Cami’s Decision
A Crossroads Trilogy Novel
Book 1
Valenciya Lyons
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Valenciya Lyons
Excerpt from Life After Natalie Copyright © 2014 by Valenciya Lyons
Cover Design by Asha of SelfPubBookCovers.com
All rights reserved. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Acknowledgements
First and foremost I would like to thank God Almighty for being there for me. This year has been one of the most trying years of my life but with prayer, I’ve made it. I would also like to thank my grandmother, Rosa Lyons, for always being by my side and supporting me no matter what. To all my family and friends, I love you all.
Author Biography
The Mississippi native’s love for writing began around the age of ten. During this time, she wrote short stories and poems and was encouraged by her grandmother to pursue a career in writing. She attended The University of Southern Mississippi and received a Bachelor of Science in Fashion Merchandising and Apparel Studies. She currently resides in Meridian, MS with her grandmother. When she’s not writing, she spends her time reading fashion magazines, shopping, and hanging out with friends and family.
Other Books by Valenciya Lyons
Life After Natalie (A Crossroads Trilogy Novel, Book 2)
A New Beginning (A Crossroads Trilogy Novel, Book 3)
You Don’t Belong (An Outsider Series Novel, Book 1)
The Outsider (An Outsider Series Novel, Book 2)
Toxic Love
Connect With Me On:
Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8591692.Valenciya_Lyons
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Valenciya.Lyons.Author/
Twitter https://twitter.com/valenciyalyons
Blog https://valenciyalyons.blogspot.com/
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Table of Contents
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
Life After Natalie
Author Bio
Chapter 1
As a young sixteen-year-old girl, Camila “Cami” Alderson should’ve been worrying about finding the right dress for the junior prom and goofing off with friends. The possibility of being pregnant should’ve been the last thing on her mind but the scary thought was always there.
She cried quietly to herself in bed at the thought of being pregnant. She was six weeks late, and she’d been vomiting non-stop for two weeks. She wanted to take a pregnancy test but was fearful of what the results may be. She didn’t want to share her news with her mother, sister, or best friend for fear of what they would think of her but that wasn’t the only thing that bothered her. She’d always been known as “the good girl” in school, and she wondered what the other students would think of her if she really was pregnant. She didn’t want to admit it to herself but she already knew what people would think and say about her. She’d be the new pregnant slut at Crossroads High walking down the halls. It’s a harsh reality but it’s true.
Cami feared that her ex-boyfriend, River, had bragged about having sex with her to all of his college friends. The thought of her “good girl” image already being in shambles made her pull the zebra print comforter over her head. She wished that she would’ve stopped her make out session with him before it went too far but she didn’t. He edged his face closer to hers until their lips were touching. Their tongues danced wildly as the desire began to build in her. She pulled back but only to feel his wet tongue on her neck and shoulders. She was now crying harder as she tried to push the memory of her first time to the back of her mind. The idea of becoming a mother at sixteen was the scariest thing that she’d ever thought of.
“Girls, breakfast is ready!” she heard her mother shout. She slowly got out of bed and made her way into the bathroom to brush her teeth and wash her face while feeling a hunger pain along the way. She considered eating breakfast at school instead of home, but then she’d have to answer a million questions from her mother on why she wasn’t hungry, and she feared that she’d crack under the pressure.
While standing in the doorway of her bedroom, she could see that her fifteen-year-old sister, Kaci was still getting dressed; so with agility and ease, she quickly made her way downstairs and entered the kitchen. Her goal was to eat as quickly as possible so that she wouldn’t have to sit in the kitchen with Kaci once she arrived.
She watched as her mother carefully laid a breakfast buffet of pancakes, bacon, and eggs onto the kitchen table in front of her. Just looking at her mother made Cami think about how having another mouth to feed in the house would be a huge burden. She was working her butt off at two jobs already as a registered nurse and a waitress. With a mortgage payment, student loan debt, credit card debt, and loads of other bills that she once did not think about twice, her mother was forced to work longer hours after her now ex-husband abandoned his family for another woman.
Despite the stress that she’d endured after the divorce by being forced to work a second job and care for her two daughters alone, Diane was still a graceful, beautiful woman. Her beautiful jet black hair hung loosely over her shoulders and complemented her glowing, caramel colored skin. She had beautiful brown eyes that were weary—not from age but worry. Cami continued to watch her mother run back and forth from the kitchen table to the stove to add more bacon onto everyone’s plate.
The taste of the pancakes overflowing with warm maple syrup made her feel as if she was in food heaven. She always had a sweet tooth and these pancakes were definitely hitting the spot.
A light breeze tickled her left cheek. She didn’t turn to see who had rushed into the kitchen because she knew that it could only be one person.
“I’m starving,” Kaci said, as she eyed the breakfast buffet their mother had lain onto the kitchen table. “I haven’t eaten anything since lunch yesterday.”
Diane eyed her youngest daughter suspiciously as she seated herself at the head of the kitchen table. “Why didn’t you eat something last night?”
Kaci held up one finger to let her mother know to give her a minute as she gulped down
most of her orange juice. Then, she wiped her mouth with a paper towel and said, “I didn’t feel good yesterday, and when I’m sick, I lose my appetite completely.”
“Honey, are you sick now?” Diane asked, as she reached over and put her hand against Kaci’s forehead. She worried terribly whenever one of her girls was sick. Even though she needed extra cash to pay the bills, she’d take off from work just to care for them whenever they were ill. That was just the type of mother she was.
“Mom, I’m fine,” Kaci answered while shooing her mother’s hand away. “I think I was just trying to catch a cold or something but I fought it off, and now I feel much better.”
Without saying a word, Diane reached over onto Kaci’s plate and used her fork to take two pancakes off her plate and put onto hers.
“Hey! I was going to eat that,” she said, still stunned that her mother actually had taken some of her food away.
“No sweets or dairy products. It’ll help you get better faster.”
Cami steadily ate her meal while her mother lectured Kaci on the importance of hand washing. As long as they were chatting with each other, they probably wouldn’t notice how sad she really was and that suited her just fine. She looked over at her younger sister who looked as if she was annoyed with their mother’s lecture.
Sometimes Cami found herself wishing that she could actually be Kaci. She’s smart, stylish, always speaks her mind, and is just all around brilliant in Cami’s eyes. She always gets straight A’s and B’s, and although she’s only a sophomore, she’d already taken the SAT and ACT and had one of the highest scores in the school. She was a pretty, smart girl and she knew that Kaci wouldn’t have ever gotten herself into the current situation that she’d gotten herself into.
Kaci had a bright future but she wasn’t sure if she could say the same thing for herself. She wondered if she’d even be able to graduate from high school and attend college. She’d witnessed at least fifteen of her classmates drop out of school after becoming pregnant. In the southern town of Hattiesburg, MS, Crossroads High wasn’t the only high school that was seeing a growing number of teen pregnancies. Across the city, other schools were seeing their numbers increase as well prompting the school nurses to give more “abstinence” talks and send pamphlets about the dangers of sexually transmitted diseases home with students. Despite the schools’ attempts, a growing number of teenage girls were still becoming pregnant, and Cami feared that she may be one of them.
On the way to school, Cami and Kaci stopped at a convenience store to pick up a few snacks. Kaci made a beeline for the banana nut muffin and cappuccino while Cami settled for chips, dip, candy bars, cookies, and pickles. Kaci eyed her sister’s purchases but decided against saying anything. She figured that Cami must be buying some of those things for her best friend.
Once the girls had arrived at school, Cami saw her best friend, Marissa Benson, waiting by her locker as usual. They had been best friends since they were four years old. Their mothers attended nursing school together and became very good friends. Both women would always arrange play dates for the girls and they ended up becoming inseparable.
“What took you so long to get here?” Marissa asked Cami. “I could’ve left to get something to eat since my mom didn’t have to time to fix breakfast.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it. Kaci and I stopped at a store on the way to school, and I brought your favorite chips,” Cami responded, as she pulled the chips out of her tote bag and handed it over to Marissa.
She turned around just in time to see Kaci smile and her eyes light up with happiness as a young man approached her. “Well, look at who’s almost late this morning,” she said to him with a smile.
“My mother’s alarm clock didn’t go off this morning so she was late preparing breakfast,” he said beaming.
Kaci turned around to face Cami and Marissa and said, “I’ll see you guys later.”
“Okay,” both girls said in unison.
“You guys are the total opposite of each other,” Marissa said once Kaci was out of earshot.
“Yeah, I know,” Cami added. That news wasn’t anything new to her. She and Kaci were as different as day was from night. She was sensitive while Kaci was more thick-skinned; she was more passive while Kaci was more assertive. She hated to think of herself as sensitive and passive but she knew that it was true. She yearned to be more like her younger sister but she just wasn’t sure if she had it in her.
“That Skylar Caldarelli just keeps getting hotter as his years go by,” Marissa said. “Did you notice how buff he’s gotten?”
“He hasn’t gotten that buff,” Cami replied. “Did you want any dip to go with those chips?”
Marissa nodded.
Cami reached into her tote and pulled out Marissa’s dip and handed it to her and then pulled out a pickle, dipped it into the ranch dip, and ate it. She closed her eyes as the taste of the pickle and ranch dip flooded her senses. It was the most delicious thing that she’d ever tasted. When she opened her eyes, she found Marissa staring at her with a serious expression on her face. She grabbed the dip and pickles away from Cami and set them inside her locker which was coincidently beside Cami’s. Then, she slammed her locker shut and shoved Cami into the girls’ restroom. She looked underneath each stall to make sure that no one was in there, and then she got down to business.
“What’s going on?” she demanded to know with her hands on her hips.
“What do you mean?” Cami asked beginning to feel a little nauseated. A foul odor coming from one of the stalls didn’t help either.
“You’re dipping a pickle in ranch dip. Tammy dips her pickles in mustard and red dirt and everyone knows why,” she whispered as if someone might overhear.
“Why?”
“Because she’s pregnant.”
A look of shock settled onto Cami’s face. She’d always thought that Tammy was smarter than that. She had gotten straight A’s her entire life, and she was an honor roll student. She could only imagine what Tammy’s mother was going through. She was a high school teacher and female teachers gossip just as much as their younger counterparts (though most will not admit it).
Unannounced, Cami ran into a stall, pulled her hair back, and began to vomit in the toilet.
“Cami, are you sick?” Marissa said worriedly. She could sense the worry in her tone, but she didn’t want to tell her about what she had done with River.
“Yeah, I think I have a stomach virus,” Cami lied. Deep down she was terrified. She’s six (soon to be seven) weeks late. She’s craving foods that she normally hates, and she worries all the time.
“Ewwww.”
“Yeah, I know,” Cami said, feeling ill with the feeling of the vomit after taste in her mouth. She came out of the stall feeling like trash. She was beginning to think that she really was pregnant. It’s either that or she was just worrying too much. She needed to know whether or not she was pregnant but she couldn’t buy a pregnancy test. She didn’t want to take the chance of someone recognizing her and telling her mother. It was a good thing that she had Marissa.
She noticed that she was standing near the door. She had her eyes to the floor and her arms crossed. “What’s wrong?” Cami inquired.
“Do you really have the stomach bug?”
Cami walked over to the sink and began to wash her hands. “Yeah, I guess. Why?”
She grabbed a paper towel and dried her hands while avoiding eye contact with Marissa. “Are you pregnant?”
Why is she asking me this? Cami wondered. She didn’t tell anyone. Dammit! She probably found out that she had slept with River. God knows he has a mouth on him.
“Keep your voice down and I don’t know,” she whispered. She couldn’t believe that she just sort of admitted to being pregnant.
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
Cami’s eyes immediately hit the floor. She couldn’t believe that she was about to say this but… “I…,” she slowly began.
Mar
issa’s eyes widened in shock, “You had sex with him, didn’t you?”
She nodded.
Then, Marissa got this ‘I know something you don’t know’ look on her face. Cami was almost too scared to ask but decided to anyway. “What?”
“Are you and River still...?”
“No. Why?”
She sighed and then dropped a bombshell on her best friend, “He proposed to some girl earlier this week.” Cami’s mouth fell open. River was getting married? She had been dating him for almost two years until he suddenly broke up with her over a text that said: IT’S OVER. Ouch. He had never even told her why it was over. She’d tried calling and texting him countless times but he never responded. She was not in love with River (or so she told herself), but she did love him. Hearing that he was supposed to be marrying someone else broke her heart into pieces.
Suddenly, her legs felt numb and weak as if they might give way underneath her. Marissa put her arms around her in a gentle hug, and she collapsed into her arms and began to sob.
“It’ll be okay. We’ll figure out something,” Marissa said soothingly. “You’re better off without that jerk anyway.”
“Wh-what am I go-going t-to do? I’m not ready to be a-a-a mom,” Cami sobbed.
“Neither is Tammy. Maybe you guys should talk. I mean, you’re in the same situation and you’re going through the same things. In the meantime, I’ll get you a pregnancy test, and I’ll drop by your place this afternoon.”
During the rest of the school day, Cami was a wreck. She couldn’t focus in any of her classes. She didn’t eat hardly anything at lunch except a few chips. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying, and there was a huge knot in her throat that just wouldn’t seem to go away. This just wasn’t her day.
Later that day, as she held the pregnancy test in her hands, she wondered what the results would be. Somehow she just knew that she was pregnant. It was just a bad feeling that she had in the pit of her stomach. She didn’t want to believe it, but she didn’t know what else to believe. All the signs were there. She’s six (soon to be seven) weeks late. She wakes up in the middle of the night and morning vomiting. She craves foods that she normally hates. What other explanation could there be?
She glanced down at the pregnancy test. Her worst fear has become her new reality.
Chapter 2