The Lucky One

Chapter 1

Short Fuse

Emily

Three months before...

Ipulled off my sweaty shirt and stuffed it into my backpack. No point in folding it when it would get washed anyway. Then I got his black sweatshirt out of my gym locker and slipped into it.

After what everyone referred to as the incidents, my schedule had been adjusted to include more mental health-focused classes. That meant Strength Training, plus counseling sessions every other day. My school in Germany didn’t care if I switched classes in the middle of the year—or that one of them was therapy. I would have to repeat the year anyway when I went back.

Going back...

The thought of it made my skin shiver. I closed my eyes, focusing on the skittering beat of my heart. Slow and controlled breathing, Emily. You still have time. June 16 is over three months away.

I scooped up my Converse and sat on the bench to put them on. I was the only one left in the locker room. My muscles were shaky, exhausted from today’s leg workout. Strength training was something my body was still adapting to. The soreness in my muscles and the burning in my lungs, I didn’t like it... but it wasn’t like I had a choice.

Eyes on the ground, I walked out of the gym the same way I had entered it on my first day a few weeks ago. People stared at me openly, knowing what I had done. I didn’t bother putting on a friendly face anymore. I didn’t need fakenice-to-meet-yousor promises to hang out. The only person I wanted to see was him—and I hadn’t seen him for over two months now.

Without him, the excitement vanished. Days fell into routines, and at night I lay sleepless with growing worry about what lay ahead—a feeling I had once fled from now caught up with me again.

I slipped on the wet asphalt, and just in time, broad hands grabbed me by the shoulders.

“Woah, watch where you step, German, or you’ll bang your head.”

Aiden: the only person I knew in Strength Training class. The sun blazed behind him as he grinned at me. The perfect sunny boy.

“Thanks.”

I smiled against the knot in my stomach. Aiden was one of the few people who didn’t treat me differently after finding out that I broke up with Paul for Jon. All the out-of-character things I had done—breaking down, high on drugs; going to jail. And now Jon was exiled in rehab in exchange for getting me out of there.

Students were smoking in a corner between a couple of dumpsters, passing each other small plastic bags. I could walk over there, make a quick purchase, fall into clouds of denial.

I clenched my teeth. I would not allow that stupid idea to take hold.

“I was heading in too, cari?o.” Aiden offered me his arms to scoop into.

I looked at him sideways. Despite his goofy character, Aiden was a good catch. All the girls in Strength Training made sure he noticed their trained booties and their boobs pressed into way-too-tight sport shirts.

His smile faded. “Emily, I’m not flirting with you.”

“I know.” I cleared my throat. My paranoid brain was making me think he wanted to fool around with the naive little German exchange student too. My gaze drifted back to the corner where smoke swirled in the air from the joints. How come no teacher was stopping this?

Suddenly Aiden’s arm was around my shoulders, gently pushing me forward.

“Let’s get you away from this,” he said, pulling my eyes from the dark place I both hungered for yet never wanted to experience again.

I followed him into the school building. Hungry eyes awaited me like they had nothing better to do than stare me down. The murmurs were already picking up speed. “Look at her with someone else again. How desperate,” said a girl I had never seen before.

I quickly broke free of Aiden’s arm. The last thing I needed was another rumor added to the many truths whispered about me in the hallways. Apparently I had slept with six guys—three of them I didn’t even know, one a casual acquaintance, and the other two being the only boys I’d ever loved—only one of whom I actually had sex with. Walking arm in arm with tall, tan, cover-magazine-pretty Aiden would probably bring me up to the count of seven. Great.

“You shouldn’t be talking to me,” I mumbled.

Aiden glared at the girl, who immediately looked away. “I don’t care what they think,” he told me. “You’re part of the Fam.”

“Am I?” I scoffed. I hadn’t hung out with our friend group in ages.

“German...” Aiden turned oddly serious. “I wasn’t there for what happened, and considering what I heard, I assume it wasn’t easy. Who am I to judge if I don’t know the whole story?”

“Other people don’t care about that.”

“Screw what other people think, cari?o.”

“Okay,” I said.

But it was easier said than done. I knew I should be thankful for Aiden, but that was what I did now: expect the worst. Even though Jon hadn’t slept with me to win a bet, those few hours that I believed he did made me doubt everyone’s intentions... even my own.

We continued to walk down the hall for a bit. I froze in my steps when I caught a glimpse of Paul. He was smiling at everyone passing his way, shaking hands, being his usual charismatic self. The golden boy. The boyfriend material. And since last month, once again part of the much-admired football team.

“Emily?” Aiden waved his hand in front of me.

“Huh?” I darted behind him so Paul wouldn’t spot me.

“I asked if you want to come to a basketball game tonight. It’s been a while since the Fam got together, and I was thinking—”

“Will Paul be there?” I carefully peeked over his shoulder.

“Um, yeah, he—”

“Sorry, I need to go this way,” I said. Paul was walking up to us. I backed away, holding onto my bag like a life jacket. “Have fun at the game, but... I’m busy.” Faking a quick smile, I darted for Culinary Arts. It was still my favorite class, but even going there left a bitter flavor on my tongue these days.

When I reached the lockers Danielle waved and smiled at me. “Hi, girl,” she said, hands fluttering.

“Hi.” I put down my bag. The temperature dropped with the person standing behind her. Breana slammed her locker door and shot me an angry look before rushing off.

Another reason why I didn’t want to hang out with the Fam. Everyone hated my guts.

I sighed and opened my locker. Well, everyone except for Danielle and Aiden maybe. But Danielle would bring Timo, and Aiden would be surrounded by a bunch of girls. No, I wouldn’t go and just sit there all alone.

“How much longer are you two gonna be like that to each other?” Danielle asked, securing her chef’s hat in place. She inspected her eyeliner in a strategically glued mirror in her locker and tugged out a strand of hair to fall loosely around her face. Chef Sayle had reminded her multiple times to tuck all her hair under her chef’s hat but she pretended not to notice, and by now he had given up.

“I’m not the one ignoring her. You know that.” I grabbed my Culinary uniform out of my locker and started putting on my pants and jacket. They were a bit stained from the pasta sauce we’d made last week.

“I know, but if you tried to talk to her again, we both know she would give in.”

I closed my locker with the flat of my hand and turned to face her. “She’s pissed at me for what I did to Paul. She’s aware of the details and she decided not to be my friend anymore. End of story.” I glared at Danielle. My patience was so thin, the slightest spark could set off a fire.

“She’s going through a tough time because of what happened with Leni,” Danielle said.

“It’s not my fault he cheated.” I huffed out a breath and raked my hair up for a ponytail. “And I’m tired of her thinking what I did was the same. Paul and I were on a break! Plus, Jon wasn’t some stranger I met downtown. Jon was—”

The hair tie ripped and flew across the hall. “Crap!” I turned to my locker and closed my eyes to take a slow, controlled breath. Something I found myself doing more often than I’d like to admit. When I turned around again, Danielle passed me another hair tie from her locker.

“I know you don’t think that Jon cares about me but he does,” I told her. “What we have is real.” This time the ponytail held. It was messy and greasy but I didn’t care.

“Oh, Emi...” Danielle thrust her hands into the pockets of her cooking pants. “I just... I don’t want you to get involved with the wrong people again.”

“He’s in rehab, Danielle. He won’t be hanging out with Marna and them ever again.”

I pushed back the shame crawling up my throat. I’d been at Marna’s myself when the cravings got so bad I nearly caved. Luckily no one was there and the back door was locked.

“If he stays sober.” Danielle pinched her lips.

I slammed my locker door closed. “He will.”

“For now. But staying sober is a lifelong commitment. You can’t be naive about this and believe all the stories he tells you.”

Stories.That’s what everyone thought—that I was a naive little girl, not seeing that I got led on by the fake narrative Jon served me. But they were wrong. I was the player, not the played.

“Anyway.” Danielle closed her locker and threw me a sly smile. “Prom is only two months away! We should get started on our vision board. I have so many ideas for your hair. It got so long again. I can cut it if you like but it’s healthy enough, and...”

All the way to class she kept talking about how long she’d been waiting for prom, but my mind was stuck on its own track. Were Jon and I even dating? Would he take me to prom? And what would happen with us after my exchange year was over in June?

A stupid shred of skin on my finger had been bothering me since first period. I bit the side of my nail to get rid of it.

“Emily? Why aren’t you saying anything?” My counselor Caroline rested her notepad on her lap and leaned forward in her chair.

“Sorry, what did you say?” I shoved my hands under my thighs to stop myself from picking at my skin again.

The room was plain except for a well-tended plant and an abstract painting with randomly speckled colors. Depending on my mood, I either liked the painting or found it repulsive. Today I was leaning toward the latter.

“You seem a little distracted. Did something happen?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary.”

I hadn’t complained when Gena and Henry set up these meetings at school. I wanted nothing more than to feel fine again. For him—for us.

And I wanted to repair the trust I had broken with Paul’s parents by sneaking out when I was grounded and going to a house party in the middle of the woods. The hours of torture they must have endured, thinking something had happened to me...

I thought if I stayed home, got a job and attended these meetings, I could heal the damage. But trust doesn’t work like that. Once broken, there will forever be this little shard burrowing in your brain, stabbing daily reminders at you. It was in the way Gena questioned me about every detail of my day. The way I woke from nightmares about Jon rejecting me after all.

“Are you sure?” Caroline asked, and I had to keep from rolling my eyes. Conversations with her were a minefield of truths. Despite my attempts to hide my feelings, she had this uncanny knack for picking up on everything. By now she knew about eighty-eight percent of what had happened, yet she didn’t look at me differently. Probably because of that twelve percent I hadn’t told her yet.

“You said time would help, but I don’t feel any better.” I shifted on the spot, pulling out my hands from under my legs. Why did the artist think it was a good idea to blend red and pink? The sharpness of the red clashed painfully with the delicate softness of the pink, almost swallowing it.

“It’s only been two months, Emily. What happened to you was traumatic. Don’t be harsh on yourself, okay?”

“I know.” I sighed. That was what everyone told me. But it’s hard to go easy on yourself when there’s so much guilt in your heart and you don’t know how to fix it.

I knew who could, though. He could fix anything broken in my heart. And it was only a matter of days until I would finally see him again. My legs wiggled impatiently in my chair.

“You looked excited for a moment there. What are you thinking about?” Caroline asked.

I was thinking how Jon would laugh at your nullachtfünfzehn (a German saying for totally generic) advice. But there was no way I would tell her that.

“Jon’s coming home in a few days.”

Now it was Caroline sighing. “Right, but be prepared for it not to go how you imagine, okay? You don’t know how Jon is doing or how he feels now that he’s sober. It could be a lot for him.”

I bit down on my lip. “We’ve discussed this already.” The spark was on the edge of igniting again. As if I couldn’t empathize with how challenging it must be for him to recover. Well, I could—because I’d been there myself.

But... I had tasted only a spoonful of what he’d consumed for years. I was terrified of how much he could struggle after years of using. I let go of my lip, and a bloody taste spread in my mouth.

“Emily, it’s my job to prepare you emotionally for anything. You can’t control someone else’s progress. While things may improve, I don’t want you to hinge your entire happiness on him. He doesn’t deserve that burden, and neither do you.”

“Be happy without him... I know.” I was tired of always hearing that from her. Glancing at the clock, I saw the hour was up, so I rose from my seat.

“We’ll pick up that topic on Monday.” Caroline jotted something on her notepad. The topics to pick up were by now a mountain so high, we’d need a week straight of talking to get through them all. But who cared?Jon was coming home this weekend. Everything was going to be fine.

“Oh, and Emily?” Caroline said as I was about to step through the door. I turned and met her concerned gaze. “Be careful this weekend, okay?”

I gave her a reassuring smile. “There’s nothing to worry about.” With those words, I left the room, my mind already on the task at hand.

Outside, the mild end of winter air greeted me. I leaned against a sturdy brick wall, Jon’s little black book clutched tight in my hand. I had the evidence I needed to not give up on hope. That’s why he’d made sure to give it to me, squeezing it along with his letter through the jail bars.

I flipped to the last entry and silently mouthed the words Jon had scribbled.

We will be fine... I promise.