Lucky Lucette
By Mia Rodriguez
Copyright 2015 Mia Rodriguez
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Dedication
Thanks to all my readers who support my very eclectic work. A special thank you goes to Sydthekidwashere for convincing me to keep writing for young adults when I was already steering away from the genre. I hope you enjoy this book.
Table of Contents
Preface
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
More, More, More
Preface
Lucette’s Love Letter:
Dear most incredible guy,
Please read all of this letter before you wad it up and chuck it. Please. I’m so sorry for so many things. At seventeen there’s still so much for me to learn. How can I even begin? Well, here goes:
I’m sorry for not appreciating you more.
I’m sorry for taking you for granted.
I’m sorry for not seeing you for who you really were.
I’m sorry for turning away from your hugs.
I’m sorry for not believing your kisses.
I’m sorry for refusing to dive into your heart.
I’m sorry for breathing you in only to then force your life giving oxygen out.
I’m sorry for running away from you.
I’m sorry for callously breaking your heart.
You’re so amazing that I just couldn’t believe you were for real. I couldn’t get it through my heart that all you wanted was to care about me. Love me for real and not fake love me. I understand that now. Sorry it took so long.
It was just so scary for me to be in love. It was so terrifying to get head over heels involved with another human being. I abruptly turned away from you. I didn’t want to listen to you.
I’m so sorry. That’s all I can say.
I’m so sorry for everything, for refusing to care for you like you cared for me. I know that nothing can make up for what I did to you, for me running out on you with so little consideration of your feelings.
Even if it’s too late for us, I want you to know how I feel.
You deserve much more than I ever gave you, so please find someone deserving of you. Don’t settle for less. Don’t settle for someone who doesn’t give you her whole heart. Remember that you’re the best. The absolute and most awesome best!
I will never ever forget you.
Sincerely,
The girl who now realizes how much your love is worth
Chapter 1
Lucette’s side of the story:
I had always been a lucky girl.
Always popular—everyone in my high school knew my name.
Always voted most beautiful.
Always had lots of money in my pocket—my parents are really rich.
Always wore the latest designer clothes—Kim Kardashian had nothing over on me.
Always drove the most expensive fast cars.
Always thought life would be easy.
“You’re so lucky!” my friends would tell me often with envy heavy in their voices. “Lucky Lucette!” That was how my nickname was born.
But luck is fickle.
It runs out.
Justin’s side of the story:
I desperately look for Lucette all over our townhouse apartment! I just got home from work, and I can’t believe I can’t find her! I look everywhere!
OMG!!!
Where is she?!!!
Where’s my lovely Lucette?! Where can she be?! Where’s my wife?!
I call her, but her cell phone is on our dresser. My head is spinning! My heart is trying to explode out of my chest!
She’s gone!!! What could’ve happened to her?!!!
Rushing to my neighbors in the apartments next door, I beg them for any information about my wife. No one has seen anything!!!
I’m totally freaking out!
I’m out of my mind!
I love my wife sooo much! She’s everything to me—my breath, my soul, my core. She’s who I think about first thing in the morning and the last thing before I fall asleep. She owns my entire heart!
We both may be only seventeen, but we know the meaning of true love more than most people. We know what it’s like to be totally dedicated to each other. We know we belong to one another.
Where’s my wife?!!!
Chapter 2
Lucette:
Tic Toc.
Tic Toc.
I’m terrified, numb, and sick to my stomach.
What’s going to happen to me?!
It’s impossible to know at this point.
Did I just make a huge mistake?
Justin:
With each passing moment, with each ticking of the clock, I get more and more desperate. Twisting agony!
Where’s my wife?!!!
Why is life being so cruel to me? What did I do to deserve this?! My sobs try to reach the heavens.
Please, please give me my wife back, I pray over and over again. Bring her back to where she belongs.
Show mercy on me!
I pace the floors in an intense frenzy. I love my wife like I’ve never loved anyone. Not anyone. That’s why I married Lucette Nuñez and not for the reason everyone thinks—that it was because she was pregnant. She’s the light in my life and the reason for every decision I make. Sounds hokey, right? Especially for a guy saying it but it’s totally true. From the moment I saw her in school I knew I would love her forever.
Yeah, it was love at first sight. I’m not ashamed to admit it.
Even though we’re both only teens doesn’t mean we’re too young to find our soulmates. I hate it when people don’t take what me and Lucette feel for each other seriously as if only old people can find true love. How stupid is that? Grrrr! Really stupid.
True love is for everybody—age doesn’t matter! That’s what I believe.
My love story with Lucette is for forever. Forget Bella and Edward, Katniss and Peeta, Romeo and Juliet.
Forget them!
Justin and Lucette—that’s where it’s really at!
When my dad, the giant jerk that he is, made the family move from Dallas whe
re our lives were settled to San Antonio to start all over just because he lost his job when in a fit of anger he socked the boss, I was livid. I really didn’t want to leave home. I had a girlfriend there at the time, and I thought I was in love. But I realized as soon as I saw Lucette that I hadn’t really known what love was. At that moment I was grateful that my father had forced us to move.
Fortunately, Lucette fell for me too. She told me that she considered herself a very lucky girl to be with me. Not to brag or anything but there were many girls trying to catch my attention. They’d pass my house at all hours giggling and calling out my name, shove passionate notes in my locker, and find reasons to go up to me to ask me silly questions. It would drive Lucette totally bonkers. But I would tell her she had nothing to worry about. Those other girls caused zero movement in my heart.
Lucette was the only girl for me. I admit that I played hard to get at first even though I was already in love with her. It’s good to test the waters before jumping in but after we got together, I didn’t have even a single urge to turn to look at other girls even when they were wearing their skankiest of outfits. I had total respect for my girlfriend. Besides, no one could compare to her beauty with her long blond hair, her sparkling green eyes, and her very thin body. I repeat, Lucette was the only girl for me. Definitely.
Now she’s disappeared!!!
Where can she be?!
I call her parents to feel them out about the whereabouts of their daughter. They’re handling business in Europe for a few months, and I need to know if by any chance she’s joined them. I tell them that I’m calling because I’m planning a special gift for Lucette because I love her so much. “What are her favorite flowers?” I ask. Of course I already know the answer.
“Daffodils,” Mrs. Nuñez informs me.
Her parents ask to speak to her, so I have to come to the conclusion that they have no idea she’s missing. I promptly respond, “Lucette is probably on an errand or with friends.”
I’m lying, of course. She’s for sure doing neither. Lucette and I never keep anything from one another. She always tells me what she’s got planned for her day and she doesn’t have any friends.
But I don’t want to needlessly worry her parents until I’m sure about what’s happening.
As soon as I get off the line with them, I quickly call the police. They guffaw telling me she has to be missing much longer in order for them to look for her. “Maybe she went shopping,” they smirk.
But I know they’re wrong. She isn’t shopping. Something very bad has happened!
Very, very bad!
The voice inside of me that I’ve been ignoring shouts at me. The nagging, painful suspicion demands that I finally listen to it. It screeches until my ears want to detonate and my heart wants to shatter.
I rush to our closet. My head spins. Nausea reaches my throat. I can’t stop praying that my suspicion is wrong.
Some of her clothes are gone!
One of our suitcases is missing!
Face the truth!!! I demand of myself.
Lucette hasn’t been abducted. She didn’t get lost on her way home. She’s most certainly not shopping.
Simply, she left me. My heart thumps a million beats a minute. Sobs get stuck in my throat. My head throbs so much it wants to explode.
Why did she leave? I cry to myself, the words slicing into me like sharp ruthless knives.
Chapter 3
Lucette:
The waiting game. Nerve wracking. Uber scary. Mega stressful.
But it just so happens to my endless relief that I don’t have to wait long for him. Alejo arrives promptly to take me far, far away—to my new life. I smile in gratitude to my new lifeline. He smiles back.
In the car at full speed ahead I relax a little and try to look at this as an adventure. But I just can’t be so nonchalant about it. Escaping everything and everyone you know is scary. Do I really know what I’m doing?
Alejo chats pleasantly but when I don’t respond, he’s kind enough to leave me to my thoughts. I take my mind back to the place where I really messed up.
I wish so, so badly I could go back in a time machine and set things right!
But I can’t. All I can do is look back and try to learn from it. I can’t change the past, right?
My memory wrenches my heart as I go back to high school. It was an amazing experience for me. I know that some of you want to slap me for that. I know now that for most young adults school is a horrible place to spend teenhood. I don’t blame you for despising me for having loved high school, but I have to tell you the truth. I don’t want to lie even to be able to make friends with you.
I really feel I need to go all out with what’s true. I’m just so tired of lying to myself to survive. One thing I will ask of you, beg of you, is to not judge me until you know my whole story. It’ll make you think about things, for sure.
Anyway, as I was saying, high school was amazing for me. I was the most popular person there. Other girls copied my style, I was invited to all the best parties, and boys kept asking me out. I never had to wonder what it was like to be rejected.
Yeah, go ahead and say it.
I was a huge, snobby jerk.
I’m now ashamed to say that my peers’ problems didn’t matter much to me. Their experiences with bullying, rejection, pimples, raging insecurities, volcano hormones, and blistering awkwardness were as foreign to me as a trip to Siberia. I just couldn’t relate to those horrors at all.
I couldn’t sympathize or empathize. Being in a glass castle will do it to you every time! Then Justin Swaggart came into my life.
Everything changed for me.
Everything.
Justin:
The next day it occurs to me to check the laptop to see what Lucette had been up to last. I know her password. As I said before, we shared everything. Sure enough, I find an email to her parents. I’m sure they haven’t opened it yet or they would’ve said something about it. The Nuñez parents have problems with working technology, so they only check their email sporadically.
Mom and dad,
I left my home. I need some time to myself. Don’t worry about me.
Lucette
I want to explode!
How could she have done this to me?! To us?! To our sacred bond?!
You’re probably thinking that my marriage to Lucette must’ve been full of problems for her to have left me like this—without even a tiny goodbye. But you’d be wrong!
You’d be wrong bigtime!
We hardly ever fought. That’s the truth. Now, let me tell you that just because we loved each other didn’t mean we didn’t have problems. All couples do, I imagine. I have to admit that my temper can get a little hot sometimes, but Lucette can be every bit as thorny as me. For example, we had a heated argument when she got pregnant. She was very upset that my condom hadn’t worked. I chuckled and told her that these things happened, that maybe it was fate that she got knocked up.
“Stop laughing about it!” she had demanded. “My pregnancy is a very serious thing!”
“I’m not laughing at our situation. It’s just that I’m so happy about it!”
“Happy?”
“My lovely Lucette, we’re going to have a baby— the fruit of our love.”
“You really think it’s not a problem?” she questioned, her eyes anxious.
“Marry me!” I blurted enthusiastically.
“You only want to marry me because of the baby,” Lucette declared, upset.
I held her face in my hands. “I want to marry you because you’re the love of my life, and we belong together.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “Soulmates forever.”
“Forever, ” I murmured.
Everything was settled in my mind. Lucette was pregnant, we loved one another, and we’d tie the knot and live happily ever after. What I didn’t count on was that her parents, who were rabidly furious when they found out about the pregnancy, nearly severed all ties with th
eir daughter. They would barely speak to her. They confiscated her car and credit cards. They cut off her money supply. They said that if she was old enough to be a mother and wife, she was old enough to take care of herself without their help.
That was a very harsh blow for Lucette. She was totally freaked out.
I, of course, would work at several jobs when I could. I never returned to high school. Instead, I studied for my GED. She stayed in school for a short while, but then she followed my lead by quitting—she just couldn’t face her new reality and loss of popularity.
I hate to say this about my own wife but she really cares about being popular and all that crap! She cares about designer labels on her clothes and shoes and about all kinds of admiration. It’s the sad truth! Yet, I love her despite her superficiality. What can I say?—I’m a hopeless romantic who accepts her for who she is.
I’m jolted when I come back to the horrible reality that she left me.
For some kind of a reason she threw away my love for her!—just like that!
Then it occurs to me, like a comet hitting earth, why she abandoned me. Simple. Money. What else? It’s got to be that, I tell myself in frustration. No matter how much I worked, how much overtime I killed myself for, I just couldn’t give her the life she was used to with her rich parents.
Ahhhhhhhh!
It really hurts to realize the importance of money to some people! To me, love is much more important, but you can’t make those you love believe like you do—no matter how much you bust yourself to prove yourself to them!
I have to come to terms with the fact that Lucette loves very expensive clothes, fancy cars, and full wallets more than me. What an idiot I’ve been thinking that my love would be enough for her!
A big idiot!
I shriek in awful agony, needing to let all the pain out before it burns me alive.
Then another shocking thought crashes into me. What if she found another guy who can give her what I can’t?
Now that she isn’t pregnant, she isn’t as attached to me. It becomes clear to me why she did what she did to get rid of the baby.
Why she fell on the stairs.
She was already thinking of leaving me, I’m sure. I had suspected, a nagging suspicion, that she was seeing someone else behind my back. Another sharp cry escapes my mouth. What’s next for her, I wonder. Will she divorce me?
Sob. Weep. Anger.
Chapter 4
Lucette:
We stop at a house—a small, nondescript home belonging to a good friend of Alejo’s. We’ll be staying there for the night.
“You doing fine?” Alejo asks, helping me with my suitcase.