The Rules We Broke

1. Prologue

Prologue

My Aunt Lu had three rules—

Rule One: Your blood must bleed orange and blue.

“War Eagle” is a sacred, oft-spoken phrase.

If you’ve ever lived in Alabama, you know what that means.

There’s an unwritten law in the state of Alabama: you must choose a team.

You are either an Auburn fan or an Alabama fan.

There is no fence sitting or waffling. It’s one or the other, and one must never, ever change sides.

Rule Two: No beauty pageants or crowns. This was a strange rule because Aunt Lu was Miss Alabama and then Miss America.

Luanne Eaton was the fairest creature in all the land back in her day, with her long auburn hair, fair skin, and deep brown eyes.

But you had to know Rule Number Three to understand Rule Number Two.

The third rule was the most important rule, and it superseded all other rules.

Rule Three: No Eaton woman will ever date a Jackson man. From what I could gather, Aunt Lu was once engaged to Isaac Jackson—that is, until she brought home her friend, Elizabeth Lawson, First Runner-Up in the Miss America Pageant. Elizabeth Lawson became Elizabeth Jackson.

Then there was the unspoken rule: One must attend church every Sunday. But that was just because we lived in the South.

The Jackson family had three rules, too. They were as follows: Your blood bleeds crimson. You must date and marry a pageant winner. No exceptions. The more crowns and titles, the better. And most importantly, no Jackson man will ever date an Eaton woman.

In Kaysville, Alabama, everyone knew the rules. You were either a friend of the Eaton family or the Jackson family—there was no intermingling.

We were a town of rules, divided between Eatons and Jacksons, Auburn and Alabama, the left and right side at church. If you were a friend of my family, that meant you sat on the right side of church and you had blue and orange blood.

The only person not required to choose a side was the pastor. To be a pastor at the church in Kaysville, you had to remain undeclared, or half of your congregation would have you ousted. Just ask poor Pastor Giles, who now lived out of state.

Isaac Jackson owned the only bank in town—Kaysville First National—and, depending on who you asked, half the town itself.

My Aunt Lu owned the other half.

She’d married a rich oil tycoon from Texas, a man with a weakness for beauty queens and a fortune to match. When he’d passed, he’d left her everything.

But Aunt Lu inherited more than just money. Maybe inherited isn’t the right word. Either way, she took me in and raised me as her own. She never had children. And before Aunt Lu, I never really had parents.

From the time I could remember, I was taught to eat, live and breathe the three rules.

Don’t get me wrong, living with Aunt Lu was the best. Those were really the only rules she had.

If I wanted chocolate cake for breakfast, I had chocolate cake.

If I wondered what Paris was like, we went to Paris.

We had tea parties on the veranda, pillow fights, and late-night cuddles.

And although I was never allowed to be in a beauty pageant, I was schooled in how to walk, talk, and act like a pageant contestant.

I had piano, dance, voice, and elocution lessons.

Aunt Lu made sure I was bred to be a proper Southern lady, but every day before I walked out the door, I heard the words , “Remember, Ella Lu, you’re more than a beautiful face. ”

I loved Aunt Lu more than anyone, and her favorite thing to say was, “I love you more than air, Ella Lu.”

Because of that, I did my best to follow all the rules.

And even though I didn’t enjoy football, I pretended really well.

I had lots of blue and orange in my closet, and I promised Auburn would be my only school of choice.

Rule number two was easy; being in a beauty pageant never interested me, maybe because I already felt like such a princess at home.

Then there was rule number three, the granddaddy of all the rules, so of course it was the one I was destined to break.

It wasn’t like I set out to break it. I honestly tried my best not to.

The Jackson family had four sons: Beau, Booker, Benjamin, and Brady. They liked B names, apparently. Funny enough, my aunt had B names for their momma and their daddy, but we won’t mention those.

The three older boys had followed all the Jackson rules to a T.

Beau graduated from the University of Alabama and married Miss Georgia; they resided in Macon, where he owned a string of car dealerships.

Booker graduated from med school at the University of Alabama at Birmingham; he became an anesthesiologist in Montgomery, where he lived with his wife, Miss Mobile, who was also the second runner-up in the Miss Alabama pageant.

Benjamin also graduated from the University of Alabama with a degree in economics; he married Miss Teen USA and became an analyst for a financial firm in D.C.

That left the baby, Brady, who was quite a bit younger than all his brothers. Like me, he tried to follow the rules, too.

In a way, we could hardly be blamed that we didn’t.

When you’re told your entire life not to look at or talk to a particular person, it’s kind of hard not to notice them. I felt like I always had to be aware of where he was or what he was doing just so I could make sure to stay away from him.

Our families went so far to keep us from mingling that, during our grade school years, we were never in the same class.

But they couldn’t do anything about lunchrooms, recess, and Sunday School.

So, while we never talked to each other, or had the same friends, I observed him on almost a daily basis, and from what I could tell, he was a nice boy.

As we grew older and entered junior high and high school, our families couldn’t keep us out of the same classes.

So, in seventh grade, we had our first class together—pre-algebra.

The teacher must have been new because she seated us next to each other.

I didn’t say anything to her, because I was curious about this sandy-haired, blue-eyed boy I was taught was the devil’s spawn since I could remember.

Brady didn’t say anything to the teacher, either. In fact, he seemed just as curious about me. We never spoke to each other during that first class. But once in a while, he would smile at me, and I would smile back.

Then ninth grade happened.

Brady and I both ended up in the same P.E.

class. Brady was a star athlete and was already being groomed to play football for his beloved team.

I’d never understood why gym teachers thought it was a great idea for boys and girls to play football together, even if it was only flag football.

One fateful day, a couple of Brady’s buddies got carried away and accidentally knocked me over.

I ended up on the ground with stars in my eyes.

When I could see clearly, the first person I saw was Brady. There he was, with his outstretched hand, waiting for me to take it so he could help me up. I wasn’t sure how to react. It felt like the entire class waited with bated breath to see what we would do.

Everyone knew the rules.

But when he smiled at me with all his Southern boy charm, it did something to me. So, hesitantly I reached for his hand. It was warm and made me feel kind of fuzzy inside. A kind of fuzzy I’d never felt before.

“Thank you,” I murmured as I found my footing.

“You’re welcome, Ellie,” he said with a drawl and a twinkle that lingered in his eyes.

I tilted my head, puzzled. No one had ever called me Ellie.

He just smiled . . . and walked away.

When the teacher handed me an ice pack, I noticed all our classmates appeared to be frozen in place. Eyes wide, mouths gaping open. The rules had been broken in a spectacular way.

With a pounding heart and head, I spent the rest of the class on the bleachers, watching Brady, wondering what had just happened and what the repercussions would be for breaking the rules.

Brady didn’t seem as concerned as I was, judging by the number of times he looked my way and grinned, seemingly more amused than alarmed.

Unfortunately, being the small town Kaysville was, by the time I got home, my Aunt Lu had heard the news, and she was more than alarmed. She again reminded me of rule three. I told her I remembered and not to worry, but I couldn’t help but think about Brady Jackson the rest of the night.

And oddly, or maybe not so oddly, from that day on for the rest of the school year, I seemed to run into him a lot at school. We never talked, but there were lots of knowing looks and smiles.

The last day of freshman year came. It also happened to be my fifteenth birthday. My friends decorated my locker that day and brought me a birthday crown to wear. It was the only time I had ever worn one. I felt ridiculous, but happy and loved.

Then came a moment I will never forget.

As I walked down the hall after school, Brady passed by, and in one smooth motion, I felt a note being pressed discreetly in my hand.

I didn’t stop.

I didn’t look at him.

I kept walking—straight to the nearest bathroom.

Trembling, I went into a stall and quickly opened the note with shaky hands.

Ellie,

Please meet me at the carnival tonight. 7 p.m. behind the funhouse.

Brady

P.S. I like the crown.

I didn’t know what to think. Maybe it was a trick.

My aunt had always said you could never trust a Jackson, but I had watched Brady Jackson for years, and he seemed like such a good boy.

It didn’t hurt that he was all sorts of cute, and for some reason, I kept getting that warm and fuzzy feeling around him.

No boy had ever made me feel that way before. At least, not the way looking at Brady made me feel.

I loved Aunt Lu, and I knew it would break her heart if I met up with Brady Jackson of all people. But I couldn’t stop wondering—Why did Brady Jackson want me to meet him?