accolade winner, Sydney Taylor Honor and Notable Books, a National Jewish Book Awards finalist and winner, and Bank Street Best Books of the Year. Ann lives in Los Angeles, California, with her husband, Rick.

Jacket designed by Jessica Handelman
Jacket photograph copyright © 2012 by Getty Images
Author photograph by Sonya Sones

Simon Pulse
SIMON & SCHUSTER, NEW YORK

 

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where it began

 

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 the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

SIMON PULSE
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com

First Simon Pulse hardcover edition March 2012 Copyright © 2012 by Ann Redisch Stampler All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

SIMON PULSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc. The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event.

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Designed by Mike Rosamilia The text of this book was set in Bembo. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Stampler, Ann Redisch. Where it began / by Ann Redisch Stampler. — 1st Simon Pulse hardcover ed.

p. cm.

Summary: After she is in a horrific car crash when drunk, Los Angeles high school student Gabriella Gardiner assumes she stole her rich boyfriend’s car and smashed it into a tree, but she cannot remember anything about the events of the evening.

ISBN 978-1-4424-2321-3 (hardcover)

[1. Traffic accidents—Fiction. 2. Alcoholism—Fiction. 3. Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. 4. Peer pressure—Fiction. 5. High schools—Fiction. 6. Schools—Fiction. 7. Los Angeles (Calif.)—Fiction.] I. Title. PZ7.S78614Wh 2012 [Fic]—dc22 2011011726

ISBN 978-1-4424-2323-7 (eBook)

For Rick and Laura and Michael,
again, still, always

Contents
 

Part One

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIV

Chapter XV

Chapter XVI

Chapter XVII

Chapter XVIII

Part Two

Chapter XIX

Chapter XX

Chapter XXI

Chapter XXII

Chapter XXIII

Chapter XXIV

Chapter XXV

Chapter XXVI

Chapter XXVII

Chapter XXVIII

Chapter XXIX

Chapter XXX

Chapter XXXI

Chapter XXXII

Chapter XXXIII

Chapter XXXIV

Chapter XXXV

Chapter XXXVI

Chapter XXXVII

Chapter XXXVIII

Chapter XXXIX

Chapter XL

Chapter XLI

Chapter XLII

Chapter XLIII

Chapter XLIV

Chapter XLV

Chapter XLVI

Chapter XLVII

Chapter XLVIII

Chapter XLIX

Chapter L

Chapter LI

Chapter LII

Chapter LIII

Part Three

Chapter LIV

Chapter LV

Chapter LVI

Chapter LVII

Chapter LVIII

Chapter LIX

Chapter LX

Chapter LXI

Chapter LXII

Chapter LXIII

Chapter LXIV

Chapter LXV

Chapter LXVI

Chapter LXVII

Chapter LXVIII

Chapter LXIX

Chapter LXX

Chapter LXXI

Chapter LXXII

Chapter LXXIII

Acknowledgments

where it began

 
part one
 
I
 

THIS IS HOW IT STARTS: SOME HAPLESS GIRL IN A
skanky little tank top lying on her back in the wet grass somewhere in Hidden Hills. She is gazing at the stars through the leaves of a eucalyptus tree. The trunk of the eucalyptus tree is wrapped in Billy Nash’s blue BMW. Midnight-blue. The girl is trying to figure out what’s going on, beyond the more obvious facts: a mouth lined with a sick combination of beer and stale vodka, a crunched-up car with black smoke pouring out of it, a night sky filled with glassy constellations and a big white moon.

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