The End of the Line
An Arcadia Story
The End of the Line
An Arcadia Story - #0.5
by Jesi Lea Ryan
ISBN 9781311077837
Copyright © 2014 by Jesi Lea Ryan
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Publisher
Jesi Lea Ryan
Cover by Rookery Creek Media
"Romance Fatal Serif" font (c) Juan Casco
The End of the Line
An Arcadia Story
“By any chance is the girl glaring at me like she wants me to spontaneously combust your girlfriend?”
I glanced back in the direction of my truck. Lony stood leaning against the side, snapping her gum, her eyes hard with jealousy. I sighed and turned back to Carly.
“Yeah, that’s her.”
Carly’s lips curled into a sly grin. “Does she realize we’re cousins and this isn’t Arkansas?”
Actually, Carly is my second cousin, and I hadn’t seen her in almost two years, so no, Lony doesn’t know we’re related. All Lony sees is her boyfriend talking to a good-looking redhead wearing a tank top cut low enough to stop traffic.
“Lony is kind of...intense.”
“Lony? You’re dating Avalon Day? I’ve heard of her.” Carly gazed past me again, nodding with appreciation. “She’s pretty. Or would be if she smiled.” Carly shucked my arm with her fist. “Kind of cliché for the football stud to date the popular cheerleader, huh?”
I lifted a half grin at her, but the comment cut a little too close to the quick. That’s exactly what I’ve felt like lately, a walking cliché. When I started dating Lony, it hadn’t seemed a choice so much as an inevitability.
Lony is gorgeous, all blond streaks and curves in the right places. Outgoing, crazy and fun... She has a gravity to her that pulls people in, making her seem like the center of the universe. I’m in awe of that talent. My popularity stems mainly from my throwing arm and my ability to knock baseballs out of the park on more or less a consistent basis.
“So how was France?” I asked.
Carly’s eyes light up, and she starts telling me about her study abroad program in Marseille. Lony’s stare burns a hole in the back of my head. I am so sick of fighting with her--or rather, having her fight with me. Most of the time Lony yells and whines while I sit in silence. I know my lack of outward reaction just pisses her off more, and maybe that’s why I do it. I don’t know. But lately we fight more than we make up, and I’m exhausted. Impulsively, I reach up and brush a lock of Carly’s hair back, knowing Lony is watching.
Carly stops speaking mid-sentence, flicks her eyes back to Lony and grins.
“Oh, I see what you’re doing. You’re purposely making it look like we’re flirting to tick her off.”
I heave a deep breath and drop my hand. “Yeah, maybe.”
“Are you trying to get her to break up with you?”
I shrug with one shoulder. I don’t really think Lony will break up with me. Not that I’m such a great catch or anything...more like her favorite fashion accessory. “Sometimes I think it would be easier if she did.”
Carly squints and purses her mouth as if thinking and then breaks into a broad, devious grin. “I like it!”
Stepping a little closer to me, Carly casually places her hand on my arm, tipping her head back to laugh as if I just said something hilarious.
Before I have a chance to react, Lony slips up beside me, and grips my other arm with her cool fingers.
“Cane, can I speak with you?” It’s more an order than a request.
Carly gives me one last knowing grin and waggles her fingers at me. “Bye, Cane. I’ll see you soon.” Then she struts off, leaving me in Lony’s frosty grasp.
“W-T-H, Cane?” She growls, nails biting into my arm. I hate it when she speaks in text abbreviations.
Maybe getting Lony mad wasn’t such a good idea. It’s the first Saturday night in September, and we’re standing in a parking lot at the Mines of Spain State Park. Twenty or thirty other kids--most from our high school, but a few, like Carly, from neighboring schools--lounge on car hoods or stand talking in groups. Matt Kutch runs past us chasing some girl from my gym class in his awkward attempt at flirting, almost jostling into Lony. A few of the cars have their stereos on and doors open, but not too loudly. We are all cautious to keep the noise level down so the DNR won’t come and kick us out for being in the park after hours. The last thing we all need is an eruption of Mt. Lony.
I place an arm around her shoulders and drop a kiss on the top of her head, hoping she feels reassured enough from my PDA to let it go. Lony winds herself around my waist, her glare temporarily turning to smugness as she glances to see if Carly watching. Of course, she isn’t.
“Hey!” Matt calls out, “Anyone wanna go for a walk?”
“Not on the cliffs!” Lony replies. “I’ll go if we stay in the low areas.”
The Mines of Spain, with its thick forests and steep, jagged river bluffs, are dangerous in the dark. More than one person has lost their footing on the rocky trails and fallen to their death. I don’t really want to go traipsing through the trees in the dark, but I won’t fight it. Lony always gets her way.
Matt and I retrieve flashlights from our vehicles and walk toward the trail entrance. Lony is there waiting with her friend Amy Sutherland and someone else who’s standing too far in the shadows for me to see.
“Stick to the trail, Matt,” I warn. “Let’s just take the eastern loop along the river where it’s nice and flat, and we can circle back inside a half hour. It’s getting late.”
Matt nods, “Sure.” He flicks his flashlight button on and off several times like a strobe.
I smack his arm. “Cut it out, dude. You’re going to burn your batteries.”
Matt straightens up and leaves his beam on.
As we approach the trail, my eyes meet those of the girl in the shadows, and my breath hitches. I cover it with a fake cough into my palm. As always, she displays no outward reaction to me.
Lony’s twin sister, Cady, unnerves me. Technically, the two are identical, but they couldn’t be more different. While Lony’s mood swings like a pendulum, Cady is always the picture of coolness. Hers is a quiet beauty, not made up and flashy like her sister. She dresses like a tom-boy, runs track and shuns attention. And for some reason, even though she never gives me the time of day, I can’t stop thinking about her. Man, I’m such an asshole.
Lony threads her fingers through my hand and pulls me along the dirt paths behind the others. She babbles on about something that happened to her in school that week, but I’m not really listening. My eyes drift to Cady, walking a few feet in front of me, her ass cupped perfectly in her jeans, and I wish it was her hand I held instead.
I actually met Cady before Lony, although I’m sure she’d never remember it. It was the summer we were thirteen years old. My mother had taken me out to the local animal shelter to get a dog for my little brother, Tyler. Tyler is mentally handicapped, and even though he’s a good kid, he has trouble communicating and connecting emotionally with people. Ty’s doctor suggested a pet might help with his socialization. He goes to a private school for kids with disabilities, where he gets a lot more one-on-one attention than he would in the public school
. That’s cool and everything, but it means he doesn’t get much of a chance to make friends with the other kids.
I remember sitting in the passenger seat the whole way out to the shelter sulking. Not a pretty picture, I know, but when I wanted a dog, Mom flatly refused saying I wasn’t responsible enough to take care of one. Well, Tyler couldn’t take care of a dog, either, but apparently that was different.
Mom pulled into a parking lot in front of a small brick building. When I opened the car door, I heard the barks of dogs in the distance. Tyler’s face doesn’t betray much as far as emotions go, but I could tell by the way his hands twitched and fluttered that he was excited. I tried to swallow down my lingering resentment and focus on what a cool thing this was for Ty.
We walked into the building’s lobby, and Mom stopped to introduce herself to the man at the front desk. My brother stared intently at a poster on the wall showing the different breeds of cats. I stepped up next to him, pretending to study the poster also.
“So, Ty, you excited?” I asked. “I’ve always wanted a dog. You’re really lucky.”
Tyler made a small grunting noise of acknowledgment. It wasn’t that he couldn’t speak at all. He had a vocabulary of a few hundred words or so, and he understood what we said easily enough. But most of the time, grunts, nods and gestures were all he gave for answers. I was fluent in his non-verbal language.
“Come on, boys,” Mom said, motioning with her hand to follow her and the