Prove Me Right

  PROVE ME RIGHT

  ANNA BROOKS

  Prove Me Right

  Copyright © 2015 Anna Brooks

  Published by Anna Brooks

  Cover design by Cover to Cover Designs

  Editing by Editing4Indies

  Formatting by Champagne Formats

  Proofreading by Vivid Words Editing

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form without written permission except for the use of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owner.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Other Books by Anna Brooks

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Not Your Hero excerpt

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Other Books by Anna Brooks

  It’s Kind of Personal Series

  Make Me Forget

  Show Me How

  Not Your Hero

  Dedication

  To my Grandma.

  For everything you have taught me and for being as excited about my books as I am.

  I’m so blessed to have you in my life.

  Chapter 1

  Fourteen years old

  Meara

  “WHAT DO YOU THINK it feels like to be in love?” I ask my cousins.

  Charlotte shakes her head and sticks her tongue out. “I don’t wanna know. Boys are gross.”

  “Oh, come on, Char. You can’t tell me you don’t think there’s a boy in your class who’s cute,” her sister challenges.

  “Well, maybe. But every time I start to think that, they do something stupid like fart or burp. And then all their friends laugh like it’s the funniest thing in the world. They’re gross.”

  Caroline and I laugh because it’s true. Boys are gross, but they’re also cute. And some of them can be nice. Sometimes they’re even sweet.

  “Not all of them are like that, though,” I whisper.

  “Ohh … Meara has a crush on someone,” Char chants.

  Caroline rolls her eyes. “You don’t have crushes at fourteen.”

  “What do you have then?” I ask her.

  “You just like someone. You feel something for them.”

  “How do you know, though? How do you know if you more than just like someone?” I lie on the floor of my treehouse and look at the stars we painted on the ceiling. These stars are what I use to make wishes, and lately, my wishes have all been about one person … one boy.

  “I guess, well, it’s like I was telling Char the other day. You feel kind of dizzy. But you know that if you fall, they’ll be there to catch you.”

  I sit up abruptly and gasp at her words. “Yes! That’s totally it.”

  “Who do you loooove, Meara? Liam?” Charlotte teases me and I glare at her.

  “You’re still too young to understand. I know two years ago I didn’t.” I sigh and think about what it’s like when I see him. “My stomach gets all knotty … in a good way, though. I kind of feel like I’m going upside down on a roller coaster. It’s hard to explain.”

  My aunt interrupts our conversation when she comes out back and yells that it’s time to go. They leave me by myself with thoughts I don’t fully understand.

  Liam is my friend. Our mothers are best friends. He’s my older brother Pierce’s best friend even though there are only a couple of months between Liam and me. I can’t love him. I don’t. Do I? A dry laugh escapes my throat. “Who am I kidding,” I mutter to myself. I’ve loved that boy for years.

  “Are you talking to yourself again?”

  I scream and throw a pillow at him. My heart pounds not because he scared me, but because Liam scares me. What he makes me feel, how he looks at me. The things I think about us doing together. How I want to be around him every second of every day. How when I’m not with him, I’m thinking about him, dreaming about him, or having a fantasy about us together.

  “No.” My throat is raspy, so I clear it and try again. “No. I’m not.”

  “Sounded like it. Nobody’s here and you were talking so …” He raises his eyebrows at me, and I try to remain confident.

  “Maybe your ears are hearing things with all that banging you do. You probably busted your eardrums and don’t even know it.” Oh God, did I just say that? I hope the embarrassment I feel for saying something so stupid doesn’t show on my face.

  “Hey, those drums are the only things that make me … I mean, they’re gonna make me rich one day … just watch.”

  I lie back down and he settles next to me. Our arms brush against each other. This isn’t unusual. We hang out a lot. It’s not the first time we’ve been alone in the treehouse.

  I know I’m too old to hang out in here, but I’ve changed the decorations and it’s so cool. Not immature at all. Lots of bright pink and black.

  My heart starts to beat against my chest so loud I’m surprised he can’t hear it. His fingertips rub against mine, and I pull my hand away, resting it on my stomach while the other one clenches in a fist I hope he can’t see. He turns on his side, but I continue staring at the ceiling. I can see out of the corner of my eye that he’s watching me. I can feel his gaze on my face.

  “Meara?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Look at me.”

  I turn my head and he smiles, the left side of his lip rising just a tad higher than the right.

  “Why are you so scared?”

  “I’m not.” Even I don’t believe myself. My voice is small and shaky, and my hands tremble.

  He grabs the hand that’s resting on my stomach, and this time, I let him. I don’t know why I’m doing this and what these feelings really mean. It’s one thing to think them, but another for the one person who causes them to actually question me about them. My eyes burn and I try to blink the wetness back so he can’t see how terrified he makes me. I’ve never reacted like this around him, and he’s not stupid. He knows something is going on.

  “What’s the matter? Why are you scared of me all the sudden?”

  “I’m not.” The words barely come out because I’m afraid if I talk, I’ll start to cry. God, why do I want to cry?

  “You know I’d never hurt you, right?”

  I nod and the movement causes a tear to roll down my cheek.

  His eyes follow it and his eyebrows scrunch together. “You’re scaring me a little here, Meara. Did something happen?”

  “No.”

  “Then what’s wrong?” />
  “I think I’m in love with you.” I blurt out the words and shudder that I just said that out loud. I try to back away from him, but he squeezes my hand and his perfectly straight teeth mock me when his smile widens. “Don’t laugh at me.”

  “I’d never laugh at you, princess. I’m happy you finally realized it.”

  “You … what?”

  “I said”—he scoots closer to me; he releases my hand to use his fingers to brush some hair off my forehead—“I’m happy you finally realized it.”

  “Realized what?”

  “That you love me.”

  My defenses rise. “I said I think, not that I do.”

  “Yes, you do,” he answers without thought. Doesn’t even question it. “And ya know what?” I open my mouth to answer, but words die on my tongue when his lips brush against mine. He pulls back far enough to look into my eyes, and then closes his as he kisses me again.

  Dreams really do come true.

  His mouth is soft against mine, and his tongue slides over my lips. I gasp at the new but surprisingly sensual feeling and he opens his eyes. “Relax,” he whispers. His thumb rubs against my cheekbone and I nod, quickly. He smirks, but this time, I part my lips enough for him to slide his tongue all the way in.

  The kiss gets a little faster and I reach up to run my hand through his hair. When I thought about doing this with him, my nerves always surfaced, but there’s not an ounce of fear in me right now. This, us kissing, feels right. It feels perfect.

  I slide my tongue against his and the butterflies in my stomach turn into something else, something more powerful ... the fluttering soars up to my heart, and with each beat, I fall more in love with him. He gently kisses my bottom lip, then pulls back and kisses my nose, then rests his forehead on mine.

  “You never answered my question.”

  “What was it again?” My breath is coming out in uneven pants, and even though I can’t see it, I can feel the flush.

  “I said do you know what?”

  “No. What?”

  “I love you, too.”

  “No, you don’t.” I cringe and he laughs. Why do I keep saying stupid stuff?

  “Yes, I do. Why do you think I come over so much?”

  “To hang out with Pierce?”

  “No. To be in the same space as you.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’m glad this happened now. I didn’t want to have to go to high school not being your boyfriend.”

  “You’re my boyfriend now?”

  His eyebrows draw closer together and he tilts his head. “Well, yeah. Unless you don’t want me to be. But you just told me you loved me, so …”

  “This is so embarrassing.” I stand up and look out the little window, desperate for a distraction. I can’t believe this is happening.

  He wraps his arms around my waist from behind me and rests his chin on my shoulder. It shocks me how different this embrace is from the hundreds of other times he’s wrapped an arm around my shoulder or given me a hug.

  “I swear I knew I loved you before I even understood what it meant. Sometimes, when I’m around you, my stomach hurts but in a good way. It’s hard to explain.”

  I laugh, really laugh, and turn in his arms. “I said the exact same thing to Charlotte and Caroline before you got here.”

  “Well, if we both feel sick when we look at each other, then it can only be love, right?”

  “Right.”

  I turn back around and he kisses my cheek. “Promise me something, though.”

  “What?”

  “You’ll always remember this moment. No matter what happens, you’ll remember how this feels. Because I know I’ll never forget.”

  I lace my fingers with his and lean my head back on his chest. “I promise.”

  And this is the moment I know I’m in love with Liam Anders.

  Liam

  Her head on my chest should be heavy. I should be nervous or worried that the girl I’m in love with, the girl I’ve been in love with forever, finally knows how I feel. And she’s finally admitted that she feels the same. But I’m anything but scared. I feel nothing but peace. A calm in the storm that is my life behind closed doors.

  She knows me better than anyone does, even better than her brother, Pierce, does. He’s my best friend, but she’s my … everything. It’s hard to explain how I can feel like this about someone. If I bring it up to one of my friends, they just laugh and make a joke about getting boners.

  “So, what happens now?” Her voice holds uncertainty, and I turn her so she can really see me.

  “Nothing changes, Meara. You’re you and I’m me. We’re just together now. I mean shit, we’re practically together all the time now as it is.”

  “Yeah, but do you think people—”

  “I don’t give a crap what anybody thinks. Nobody. Do you hear me?” I have to remember that even she doesn’t know what I come from. She has no idea, and part of me hates that I feel like I’m lying to her, but the other part vows to never show her what I could become.

  Her eyes widen at my sudden anger and she nods. “Yeah.”

  “Good.”

  “What do you think Pierce is going to say?” She takes a huge breath and puts a hand to her throat. “Or Declan. Our mothers! My dad. Oh, my God, Lee. What are they going to say?”

  I chuckle and then kiss her on the nose. “They’ll be fine. They’re not stupid. Trust me, I’ve been punched more than once from your brothers for checking out your ass.”

  “You have not.” Her surprise makes her little nose scrunch up.

  “Meara, you’re beautiful. And even though you’re a tiny thing, you look older than you are. So yeah, I have. But I’d take a jab to the gut any day just to see your face.”

  She rolls her eyes and punches me playfully in the stomach. “Stop.”

  “What?”

  “Being so … so, romantic. I’m not used to it.”

  “I’m just telling you how I feel. If that’s romantic, then you better get used to it.”

  She quickly kisses me and jumps up and down a couple of times while clapping her hands. “I can totally get used to it.”

  Chapter 2

  Eighteen Years Old

  Liam

  “DAD? YOU HOME?” I shout as I push the front door open. The TV plays a baseball game in the background, but what catches my eye is the array of pure shit lying around. Nothing I’m not used to seeing, but his living conditions still make me nauseated. I never once wished that my parents got back together when they divorced when I was a baby. My mom definitely made the right decision. “Hello? Dad?”

  A walk around his house confirms he’s not here, so I clean up the cans and empty the ashtrays. One swipe of my arm and the entire week’s worth of stale food lands in the bag as well. Once I get back from taking that to the overflowing trashcan outside, I wash the few dirty dishes in the sink. Just as I’m putting them away, he stumbles in with a woman and I grit my teeth.

  This, right here, right now, makes me question why I even bother. Why I force myself to visit him. What’s the point of trying to have a relationship with someone—blood or not—when they’re so high they don’t even remember you coming over.

  “Hey, kiddo.” His words slur and he sways. The woman, frail and clearly strung out, tries to steady him, but they fall and end up laughing uncontrollably on the floor.

  I throw the rag on the counter and step over him. “Just wanted to make sure you were still alive. I’m leaving in a week, so I thought we could hang out. But I can see you’re busy. I’ll come back.”

  My feet can’t get me out of there fast enough, and when I finally get to my car, I exhale a gigantic breath and rest my head on the steering wheel. That is what I don’t want to become. A drugged-out loser who can’t even take care of himself. A lonely man who threw his entire life away because of a stupid ass weak addiction.

  I’m glad my mom got rid of him when she did. Best decision she ever made. But I’m left with the wake
of his destructive behaviors because he has nobody else. No family, no true friends … not even a damn job.

  My biggest fear in life is becoming like him. Meara’s only met him a few times because I’m embarrassed for her to see this part of my life. She’s never seen me clean up his puke or carry him to bed. I don’t want her to know how many times I’ve dumped out bottles of vodka and filled them with water or thrown drugs and needles into the trash.

  This part of my life won’t touch her. She’s too good—too clean and pure and beautiful to deal with this shit. Instead of lying, because I swore I never would lie to her, I just avoid the subject. She thinks he’s just a crap dad. If she knew the truth, she’d never look at me the same. Who would want to be with someone who comes from… that?

  The past four years have been awesome. We’ve just been having so much fun and the fact that I get to say she’s mine—there are not even words. And sex. Yeah… it’s so much more than everyone else says. Everything with her is so much more.

  I pull up to a parking spot and grab the necklace I bought for her out of the glove box. It’s her graduation party tonight and only a week until I leave.

  My friends from school, Mike and Gabe, and my stepbrother, Jamie, make up our band Reason to Ruin. Meara always gave me crap for banging on things, but we’re going to see if all that noise will pay off. When I talked to her about us going on the road to try to pick up some gigs, she didn’t hesitate to encourage me. I’m going to miss her. Just her. Everything about her. But it’s a dream of the band, so we’ll try it for a year and see what happens.

  There’s a bonfire on the beach and a bunch of people from school running around like idiots. I spot her right away talking to one of her friends, and she waves at me. I angle my head at the logs around the fire, and she nods in acknowledgment.

  “Hey, man. How’s it goin’?” Mike bumps my shoulder as I sit.

  “Good.”

  “One week, dude. I’m so fucking stoked!”

  “Yeah.” I stretch my legs out and watch the flames fight with each other.

  “Krissy just gave me the eye. I’m out.”

  I laugh at him and try to avoid conversation with anyone else. Visiting my dad always winds me a little tight. The flames flicker and the blue blends with the orange. Red and yellow twirl around until they reach the top and a spark flies off.