Melissa Cruz - Someone To Love

EVERYONE IS LOOKING

Olivia “Liv” Blakely knows how important it is to look good. Her father is running for governor, and Liv will be making public appearances with her family. Liv has an image to uphold—to her maybe boyfriend, to the new friends who suddenly welcome her into their circle and to the public, who love to find fault on social media.

Liv’s sunny, charming facade hides a dark inner voice that will settle for nothing less than perfection. No matter who she has to give up to get there. No matter what she has to lose to do it. Liv is working for the day when what she sees in the mirror is worthy…worthy of confidence. Worthy of success. Worthy of love. But as the high price of perfection takes a toll, placing her body and soul at risk, Liv herself has to realize what she has to live for.

MELISSA DE LA CRUZ’s powerful new novel depicts one teen’s battle with self-doubt and an eating disorder, and shows that the struggle to find someone to love starts with oneself.

Also available from

Melissa de la Cruz and HQ YA

Something in Between

Copyright

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2018

Copyright © Melissa de la Cruz 2018

Melissa de la Cruz asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © January 2018 ISBN: 9781474060646

Version: 2018-01-05

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

part one

one

two

three

four

five

six

seven

eight

nine

ten

eleven

twelve

thirteen

fourteen

fifteen

sixteen

seventeen

eighteen

nineteen

part two

twenty

twenty-one

twenty-two

twenty-three

twenty-four

twenty-five

twenty-six

twenty-seven

twenty-eight

twenty-nine

thirty

thirty-one

thirty-two

thirty-three

thirty-four

thirty-five

thirty-six

part three

thirty-seven

thirty-eight

thirty-nine

forty

forty-one

forty-two

forty-three

forty-four

forty-five

forty-six

author’s Note

acknowledgments

Extract

p a r t o n e

I never paint dreams or nightmares.

I paint my own reality.

—Frida Kahlo

o n e

“It’s not that I’m rebelling. It’s that I’m just

trying to find another way.”

—Edie Sedgwick

The stall door won’t shut all the way.

What the hell kind of bathroom doors does our school have?

The kind with crooked doors that don’t always latch. The kind you don’t want to get caught in. Not with your head above the toilet. Not when you’re kneeling on the floor, puking your guts out. Not with a fifth of vodka—which I desperately need right now.

Shouldn’t the stalls all lock?

Doesn’t matter anyway. I’m done.

I wipe my mouth and take a stick of gum from my purse and unwrap the shiny paper. It makes me think of Andy Warhol’s famous art factory, all wrapped in silvery aluminum foil and pulsing with artists and conversation. I can see Edie Sedgwick’s haunting face. Her platinum pixie. Smoky circles around her eyes. Dangling earrings. That megawatt smile. She may have been one of Andy Warhol’s superstars—those grimy, glamorous muses—but Edie was his angel too. An angel wearing a leotard and fur coat, hiding in the backs of limousines and dingy clubs. Skinny as hell.

I’d rather be in New York. Studying art. Living in my own art factory. Get out of this sunshiny, swimming pool state. I crumple the paper into a ball, toss it into the wastebasket near the door and head for the sinks. I turn on the faucet. Pump soap onto my hands. Scrub. Scrub. Stare at the water slipping down the drain. Don’t look up.

I hate mirrors. Glass is dangerous. Water is dangerous. Windows are dangerous. Anything that reflects myself back at me is a threat. A punishment.

Welcome to my Monday morning. It’s Eastlake Prep’s yearbook photo day. Yeah. That Eastlake Prep—the one with the five-figure tuition and super-fancy alumni. Famous people have gone here, and famous people send their kids here.

It’s the end of September—we’re already a month into school—but I can’t seem to get into the swing of school. And I also can’t show up at photo day with frizzy hair and a pimple on my chin. As much as I hate taking them, I know the power of a class photo. Thirty years from now, when everyone has moved away and no one is following each other on social media anymore, people are going to pull out their yearbook and look at you. That’s what you’ll be to them forever.

Do you want to be the girl with the greasy forehead? Or the bad bangs?

No. I didn’t think so.

The spotless surface reflects my double. I smooth my hands over my long dirty-blond hair and examine my skin, slightly jaundiced under the bathroom’s unflattering fluorescent light. The problem with mirrors is that they show me only what’s already there. It’s I who has to see the potential, who has to see how much more there is to lose. How much smaller I can be. How much closer to perfection.

Speaking of perfection: Zach Park.

He’s gorgeous. Thick dark hair tousled like he’s been lounging on the beach all day. Wide green eyes with teardrop curves that seriously make me want to stop everything and get lost in them for an eternity. I’ve had a low-key crush on him since the end of freshman year when he transferred here from a Korean private school.

I had only one class with him—the last semester of first-year English—but I doubt he remembers me. I mostly drew pictures of other people in the class on my notes to avoid looking at him too much, even though I was always listening to him. He was so well-spoken and mature. So different from the other teenage boys who seemed to be interested only in playing video games or whatever party they were planning for the weekend.

Zach actually liked talking about ideas. Whenever the teacher called on him, he would say something insightful that I’d never thought about before, and I loved when he volunteered to act out scenes from the books the class was discussing, because Zach would bring them to life. It was like whatever character he was playing had stepped off the page into the classroom and was standing in front of you.

Not that I ever really talked to him.

Today’s the day. Maybe.

I just have to pull it together for the camera, in front of all the other junior and senior girls with their immaculate hair and carefully coordinated outfits, in front of Zach and his perfect jawline and forearms. Even thinking about all of them staring at me, wondering who the loser is who wandered into their perfect midst, is enough to make me want to skip school and never come back.