PROLOGUE
Roxie
High school…
The distinct sound of bowling balls cracking against pins reverberated through the entire building, echoing out the door and into the parking lot. We stood by a row of cars while a couple people in our group smoked the last of their cigarettes before going in to claim our lane.
I lived in a small town; most people probably didn’t even know it was on the map. It was surrounded by mountains and had just as many bars as it did churches. The economy here sucked, and it seemed like the general population was aging. The young people could be broken down into two groups:
1) Those who got stuck here and never left
and
2) Those who got out and never came back
The unfortunate people who fell into group one usually worked in jobs they hated for too little pay and grew more bitter as they aged.
I planned on being in group two and getting the hell out of here as soon as I could. Like right after high school. There had to be more out there than this.
I’d worked hard to keep up my grades. I’d kept my nose clean and stayed away from drugs. Two more years and I could bid this town good-bye and start over, hopefully somewhere warmer.
“Can we go in?” I said. “It’s freezing out here.”
January in a tiny town in Maryland was one reason I would never smoke. Who wanted to stand outside in the freezing cold just to get a fix?
“Hey, we’re going in!” Lena yelled out, and we started up the little ramp that led inside. Lena and I had been best friends since middle school when we were randomly sat at the same table. She was outgoing and didn’t seem to mind I wasn’t. We became fast friends, and she introduced me to her circle, who, in turn, became my friends too.
Lena was the pretty one. The one who always got sidelong glances from the guys in the hallway. When a school dance was held, she always had offers, always had a date.
I was sort of invisible beside her.
Okay, people saw me. It wasn’t as if I were a ghost. But I wasn’t really the main attraction. No guy ever looked at me just a little too long because I’d caught his eye. Every guy I’d ever crushed on thought of me like a sister or didn’t even know I existed. I’d never been to a school dance because no one ever asked me.
Yeah, I could go alone.
How pathetic would that be?
I pretended I didn’t want to go. I pretended school dances just weren’t my thing. But they were my thing. And every time the sweetheart dance or homecoming dance would roll around, something inside me would shrink just a little, because no one thought I would make a good date.
I liked to think that I was waiting, that no other guy would matter until the right one came along. That the guy who noticed me first, the one who stared just a little too long… he was the one who mattered. He was the one who deserved my heart.
Besides, falling in love in this town would just make my plan of getting the hell out even harder. I wanted love. I wanted to see that look in someone’s eye; you know, the look where you are their entire world.
But I wanted out of here more.
Inside, the center was packed. If we hadn’t reserved a lane for cyber bowling, we wouldn’t have gotten one. Cyber bowling was one of the town’s only things to do here on the weekend, besides getting drunk and partying at someone’s house whose parents weren’t home.
And we did plenty of that.
But sometimes we wanted to get out. To see and be seen.
Bowling at midnight on a Friday, with nothing but black lights, flashing strobes, and a blaring jukebox, was the way to do it.
Yes. I found it extremely ironic that we went out to see and be seen where they shut off all the lights.
There used to be a club, a teen club, just fifteen minutes up the road. It was the kind of place we couldn’t go to without our male friends, because a group of girls there alone was ripe for the picking. Your ass got grabbed; you got propositioned; you got leered at. One time I got hauled onto the dance floor by some drunk guy (who likely was not a teenager) who locked his arms around me and refused to let go.
I’m pretty sure he wasn’t the guy I’d been waiting for all my life.
Gross.
“You know you want these,” Lena said, handing over a pair of ass-ugly brown loafers that Velcro-ed closed.
“Girl, I am going to rock these,” I quipped and strutted over to our lane.
She laughed and followed along. A couple guys a few lanes away whistled at her.
Lena had long, thick blond hair, curves that probably made her daddy crazy, and a laugh that made you think she had quite a bit of naughty under all that nice.
I had plain brown hair, plain brown eyes, and the only curves I had were from the cell phone in the back pocket of my jeans.
“Did we get two lanes?” I asked, glancing at the one right beside ours. It was empty too.
“Christy invited her boyfriend. He’s bringing his friends,” Lena said, strapping on her ugly shoes.
Christy was another friend of ours. She was dating a senior at the other high school here in this town. I’d seen him around, but never really talked to him. My stomach felt a little funny thinking about a whole lane of guys we didn’t know next to us all night. Not that it mattered. They would all fall over Lena when they saw her.
The rest of our friends filtered in from the cold, and we all stood around laughing and poking fun at each other and our ugly feet. Christy was sitting on her boyfriend’s lap when several guys walked up. Kevin (Christy’s boyfriend) stood and gave them all high-fives and fist-bumps.
I swear cavemen probably did the same thing back in the day when they clubbed their dinner and dragged it home.
I turned away and started entering names into the screens overhead, the one that kept our scores. Bowling started in like five minutes and someone had to do this. After I filled out our lane’s lineup, I switched over to Kevin’s, typing in his name first.
Lena came up beside me, a guy right behind her. “This is Ben,” she said.
I gave him a wave and typed in his name.
“There is also a PJ, Chris, and…” Lena’s voice trailed off as she looked toward the group of guys, trying to see who else was here.
“I don’t know the other guy’s name,” she whispered.
Ben had already wandered off to find a ball.
“He can type it in,” I said, stepping away from the computer.
“It’s Craig,” a low voice whispered in my ear.
His breath feathered over my ear, causing my eyes to droop just a little. Goosebumps raced down my spine and filled my toes, making them tingle.