A. Jackson: Come to Me Quietly

I have a few very special people who I would like to thank:

My momma… who always supports me… no matter what.

Katie, because you know I couldn’t do this without you.

Molly, Kristen, and Rebecca for sprinting with me every morning and listening to me whine that you all write way faster than I do.

Kevan Lyon for working with me through a brand-new experience, for your patience in answering all of my questions, and for the advice you give. I’m so thankful for you.

Claire Zion of New American Library for helping Come to Me Quietly become what it is today. Thank you for taking a chance on me.

I would also like to say a special thank-you to Robyn Rosenberg. Robyn participated in a fund-raiser hosted by My Secret Romance for Vicki Rose Stewart, who was undergoing treatment for cancer. Robyn won the opportunity to name a character in one of my books. As you all meet Augustyn Moore in the pages of Come to Me Quietly , know Robyn picked a very special name for her in honor of this awesome fund-raiser.

Dashed lines blur until they become a solid line. My bones vibrate from the thousands of miles I’ve spent straddling this leather seat, the muscles in my right arm screaming from the hours my hand has been locked on the throttle.

But I don’t stop. I can’t, and I don’t know why. Something in my gut spurs me forward. I plow ahead.

Hot air blasts my face and my hair thrashes in uncontrolled chaos.

I bite back a bitter laugh.

Uncontrolled chaos. That’s exactly how they described me.

The desert sky goes on forever, an ocean of the deepest blue. The city rises like a beacon in the distance. Because I am drawn.

What am I doing?

There is nothing here for me. I know it. I’ve already destroyed it all. I destroy everything I touch.

Still I can do nothing but press on.

Aleena

I was propped up on my bed with my sketch pad balanced on my bent knees. Megan was doing her best not to laugh from where she sat cross-legged at the end of my bed, bouncing.

“Hold still,” I commanded, biting my bottom lip as I attempted to get her mouth just right. The shading was difficult, and I wanted it perfect. Megan had the most genuine smile of any person I’d ever met. I refused to mess it up.

“But I have to pee,” she whined. She bounced a little harder. She couldn’t hold it in any longer, and she released this hysterical laugh as she rolled off the edge of my bed. “I’ll be right back.”

With a groan, I tossed my sketch pad to the bed. “You’re such a pain in my ass, Megan,” I called after her as she ran out my door and across the hall to the bathroom. She’d gotten up to pee at least three times in the last hour. The girl could not sit still to save her life.

“That’s why you love me so much,” she yelled back.

The bathroom door slammed behind her, and I picked the pad back up to study it.

Megan’s striking face stared back at me, smiling, her normally long blond hair traced in shades of charcoal, her normally blue eyes wide and black.

She’d been my best friend since she’d moved here from Rhode Island during our sophomore year of high school almost five years ago. I loved drawing her because she was so different than the typical model who offered herself up. She was short, just shy of the five-two mark, wore her curves well, and had a unique face. It was somehow both sweet and curious, this constant expression that made me think of innocence trying to work itself out.

She still lived with her parents in the same neighborhood where I’d grown up, just two streets over from my old house where my parents and younger brother still lived. She hung out here a lot at the apartment that I’d shared with my older brother, Christopher, since I’d graduated from high school two years ago. Christopher and I both went to ASU, and our apartment was near the campus. I was going to school to be a nurse, but God, sometimes I wished I could do something with my art. I knew it was absurd, that there was little chance that anything would come of it. That didn’t mean I didn’t want it.

She was grinning when she came back less than two minutes later.

“Feel better?”

“Oh yeah.” Climbing back onto the bed, she crawled forward to steal a peek.

I hid the pad against my chest.

“Let me see.” She reached out and tried to grab it.

I shook my head and held it closer. “You know the rules.”

“I know, I know.” She sat back. No one ever got to see. No one except for me.

From the floor, Megan’s phone rang in her purse. She leaned over to dig it out. When she rose back up, excitement had transformed her expression. “It’s him,” she mouthed to me as she accepted the call and brought it to her ear. “Hello?”

Turning back to my sketch, I tried not to smile while I listened to her talk to Sam. She’d been chasing that guy for the last month, ever since she’d hung out with him at a party our friend Calista had thrown in May to celebrate the end of last semester. One kiss and she was hooked. I wasn’t so sure he felt the same.

“Yeah… we can come… okay, see you there.”

She dropped her phone to the bed and squealed.

Oh God. Megan didn’t squeal. She was in trouble.

“Sounds like you have a date tonight,” I muttered, my attention trained on the motion of my hand.

“Not me, we,” she countered. “Sam is having a party tonight, and he wants us to come. I can’t believe he actually called,” she said, obviously talking to herself. “Two weeks and no word from him. I was beginning to think he was going to ditch me.”

Beginning to?

So maybe I was a little protective of my best friend.

I hopped off the bed and went to my closet, dug through until I found the little black skirt I’d tucked in the back. I yanked it from the hanger and tossed it to her. “Here… wear this. It’ll look a lot better on you than it does on me. You know it was those legs that tripped Sam up in the first place. I think the guy literally stumbled.” I pointed at her. “And you better make him work for it.”

“Oh, he’s definitely going to have to work for it. You know me better than that.” Megan held up the skirt to inspect it. “This is really cute.” She looked up with a grin. “Maybe you should wear it. You know Gabe’s gonna be there.” The last she said in that singsong voice that she only used because she knew it annoyed the hell out of me.

“Pssh,” I huffed under my breath, and she laughed because she of all people knew Gabe wasn’t really that much of a draw. Gabe was my kind-of boyfriend. By kind of, I meant he was a guy who wouldn’t leave me alone or take no for an answer. But he was unbearably cute and sweet in a boy-next-door kind of way and I didn’t really know how to cut him loose without hurting his feelings.

And he was safe.

She lowered the skirt to her lap. “You should really quit stringing that guy along. It’s kind of sad.” Her tease turned serious, her blue eyes sober as she looked up at me from the bed.

I tossed a pair of shorts to change into on my bed. “I’m not stringing him along, Megan. He’s the one who’s strung himself to me.”