It was always you grace.., p.1
It Was Always You (Grace General Series Book 1), page 1
It Was Always you
Grace General, Book 1
Copyright by Laura Beth
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and situations are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is entirely coincidental.
Cover Design: Sarah Hansen @okaycreationssh
“my darling;
you will never be unloved by me
you are too well tangled in my soul”
—Atticus
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Chapter One
Ten Years Earlier
B eing the new kid fucking sucks.
Being the new kid who arrives halfway through the semester sophomore year sucks even more. Elementary school was a little easier; kids don’t really notice a new person in their class. But teenagers, man. Teenagers are a whole different breed. They’re vultures. Pimple-faced predators. They circle you, smelling for a weakness, taking their sweet time finding the right moment to swoop in and feast, no hesitation as they rip your carcass from end to end.
“Is this really what you want, kiddo?” my dad asked over breakfast this morning. I answered into my orange juice glass that, yeah, I was sure. Maybe moving to Chicago and being stuck with my spiteful, distant mother while my dad deploys isn’t what I really want but staying in the same city for more than six months at a time, is.
I can’t blame my father—he’s a lifer in the Marines, which means moving from base to base when duty calls and setting me and mom up at the larger ones when he deploys. I didn’t mind moving around as a kid. I don’t make good friends easily, or at all, but I’m great at making acquaintances. I’m great at getting over the awkwardness, not caring what I say, who it might impress, or who it might offend. There’s no pressure to get comfortable, settle in, and lay down some roots when the clock is always winding down for the next move. What I’m not good at is confrontation. So, when Dad asked again if this was what I really wanted for the next two and a half years—to finish out my high school career at one school, his alma mater—I stared into my orange juice and offered up a fake, but resounding, “Yes.”
Since we haven’t lived outside the walls of a military base in the last fifteen years, and my dad has surely forgotten what rush hour in Chicago traffic is like, I now get to be the new girl, midway through sophomore year, who arrives two hours late on her first day.
~
Not only that, but I’m also escorted to homeroom by the principal, who looks like he is old enough to be an original founding father. The cracked leather elbow patches on his tweed sport coat scratch my arm as we walk side by side down the barren hallway. He mumbles something about my schedule and tucks the corner of a notecard under the tips of my sweaty fingers, cramped from holding up the tower of books he had waiting for me.
“We will have the janitor work on your locker while you’re in Home Economics,” he drawls, flicking his wrist to adjust a cuff link. “After class, the combination should be working, and you may deposit your books at that time, Ms. Watkins.”
“Home Economics? Or Home Room?”
“Home Economics. We pride ourselves in being one of the few schools left in the city that teaches the necessary life skills students lack: cooking, baking, childcare tasks, and light sewing.”
Cooking and sewing? While I won’t lie and pretend I know anything about either of those skills, my goal in life isn’t to be someone's 1950’s housewife—picture perfect on the outside but often trapped in a loveless marriage and a slave in your own home.
“It sounds like you’re raising excellent Stepford Wives. Teach them to cook and clean all day while their husband is at work. Make sure to have an old-fashioned prepared for him when he arrives home, five o’clock on the dot.” The corner of a book bites into my rib cage. I do my best to shuffle them to the right, letting the blood flow back to my left side as we continue our walk. “Don’t forget to air the linens and don your fairest set of pearls. A lady should always look her best.”
He stops outside the metal blue door with a vertical window so small and narrow it might as well be the door to a prison cell. The faint echo of the teacher in the middle of her lesson hums on the other side as the principal pauses, his gaze sizing me up. I can tell by his stare that I’m about to receive a lecture—it’s the same look my mom gives when I irritate her—so I take that opportunity to rest my shoulder against the cool cinder-block wall, letting it wick away some of the nervous sweat that’s gathered under the hem of my tee. I chose a comfortable outfit today, knowing it would be a shit show. My black Joan Jett tee goes well with my favorite lavender Chuck Taylors. I should have kept these ones a little more pristine, but I got bored on the long flight from Arizona. So now the entire class gets to judge the doodles of flowers and kittens, lightning bolts and cactus trees, and anything else that might wander through my ADHD mind.
“Ms. Watkins, I’ll have you know we encourage both male and female students to participate in our Home Economics course.”
Encourage being the operative word. I’m willing to bet there aren’t too many fifteen-year-old boys begging to learn how to sew baby bonnets.
He opens the door, and it creaks, echoing down the narrow corridor.
The teacher pauses mid-sentence, her head swiveling to the side at the sound of the squeaking door.
The principal pauses, gesturing for me to enter ahead of him. I shift my books in my arms and square my shoulders, walking confidently into the classroom toward the teacher with my head held high.
It isn’t until I see the feet of the first row of students sitting quietly at their desks, bodies leaning forward to see what the interruption is, that the first-day jitters take over. I abruptly stop, causing the principal to crash into me.
He teeters on his toes, the smell of the cough drop he’s been clacking between his teeth stinging my senses. I step out of his way, pressing my shoulder blades to the wall and silently begging him to go first to save me a few seconds of misery.
“Mrs. Nabb,” he bellows. “I apologize for the interruption, but this is the new enrollment we discussed earlier.”
He turns and gestures to me.
I step forward. My eyes are glued to the teacher in front of me, from her colorful, crocheted vest buttoned over her turtleneck, to her matching patchwork, floor-length skirt. “Light sewing” was how the principal referred to this class, but if this is the shit I’m going to have to learn, count me out.
My gaze moves up to her face, where I’m met with a sweet smile and salt-and-pepper hair that rests at her chin. She steps forward and starts to take the stack of books out of my hands, and I gladly let her. My arms hanging like Jell-O from carrying the weight of them around.
“I see our lockers are still acting up. Let’s set these behind my desk for now,” she says with a wink, pulling the books from my arms.
A sense of guilt fills my mind for mentally picking apart her outfit.
After stacking the books in a neat pile behind her desk, she places a hand on my back and moves us both to the center of the room. My shoes squeak with each step on the freshly polished floor, and I can feel the judgmental eyes of my fellow students following my every step. I reach my hands up to clutch the straps of my backpack, holding on tight, gaze still locked on the floor, so I don’t have to meet the stares of the students.
“Class,” Mrs. Nabb says, pulling up the note card that the principal handed her, “this is our newest transfer student, Jenna . . . Oh, wow. This is Jenna Alissandria Watkins,” she says, making sure to exaggerate the rolling of the r in my middle name while raising both hands, gesturing toward me as if I’m up for auction instead of being introduced to a group of unimpressed teenagers.
She didn’t have to middle-name me, that’s for sure. It’s a pretty name, I get it. My mom chose the name after her favorite city in Italy, where my dad proposed.
It sounds romantic, but if you only knew the tension that blankets the room when they are together, nothing about the two of them screams romance.
Mrs. Nabb’s lips move as she reads the rest of the information on the cue card. “Jenna, dear, why don’t you have a seat in the empty chair next to Natalie? Natalie, raise your hand for Jenna, please.”
I glance up and peer around the room to see who is raising their hand. My stomach sinks when the on
Keeping my head down, I move quickly to the wooden desk, and pull the empty chair out and away from her, hoping to avoid any tension by giving her the space she so clearly wants. When I think I’m safe, that I’m seated and class can continue and everyone can forget I arrived, I look up and see Mrs. Nabb standing at the corner of my desk, a toothy grin on her face.
“Jenna. Why don’t you take a minute and tell the class a little bit about yourself? What brought you to Chicago, what your interests are. Stand up, dear.” She tucks a hand under my elbow, not giving me a choice on whether I want to stand.
I take a deep breath and rise, prepared to give the same speech I’ve given at the last three schools. “My name is Jenna. I was born in Chicago, but I’ve been moving around a lot with my dad. He’s in the military. Decided to move back to Chicago to finish high school. That’s about it . . .” I finish awkwardly and immediately sit back down.
“Tsk-tsk.” Mrs. Nabb ushers me to stand again. “Tell us about your hobbies. What do you love?” She pumps two closed fists in the air. “What motivates you?”
My hobbies? I haven’t lived anywhere long enough to develop legitimate hobbies. At my last school, I lied and said I was on the verge of being a professional acrobat, but a terrible broken ankle put an end to that dream. My parents grounded me when they found out I lied, but I loved pretending I was good at something. Books and TV are my only hobbies because I can take them anywhere, in any climate. But moving here changed everything, and there would be time for “planting my roots” or whatever my dad said.
I shrug under her stare. “I’d like to try out for a sport maybe, since I’ll be here for a while. I think I’d be okay at volleyball.”
The exotic Barbie next to me grunts at that. “Of course, you would. You’re built like a giraffe.”
A few of the students around us snicker at her insult, but it doesn’t faze me. I’m a fifteen-year-old girl who peaked at five feet ten inches, several inches taller than most boys my age. This isn’t the first time someone’s bullied me about my height.
Before I have a chance to defend myself, to ask her if all the other smurfs are this crabby in the morning, a deep voice behind me—way too deep to be a fifteen-year-old—barks, “Natalie. Knock the fuck off.”
Natalie immediately stops her giggling and whips her head forward.
Great. Just great. With my luck, it’s a student teacher, or an assistant principal shadowing the class. Nothing screams cool new girl like having a teacher defend you against the bullies. Although, a student teacher cursing would be a new touch.
Mrs. Nabb drones on about dough and oven temps, and I’m feeling relaxed in my seat when she clicks the cap back on her dry-erase marker and chirps, “Time to break into groups of two for our cooking lesson today!”
I hate picking partners. In my experience, after the initial new-girl buzz has worn off, I’m seemingly forgotten. I slink back a little further, waiting for everyone else to pair up. I’ll partner with whatever sad sap is left.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Nasty Natalie sit up a little straighter, lick her lips, and with a casual flick of the wrist, flip her silky black hair over her shoulder, an afterglow of coconut following. As the sleek strands glide effortlessly through the air, I’m reminded that it’s winter, and my frizzy blonde curls are unruly by now. How on earth she looks so freshly polished is beyond me.
She turns toward me, eyeing me up and down for a second before sliding her arm across the back of her chair to face the table behind us. “What do you say, Emmett? Be my partner?”
If she had ended the sentence with a moan, it couldn’t have been more obvious that she wanted to bang whoever Emmett is.
It isn’t until I hear the same dark voice from earlier, the one that told her to fuck off, that I’m shocked wide awake: “No thanks, Nat. I want to ask Jenna to be my partner.”
That voice. There is no way that voice can belong to a student. Let alone a student my age. Maybe it’s a fifth-year senior a few credits shy of graduation, and they needed a Home Ec course to finish off that college application.
I slowly sit up in my seat, run a palm over my stomach to flatten the wrinkles in my rock-and-roll tee before turning slowly and looking over my left shoulder to see who sits behind me.
There’s a skinny kid with black, shaggy hair at the table who first gets up and walks away, so I continue turning until I meet the source of that voice.
Dark blue eyes perfectly blend with his fleece pullover. Dark hair, messy, possibly a bit damp as if he put on a ball cap after his morning shower, not caring how it would look because he knew each strand would fall into the perfect place on its own. It puts him into the I-didn’t-mean-to-look-good-but-I do category. But it’s his size that stuns me.
Maybe he was considered chubby as a younger kid, but puberty blessed him. His weight and height filled out, making him the perfect balance of softness and strength. Seriously, do they pump hormones into the HVAC system here? Kids at this school have developed a lot quicker than the fifteen-year-olds I’m used to seeing.
“What do you say? Do you want to be my partner?” he asks, flashing a warm smile that softens his face, calming my jittering nerves.
I swallow and nod, unable to speak a full sentence.
I stand up when he does, and though I’m tall and girls like Natalie make me feel bad about it, he’s still a head taller than me. With a large hand he grips the back of his chair and pushes it under the desk, telling me to go find us an open table.
I slide past him, making sure not to touch him so my hormones don’t catch fire. I can feel him turn to follow me, staying a respectable distance away while still guiding me to an open cooktop table. We pass Natalie and her equally beautiful friend, and I notice the eyes they give me as they whisper behind their palms.
Her friend says something in her ear and they both laugh obnoxiously.
“Is this table okay?” I ask him, coming to stand at the furthest one in the back of the classroom.
He nods and opens the bottom drawer on the cooktop, pulling out two folded aprons. “Ignore them,” he says, motioning with his head to Natalie, perched on top of her table, legs crossed like a lady. “She gets off on making others feel bad. She’s jealous of you.”
“Yeah, that’s what it is. Jealousy,” I scoff. Grabbing the apron and slinging it over my neck, I reach for the ties and pull them behind me. As I watch him put the apron on, I can barely keep a straight face, the strings barely meet around him.
“So, this is really a class where you cook? This is real? We eat . . .” I trail off, gaze flicking around the classroom until I see the menu board at the front. “Alfredo? We eat alfredo at ten in the morning?”
He chuckles, his laugh a sand-scratched rasp that warms my core. “Alfredo is kind of a weird choice, even for her. Most days we bake something, which I don’t mind at all,” he says, tapping his stomach.
I immediately recognize his attempt at mocking his weight, but I breeze past it. He might have been picked on as a kid, and while he stands taller than anyone else in the room and is the most handsome teenage boy I have ever met, he probably still feels like that insecure boy inside, and uses humor to deflect.
“Did you have to take this class? Or did you choose to?” Looking around the room, my suspicions are confirmed: There are a hell of a lot more girls than boys in this class.
He shrugs, the tips of his ears reddening. “I don’t mind cooking. My mom is a good cook and makes me help her sometimes. Plus, it’s an easy A, and like I said, free cake mid-morning.” He holds out a broad hand to me. “I’m Emmett, by the way. Emmett Owens.”
I grasp his hand with mine. “Jenna. But you already knew that.”
“Jenna Alissandria Watkins.”
“The one and only.”
He looks at the recipe card as I glance around the station.
Mrs. Nabb saunters up and down the aisles in between the tables, educating on temperature control as I grab the carton in front of us and flip the top open, revealing a dozen eggs. “Why are there eggs if we aren’t baking?”
