Crushed

Book 1: Evermore Series

by Andrea Smith

Genres: New Adult & College; Sagas; Contemporary Romance; New Adult Romance; Romantic Suspense; first love; beach romance; boy next door

Synopsis

We were just kids when we met. . .

He was the boy from down the beach. I was the transplant from Tennessee.

He became my best friend. I became his best girl.

And then . . . it became us.

We shared things . . . our dreams, our secrets . . . first kisses and then our hearts.

Seth Drake was my everything. My first crush. My first love. My forever passion. Until that day when everything changed through no fault of ours.

I was crushed. We were crushed.

Release date: July 21, 2016

Publisher: Meatball Taster Publishing, LLC

Print pages: 181

Content advisory: 18+

Sample

Prologue 

            I awoke instantly as soon as I heard the sound of shattering glass from the kitchen. I glanced over at the clock on my nightstand. It was only six in the morning. My alarm wouldn't go off for another hour.

            I knew what the noise was; no cause for alarm. Mama was still up. She'd been on a three-day bender, during which time anything could happen.

            I pulled the covers back, and tiptoed across the bare wooden floor to the door of my bedroom. It was right off the kitchen. Actually, I think its intended use had been a large pantry. Our apartment was one of two on the lower floor of an old Victorian house that had been chopped up to make apartments in the older side of town.

            I opened my bedroom door, and there was Mama. Staggering around, looking for a broom to sweep up the shattered amber-colored glass that was strewn all over the worn linoleum floor. She saw me, and immediately flailed her arms my way.

            "Go on back to bed, Neely," she said, her words slurred. "You don't need to be coming out here in your bare feet, stepping all over this mess and getting cut now, hear?"

            "What happened?" I asked, my eyes squinting trying to adjust to the glare of the overhead lighting.

            "Well, what do you think happened, girl? That damn liquor store filled this bottle with bourbon, not scotch like it was supposed to be. As if I can't tell the difference 'tween the two. I'll take care of Mr. McGreedy first thing when he opens his store today, I'll tell you that! Now go on, I got this covered. Go on back to bed."

            There was no use arguing with Mama when she got this way. To do so would most likely end up with me having a split lip or bruised cheek. Mama was a soft and gentle person, except when she was hitting the bottle.

            It wasn't always this way.

            I climbed back into my bed, and pulled the covers up to my chin. I could hear her clanging around in the kitchen, muttering profanities that I'd never dare use in front of her and then, eventually, the sobs of her desperation floated into my room.

            Her binges were getting longer and occurring more often. I knew the pressure of everything was taking a toll on her.

            I wasn't sure how much longer things could go on like this. She'd just lost her fourth job in as many months for attendance.

            We barely survived on the child support my father was sending monthly. My grandparents had bailed us out at first, but that only lasted about six months before they'd had it and told Mama to clean up her act. And to find her own damn place.

            So we'd become estranged. Well, at least Mama had, but as she said, "We're a package deal, Neely. If they've shut me out, than they've shut us both out, as far as I'm concerned."

            We'd moved to a small town about twenty miles from the small town where my grandparents lived because Mama said she wasn't about to live her life in a fish bowl and feel their judgment from around the corner.

            And now one of them was gone.

            I laid in the dark, chewing on my bottom lip. Sleep wouldn't be returning anytime soon. My tiredness would evaporate soon enough, only to be replaced by concern and worry.

            At seventeen, I was already learning a valuable lesson, mostly about pride. They say it 'goeth before the fall,' and that I truly believed.

            My mother hadn't hit rock bottom just yet.

            But she was so damn close, I knew there'd be no turning back now. It was up to me to do what she couldn't bring herself to do for her own good.

            I wasn't sure whether I had the guts to do it.