Chapter
One
Walking down the
pier, in southern California, Kaitlyn took in the sunset. It had been a long
year. Her parents divorced, her older brother was on his second tour of duty,
and her boyfriend of thirteen months broke up with her for her supposed best
friend. Leaning against the railing, she looked out at the deserted ocean,
taking in the purple and pink hues. She loved the beach more than anything; it
always seemed to calm her. She sat down, dangling her feet off the side of the
pier, letting the wind blow her hair back as she took in a deep breath of fresh
salty air. She needed some alone time. She was about ready to have a meltdown
and there was no better place she could think of than the pier.
Kaitlyn came home earlier this week, to
find her dad waiting for her in the living room. He told her to sit down the
minute she walked in the house. She automatically thought of her brother. She
wasn’t sure if she wanted to hear what he was about to say. She sat in
anticipation for the bad news. And bad news is what she got.
“Eve and I are going to be getting married
in a month and she is pregnant.” Kaitlyn didn’t mean to walk out of the room
speechless, but she had absolutely no idea what she was supposed to say to him.
She still didn’t understand how it all had
happened. Her parents never seemed to be having problems, or at least none that
she knew of. She could only recall them fighting three times and all three
times were about which new countertops they wanted to put in. Her parents had
gone on a cruise at the end of last summer. When they got home, they sat her
and her brother, Justin, down telling them they were getting a divorce. Kaitlyn
and Justin sat there looking at them, waiting for them to say they were
kidding. When her mother finally let her first tear run down her face, they
knew it wasn’t coming.
It was the first time in two years that
Justin had been home. Welcome home
she thought as she looked at her brothers stunned face. Justin didn’t say
anything as he stood up, kissed her on top of the head and walked out of the
house. He went back and signed up for another two year tour. He still wouldn’t
talk about it or talk to their dad. She wasn’t sure how he would handle hearing
that their dad was getting married and
was going to have another baby.
Looking out at the endless ocean she
thought back of this last year and couldn’t believe how much had changed. She
was supposed to go out with her friends tonight but she couldn’t handle the
thought of having to see Nick and Courtney all over each other. It had only
been two weeks since he broke up with her and the wound was still fresh. She
just wanted to be by herself.
Her grandpa used to take her to this
spot when she was younger. They would build sandcastles next to the pier, ride
their bikes up and down the boardwalk, and get ice cream at the little shop on
the corner. He always seemed to know when she needed it the most, and today was
definitely one of those days. But she would have to do it alone. Her grandpa
died five years ago. She found herself out here a lot since then. Something
about the smell and the way the waves rolled under the pier always made her
grandpa come back alive in her heart.
She wondered if her grandpa would be
happy with whom she was right now. She had worked so hard this last school year
to make sure she got into the school of her dreams. She wanted to get into
Berkeley next year, to follow in his footsteps. She had taken all of the
required classes, and more, to make sure she would get in. Her plan, including
Nick’s and ironically Courtney’s, was for them all to take easy classes their
senior year, so they could just have fun. But somewhere along the line, she had
gotten left out of their plans. Thinking about Courtney made Kaitlyn feel sick.
Standing up, Kaitlyn pushed her
tears away as she started making her way off the pier.
The sun had finally set making it
hard to see more than five feet in front of her. The dim lights that lit the
pier were on, and all she could see around her were couples walking up and down
the long wooden planks. A couple sat down next to her and watched the sun set
and now were gazing into each others eyes, oblivious to anyone around them. As
much as she wanted to be happy for them, she couldn’t. She was annoyed. She was
still glad that she had made a point to come out here before all the tourists
started showing up. Within a week, the pier couldn’t be her sanctuary anymore.
It would be a circus of little kids running and parents yelling after them. She
hated when everyone would come here. They didn’t understand or enjoy the beauty
and the calming affects the pier had.
She was at the end of the pier when a
couple caught her eye. They looked up at her smiling. She smiled back at the
couple, who had to be in their early sixties, and felt something stir inside
her. Her parents were never going to be like that. She kept walking, thinking
about the older couple as she was looking over her shoulder at them. She felt
sorry for her mom. All she had wanted was to be loved by the same man for the
rest of her life. It wasn’t going to happen.
She rounded the corner, feeling the warm
sand inbetween her toes when she ran into something, or someone. She gasped as
two strong hands grabbed her, catching her before she fell.
“I’m so sorry.” She said trying to
steady herself.
“It’s alright. Are… are you okay?”
She looked up to see who she ran
into. She couldn’t look away. His piercing blue eyes were sparkling in the dim
light. The guy was tall, tan, muscular, and gorgeous. His light brown hair was
long, but it didn’t reach his eyes yet. He was smiling at her, showing off his
dimples. She felt her breath catch before she was able to speak.
“Yeah,” she said biting her lower
lip, trying to hide her blush. “Sorry about that,” she said feeling
mesmerized.
“You should be,” came a very pompous
voice. Kaitlyn turned her attention from the guy and saw that he wasn’t alone. Why would he be? She thought to herself.
The girl he was with had bleach blond hair, amazing high cheek bones and the
body of a swimsuit model. She was perfect and perfect for him. She was
everything Kaitlyn wasn’t. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she turned her
attention back over to the guy. He still had a hold of her and her arms were
tingling from his touch. She took a quick side step, stepping away from him,
making sure to keep her eyes cast down so he couldn’t see the disappointment in
them.
“Like I said, sorry.” She walked away
making herself stare forward. She knew if she turned around, she would only be
more disappointed. She knew he wasn’t watching her walk away. If anything, she
bet his hands were all over the beautiful blond he was with. Besides, the last
thing she needed to do right now was worry about what some guy, whom she would
never see again, was thinking about her.
She slummed through the deep sand making
the long trek back to her car. But it didn’t matter how much she tried to get
him out of her head, she couldn’t. Those eyes were so blue, almost cobalt blue.
They were beautiful and those dimples. She’d always had a thing for guys with
dimples. She wished she could have at least known his name, if she only would
have asked. But what does it matter?
Didn’t you see the girl he was with? She said to herself. Her stomach
turned as she remembered the girl, she reminded her of Courtney. She was never
going to be good enough for anyone, at least not on the outside.
By the time she made it to her car, she was
pissed. She threw her shoes into the car then slammed the door. She cranked the
car on but didn’t go anywhere. She couldn’t. The tears she had been holding
back were now blocking her from seeing. She put her head on her hands as they
clutched the steering wheel and cried. “I’m not good enough for anyone. Not
even my own dad.” She sobbed as she finally let her full emotions come
forward.
The next morning,
Kaitlyn woke to her alarm going off at six. She smacked it with a grunt,
cussing at herself. She forgot to turn it off before she went to bed. It was
summer vacation. She didn’t have to be up yet. She turned her alarm off and
rolled over, putting her pillow over her head. She closed her eyes ready to go
back to sleep, but all she saw was the blue eyed guy from the beach. She smiled
to herself as she tried to remember everything about him. She knew it was
stupid, but she didn’t care. She imagined his bluer than blue eyes, the way his
hair swooped over to the side so it wasn’t in his face, his dimples - oh his
dimples! She smiled to herself as she clutched her pillow. She couldn’t help
but replay the way he was smiling down at her and the way his hands felt as he
held her up. He was looking at her like he was interested but she also could
only be imagining it. She was lost in her own little dream, when she heard
someone knock on her door.
“Kaitlyn…are you awake?”
“You have
to be kidding me.” She whispered to herself as the door opened. She sat up
looking at her soon to be step-mom walk in. Eve was the same age as her brother
Justin. She has bleach blond hair, a tan you could tell was fake, she wore too
much make-up, and her clothes were meant to be on a preteen. Kaitlyn found out,
she was the reason her parents got a divorce. Eve worked at the dealership
Kaitlyn’s dad owned and within weeks of them separating, she was already living
with him. It made Kaitlyn sick that she had to stay here for the summer. “Yes
I’m awake.” She finally said dumbfounded as to why she was in her room.
“Good, I thought I heard your alarm go off.”
She said wrapping her cream colored satin mini robe around her. “I was
thinking…that today would be a good day for us to go shopping. I still need to
get a wedding dress and I thought…that maybe we could bond or something.”
“Yeah?” She asked in disbelief. That was
going to be the last thing she was going to do. There was no way she was going
to go shopping with the enemy. How would her mother feel about that? She
cringed thinking about her mom. How was she going to handle the news of her dad
having another baby? She pushed the thought aside as Eve sat down next to her
on the bed.
“Yeah, it would just mean so much to me
since I’m going to be your new mom.”
“What?” Kaitlyn couldn’t believe she
was really hearing this. “No, I have a mom and I…I have to work, I can’t.” She
said getting up and walking out of the room. She stormed down the gaudy hallway
that Eve had decorated, brushing past the yapping ankle biter and took the
spiral stairs two steps at a time. The pain rising in her chest was enough to
send anyone to the hospital. She had to get away from Eve. She couldn’t go with
Eve to pick out a wedding dress and Eve wasn’t going to become her new mother.
She had a mother, a perfectly fine one.
By the time she got into the
kitchen, she flung open the refrigerator feeling the steam coming off of her
face as the cold air hit her. Why did this have to be happening? What happened
to her dad that made him think their family wasn’t good enough anymore? She
didn’t want anything to do with this new family. She wanted her old family back
together. She wanted her brother back home and safe, her parents in the other
room sitting at the breakfast table, reading the newspaper while they played
footsy under the table. But most of all, she wanted to see her grandpa, coming
in from the guest house out back to get his morning coffee. He would know how
to handle this situation. He would know
how to comfort her, but just like the nonexistent guesthouse at her dad’s, he
wasn’t here.
She poured herself a glass of orange
juice with shaky hands, drinking it in one gulp. She put the glass in the
dishwasher then picked up the sponge and started scrubbing the sparkling clean
counters. She waited until she knew Eve was no longer in her bedroom before she
ran back up the stairs. She had to get out of there. She quickly threw on some
running clothes, strapped her iPod onto her arm and slipped into her running
shoes. She was putting her hair up in a ponytail when she walked out of her
room and found her dad was waiting for her.
“Kait, we need to talk.” He said in
a stern voice. He looked like he just woke up. His pepper colored hair was
sticking up on one side and his green and blue striped robe was hanging open,
showing off his new matching pajama set that Eve had just bought him. He never
wore anything like that when he was with mom. Mom loved him no matter what he
wore.
“If we have to,” she said finished
her hair.
“Why did you make Eve cry?”
“I didn’t.”
“Then do you want to tell me why she
is in my room crying? Is it because you won’t go wedding dress shopping with
her?”
“You have to be kidding me. I’m not
going with her to pick out a wedding dress. I’m not going to the wedding
either.” She said taking a stab at him. She wanted him to hurt. She wanted him
to feel as much pain as she had. He stepped closer to her, but she didn’t move
back. Instead she squared her shoulders and lifted her chin higher. He was not
going to intimidate her into this.
“You are going to the wedding young
lady. You are the Maid of Honor. You are going wedding dress shopping and you
are going in there to apologize to her right now!” He said raising his voice.
“No dad, I’m not.” She said with a
smirk on her face. She knew she had struck a nerve and it felt good. “If you
haven’t noticed, I’m not a little girl anymore, so you can’t intimate me into
doing what you want. Also, I’m not the Maid of Honor. If that little home
wrecker in there has no friends, that’s not my problem.”
“Some times, Kaitlyn, you really disappointment me.” He said
through clenched teeth, dragging out the word really.
“Well dad, let me give you a news flash.
Since I have lost every ounce of respect for you, I don’t really care if you
feel that I’m a disappointment, because you are a big enough disappointment for
the both of us.” She put her ear phones in, turned her iPod on and walked away
from him before he could say anything else. She couldn’t wait until her mother
was back from visiting her sister in Kansas. She didn’t want to stay here any
longer than she had to.
When she got outside she didn’t run
her normal three miles. She didn’t care where she was going. She just had to
get away. When she runs, she normally loves to take in the scenery and feel the
crisp morning air, but today she didn’t seem to notice any of them. She put her
head down, cranked up her music and just ran. She didn’t realize where she was
going until she was in her childhood backyard. Home. She was home. She grabbed
the spare key that was under the angel and went inside. She turned off the
alarm and ran to the place she knew would make her feel better, her room.
Breathless, she flopped onto her bed
and stared at the ceiling. She wished her parents would have let her stay here
by herself this summer. It wasn’t like her dad couldn’t have stopped by and checked
on her when he wanted to. It was only a fifteen minute drive. She rolled over
onto her side, looking at a picture of her and Nick on her night stand. She
hadn’t been home since he broke up with her. She had been at her dad’s for the
past three weeks and it was killing her. She picked up the picture chucked it
across the room. The frame hit the wall, falling to the floor, breaking the
glass into pieces.
It felt good to break something but
she still didn’t feel that great. She immediately reached for the phone, to
talk to the one person who she could still trust.
“Kaitlyn? Do you know what time it
is?”
“Sorry, Abbie. I know it’s early but
I just had to talk. My dad is trying to make me go wedding dress shopping with
Eve.”
“Get out!”
“Yup. We got in a fight and I told
him I had no respect for him and that he is a disappointment as a father.”
“Good for you.”
“Yeah? Well, why do I feel so bad?”
“Because you love him.” She said
matter-of-factly.
Kaitlyn sighed as she let her tears
run down the side of her face. She did love her dad. She missed the times he
would take her to the movies, or to the cabin in the woods, or the late night
talks they used to have. She missed their summers of sailing in the ocean and
how she would always make him go by the pier. But that was all before he left
her mom. Since then, they had done nothing but fight.
“Tell me about last night.” She said
trying not to think about her dad anymore.
“Oh, you missed a good party.
Everyone was there. Amber hooked up with some guy that none of us have ever
seen before, but it was okay because he was hot.” Kaitlyn rolled her eyes, of
course he was hot. “Oh I wish you would have seen it. Courtney fell in Garret’s
pool. I have never laughed so hard in my life. When she finally got out, she
was so mad at Nick because he was laughing at her, so she smacked him. He
called her trash and she smacked him again, but then they started kissing and…I
don’t know why I’m telling you this. Sorry Kait.”
“It’s okay. I’m glad you had fun though.”
She said as her heart started to hurt even more.
“Well, it would have been better if
you were there. How was your night?”
“It was…okay I guess.” She said
thinking about the guy she ran into. Then she immediately made herself stop.
“Let’s do something tonight once I get off work.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I don’t really care. Anything but
be at home.”
“Alright come to my house once you
get done. I’ll call around and see what’s going on.”
“Ok, bye Abbie.”
“Bye Kait. Hang in there girl.”
Abbie always knew how to make
Kaitlyn feel better, even if she sometimes forgot that Nick was Kaitlyn’s ex.
But she understood how it felt to have her parents going through a divorce, and
that is what helped. Kaitlyn and Nick’s breakup had been hard on everyone since
they all hung out together. With a group the size they had, breakups and
hookups happened all the time. But when Nick broke up with Kaitlyn it had been
a shock to almost everyone. They had been together the longest and everyone
thought they were going to stay together through senior year and into college.
They were good together, or at least everyone thought they were.
Rolling her eyes, she got up and
started cleaning up the broken glass. When she was done she looked at the
picture of her and Nick. It was taken about a month ago at prom. It had been a
great night, until the end, when he wanted to go to a hotel like everyone else.
Kaitlyn made him take her home instead. She wasn’t ready to take their
relationship to the next level. He told her that he understood, but apparently
he didn’t. Instead of throwing the picture of the two of them away, she put it
in her pajama drawer and walked out of her room. She grabbed a bottle of water
out of the fridge and went to the couch. She didn’t have to be at work until
noon, so she was going to stay as long as she could. She didn’t want to be at
her dad’s. She flipped through the channels for a couple hours before she
finally decided to head back.
Sweaty and out of breath she walked
into her dad’s house. She saw Eve sitting at the bar flipping through a couple
of wedding magazines. Kaitlyn walked into the kitchen, avoiding eye contact
with Eve as she grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge. She grabbed an
apple out of the bowl that was in front of Eve and walked out. She knew it was
mean to not say anything, but she didn’t care. She ran up to her room, took a
shower and got ready for work.
She didn’t need to work. Her dad
owned two dealerships and wanted her to focus on school. But she got the job to
prove to him that she didn’t need or want anything from him. He hated that she
picked to work as a waitress, which made it even better.
Kaitlyn pulled her
brand new BMW convertible into the parking lot, parking in the back with the
rest of her co-workers. She hated her car, it made her stand out. She wished
that her dad would have allowed her to pick out her own car, but he wouldn’t.
She clicked the alarm as she pushed open the door going into the back of the
restaurant. It wasn’t a five star restaurant that her dad wanted her to work at;
it was a run down place on the edge of town that was cheap with great greasy
food. She was putting her hair up when her boss, Mary, came up looking
panicked.
“Kaitlyn, I need your help. Beth
just left, she is in labor. I need you to take half of her section. Do you
think you can handle it?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, you’re a life saver.” Mary said
looking relieved. Kaitlyn loved Mary, but she would stress about the littlest
things. “Table twelve’s food is ready and table nine needs refills on their
drinks.”
“I’m on it.”
She grabbed table twelve’s food and
studied the ticket as she walked to the table. Still, without looking at the
table, she grabbed the first plate off the tray.
“Alright who had the cheeseburger?
Oh…” She said stunned to see who was sitting at the table.
“Hi.”
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
