What's Left of Us (The Us Series Book 1) Read online

  WHAT’S LEFT OF US

  MICHELE TUCKER

  COPYRIGHT © 2015

  MICHELE TUCKER

  EDITING BY LIZA TICE WWW.SOUTHERNBELLEEDITING.COM

  COVER DESIGN BY CHELSEA BARNES [email protected]

  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.

  PUBLISHED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  FIRST PUBLISHING, 2015

  ISBN 1508607095

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  FOR THOSE WHO ARE HURTING

  AND

  FEEL LIKE THEY'RE SUFFERING ALONE…

  Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart:

  And ye shall find rest unto your souls.

  {Matthew 11:29}

  Prologue

  A SHIVER ran down his spine; the feeling that he was being watched growing more and more insistent almost willing him to turn around. Turning, his eyes immediately found who his body already knew was there. He frowned at the lost expression she wore on her face.

  Anyone else wouldn’t have recognized her as the girl he once knew. She had always been fearless. Even her hair was different. She always wore it straight and usually up. Today it was curled and styled like she had been careful to make it perfect. That wasn’t the biggest change though; it was what she was wearing. Her jeans and hoody were replaced by a dress. She had always been beautiful, but the way she looked tonight made her stand out from the crowd.

  And he wasn’t ready for this. Not yet. Seeing her now, brought so many memories back. He tried hard to push them away, as they brought nothing but pain with them. He didn’t know if he’d ever be ready.

  She smiled. It was awkward, barely there. But even the slightest of her smiles had the power to astound him.

  He ordered his feet, go to her, but he couldn’t move. They stood amongst a throng of people who were completely unaware that his world had been tilted.

  She smiled at him. He was shocked, never thinking he’d see that smile again.

  He loved that smile. He remembered all of her smiles, especially the ones that were for him. He remembered the way she would flip her blonde locks away from her chocolate eyes, the scent of her hair overwhelming his senses. He remembered her voice; it was the only thing that got him through the last year. He remembered her touch, bringing both calmness and storm whenever she was near. That is… until, that day. How could he forget?

  Her love, it was never for him, and neither were her smiles. The memory of that touch scarred his skin, her voice a scream in his ear drums, her lavender scent burned his throat and he didn’t want to be anywhere near her now.

  In the end, he remembered what they became. What the three of them were now. He remembered how he ruined each of them. How could he ever forget?

  Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.

  ~Isaiah 41:10~

  Chapter One

  Asher

  Seven years old

  “HURRY UP, you’ll be late,” my mom yelled at me from the kitchen.

  Barely opening one eye, I glanced at my alarm clock. It read six thirty. “Mom! Please, I only need fifteen minutes to get ready, not an hour and a half,” I yelled back.

  A few minutes later, she was knocking on my door. “Asher Michael Cohen, I don’t care how long it’ll take you to get ready. Get up and get some breakfast in you.” I heard her footsteps headed towards my older brother Sam’s room. “Sam, if you’re not up in five minutes I’m taking away your Nintendo for a month and the same goes for you too, Asher.”

  I quickly got out of my bed and ran to my dresser, grabbing my new jeans and a shirt. Then I ran into the kitchen where my mom made her traditional “first day of school” breakfast: pancakes, scrambled eggs with cheese and hash browns.

  I sat down as she plopped a big plate in front of me. My mother was a firm believer that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and she never let us get up from the table until she was satisfied that we ate enough.

  After I finished eating, I put my new school supplies in my backpack, and gave my mom a quick hug. Sam was just getting to the breakfast table so I said a quick goodbye to him and headed out of the door to Beck’s house.

  As I walked down my driveway, I heard someone talking quietly. I glanced around trying to find who it was, when I noticed a girl on a porch swing. No one else was with her, but she had her head down and she was talking to herself. I could tell she was about my age, with long blonde hair. She was wearing blue jeans and a green short-sleeved shirt. Even from a distance I could tell she looked nervous. She was staring down at her lap, and her gaze would occasionally wander over to the front door, like she was waiting for someone to come outside. I wondered if she was going to be at my school.

  I had seen our new neighbors moving in next-door, but never saw her with them. Suddenly, I was excited at the fact that there was a kid living next door, even if she was a girl.

  I headed towards her house, kicking a few pebbles that had fallen onto the sidewalk from the flowerbed.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” I asked her as I walked up to her walkway. I must have scared her because she screamed and jumped up a little from the swing, almost knocking over her glass of sweet tea that was sitting next to her. I couldn’t hold back the laugh that bubbled out of my throat. She narrowed her eyes at me and walked over my way.

  “What do you think is so funny?” she asked, her voice trembling only slightly but her big brown eyes still piercing mine. I laughed even harder at her attempt to act tough.

  “Sorry—” I started to say as I tried to regain my composure, but failed miserably.

  Before I could register what was happening, she lifted her foot back and connected it with my shin.

  “Still think it’s funny?” she asked me. She was clearly amused with herself because the scowl on her face was replaced by a huge grin, as the sound of her laughter replacing mine. “I’m Calla.”

  “Asher,” I replied still rubbing the sore spot on my leg. “Do you play soccer? Cause if not, I think you should.”

  She shook her head at me. “What were you doing out here?” I asked her.

  “I’m just waiting for my dad to walk me to school,” she said, glancing down the street as if she was looking for someone to pull up.

  “You go to McCall?”

  She nodded.

  Hearing a loud bang coming from my house, I looked up to see Sam coming off the porch towards us.

  “Well, my brother, Sam and I are fixin’ to walk there, you could come with us,” I said.

  When she noticed Sam walking towards us, she shrank back up and started looking down at the ground. He was only two years older than me, but everyone always went on about how much older he looks
. Calla looked back at me and nodded again.

  Then without saying anything else, she turned around and ran inside her house.

  “What’s the hold up?” Sam asked.

  “Waiting for Calla,” I answered him, nodding towards her house.

  “Ooh, does Asher have a girlfriend?” he asked teasingly. When I ignored him, he poked me in my arm.

  I looked at him, and glared a little before he chuckled at me.

  “She’s not my girlfriend. She’s a girl that lives next to us, which I met two seconds ago. I’m just trying to be nice.”

  About two minutes later, she came out the front door with her backpack and a Barbie lunch box. I had to do a double take at the lunch box. The Barbie’s all had mustaches that were drawn on with a Sharpie.

  “Okay, ready,” she said. She noticed me studying her lunch box and laughed a little.

  Sam noticing it now too grabbed it out of her hands and held it closer.

  “Do you have a little brother?” Sam asked. She shook her head. “What happened to this?”

  He held it up giving me a better look at it. The only identifying thing about it remaining was the logo.

  “Payback,” she replied, giving us a little smirk. “My mom insisted on buying it for me and wouldn’t let me get the one I wanted.”

  Sam handed it back to her, and started walking. Calla and I followed behind him. I was trying to think of something to say to her, but kept coming up blank.

  “What grade are you going into?” I asked her.

  “I’m in second, with Miss Curtis. She’s really nice, I met her last week. My last teacher was so old and grumpy. Her idea of game time was to clean the chalkboards.”

  I nodded in response and laughed at her ramble. “Same here, but I have Mr. Jackson. My friend, Beck, is in your class. You’ll meet him in a few minutes.”

  She looked nervous again, both hands tightly gripping her lunchbox. I pointed my finger up ahead. "See the huge white house with green trim? That’s Beck’s house. Come on, we don’t wanna be late.”

  We stopped, and Sam kept walking. Calla and I waited for Beck who was always waking up at the last minute, and chances were he wasn’t even out of bed yet. I grabbed a baseball that had been sitting in his front yard and tossed it just to the right of his second story window. “Beck, come on. We’re waiting!” I yelled when I saw him peeking out of the blinds. He opened the window and looked at us, confusion sketched across his face. He rubbed his eyes with one hand, while his other was trying to smooth his bed-hair down. “I knew you were still asleep!”

  “Hang on,” he yelled back after a moment.

  Five minutes later, he was walking out of the front door with a Pop Tart in one hand and his school binder in the other. I laughed when I saw his hair; his shaggy dark blond hair was sticking straight up on one side. As he walked up to us, he grabbed a baseball cap and put it on his head. As he approached us, his eyes were focused directly on Calla, throwing a couple of questioning glances my way as if to say, “Why’s she standing there with you?”

  “Took ya long enough,” I said.

  “Who’s that?” he asked, pointing his thumb at Calla. “I am not walking with a girl to school.”

  “Shut up, Beck,” I said, annoyed. I smacked his finger away, giving her an apologetic smile. “This is Calla, my new neighbor. And we'll be walking with her, and you’ll be sitting with her in class, too, so be nice.”

  “Calla?” Beck studied her. “That’s a weird name, Cal.”

  “What kind of name is Beck? And, Cal, I like that. Like Cal Ripken, Jr.,” she said, sounding excited.

  “Wait, you know about The Iron Man?” he asked, his eyes widening in shock. “Besides, it’s Beckham, everyone just calls me Beck.”

  She rolled her eyes, “Of course, who doesn’t? Cal Ripken, major league - hall of fame pitcher, spent twenty-one years with the Baltimore Orioles. My dad is a huge baseball fan,” she stated as we just stared in shock at her.

  “Let’s see if she can put her money where her mouth is,” Beck said as he tossed her one of the baseballs from his yard.

  “Beck, we’re gonna be late for school,” I complained.

  Cal caught the ball easily, and Beck squatted down in a catcher’s stance. “On second thought, are you sure you can do this? We don’t want to hurt the little Calla Lily.”

  “Oh please,” she teased a devilish grin on her face. There was no hint of the shy, timid girl that I had met, just a few minutes ago. Beck’s teasing seemed to help ease her a little.

  She tossed the ball up in the air and caught it with no trouble. For a second, I thought she was secretly a baseball prodigy girl.

  “Yeah, I’m really scared. I bet you throw like a girl still,” he taunted.

  She stretched her arm back and threw the ball to Beck; only it didn’t make it there. The ball landed to the left of him and about a foot short. Her cheeks turned beet red, as Beck and I started laughing uncontrollably.

  “Ah, I knew you were too good to be true. Ash, we’re going to have to teach her how to actually throw a ball,” he paused and shook his head, “and actually make it to the plate.”

  ***

  Calla

  Now

  “HEY, ASH.”

  No answer again… but he hadn’t answered for over a year.

  “I’m leaving today.” I sat in the grass and stared at the baseball field. Maybe this was a bad idea, coming here, calling him. I didn’t know what I was doing anymore.

  The morning breeze picked up, blowing the strands of hair that had fallen out of my ponytail into my eyes. A couple of strands stuck to the Chapstick on my lips. Frustrated, I moved them away and re-tied my hair.

  “Man, Ash. I wish you were coming with me. I need you there with me.”

  I wish he was here to look at me and encourage me like he always had before. You can do it, he would say or you are the strongest person I know. But Ash hadn’t said anything. I’m not sure he ever would have anything to say after the things that happened.

  “I’m so sorry. If I could go back, I wouldn’t do that to you and Beck. How can I make this right?” A single tear trickled down my cheek, immediately dried by the warm September breeze. This summer was warmer than any other I remembered, and it looked like it would be like this for a while.

  The phone beeped and the call automatically ended. I turned and headed home without a glance back. I still had a couple of things left to pack, but coming here was a split decision I made at the crack of dawn.

  I was headed to college, the University of Alabama, alone. Of course, it shouldn’t have been that way; the plan was always to go together. I had only applied because Asher forced me to, he didn’t want to leave me behind. And now, I was going without him… or Beck. I had thought about calling Beck a thousand times. Each time I picked up the phone to dial him, I was struck with not knowing what I would even say if he answered?

  Everything felt weird in my life without Asher Cohen and Beckham Westin with me.

  I passed by the park we used to play at when we were kids. It was filled with kids playing on the swings, and sliding down the slides. Not ready to go home yet, I walked over to a park bench and just sat there watching them, remembering the time when everything felt right with the world.

  I would have loved to go back to the time when life was simple, when the biggest decision I had to make was what game to play. If only life could have remained that way, the older we got.

  “If only”. It’s funny how much I’ve come to hate those six little letters this past year. There were so many if only’s in my life that my brain felt like it was working overtime with them.

  If only I had said something.

  If only I had done something.

  If only I had done anything.

  If everything was how it was supposed to be, we would have ridden to college together. Asher, Beck and I, together on our way to college, we would stretch the normally three hour drive to at least double that time, stopping
at every weird restaurant we would pass.

  That was our thing… if there was a dingy, greasy diner that we passed by, the guys always had to stop and eat there. I loved the way they would get so excited about all the new places and food, and surprisingly there were only a few times we had regretted the decision.

  Instead, my parents were giving me a ride to the bus station in Atlanta. They wanted to drive me all the way to Tuscaloosa, but I refused. I needed to do this by myself. The truth was I knew they were worried about me, and I felt bad for putting them through so much this last year.

  My mom pleaded with me to just talk to her, but the anguish in her eyes was what made me decide that I couldn’t. If she knew what really happened, she wouldn’t have been able to look at me the same, much less love me. I could barely look myself in the mirror, hating myself more every day, and I couldn’t stand to see that same look in her eyes if she knew the truth…the whole truth.

  When I wouldn’t open up to my parents or our Pastor, they sent me to talk to a therapist. I went a few times, but stayed clear of any topics that would bring up the guys. It was no one’s business what had happened that morning. So, instead I spent the three-one hour sessions having a stare down with the scrawny woman in the chair across from me. She said I was dealing in my own way.

  Dealing in my own way… as if what I was doing could even be considered dealing. But, this declaration from the therapist seemed to appease my parents, so I let them believe that I was moving on.

  A lie. I wasn’t dealing. I was treading water. A second from drowning actually, barely holding on.

  How do you deal with being the sole cause of lives falling apart?

  I shouldn’t even be going to college. I had no plans to attend the University of Alabama. Money was tight for us and the local community college seemed like the best and only choice for me.

  Ash, though, he saw potential. He saw a person who could achieve so much more, and he pursued a dream I didn’t dare to dream. He made that dream a dream for me too.