Ttyl

By Bethany Lopez

The last few months have been a rough road for Melissa. Her grades have slipped, her parents treat her like a prisoner, and her closest friends are too involved in their own lives to spend time with her. Desperate to escape her depressing funk, she starts spending more time with Layla, who introduces her to a new crowd...the wrong crowd. When Melissa starts to go down a dangerous path, can anyone get through to her before she does something she'll regret?

The Stories about Melissa series is a coming of age series that follows Melissa, her family, and her friends. Similar to Sweet Valley High, each book is novella length. There will be eight books in the series.

Stories about Melissa reading order:

Ta Ta for Now!
xoxoxo
Ciao
TTYL
Book 5 ~ coming soon

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bethany Lopez
• Release date: Nov 12, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301001477

Bethany Lopez

Bethany Lopez is a USA Today Bestselling author of more than thirty books and has been published since 2011. She's a lover of all things romance, which she incorporates into the books she writes, no matter the genre.When she isn't reading or writing, she loves spending time with family and traveling whenever possible.Bethany can usually be found with a cup of coffee or glass of wine at hand, and will never turn down a cupcake!Sign up for her newsletter and get a free eBook! https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/r7w3w5

Book preview

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Grounded:

I finally bought this new journal at the mall last weekend, but this is the first time I’ve had a chance to write.

Life stinks…

Brian did not take the news that I wanted to go back to being just friends well; in fact, he was really mad and hurt.

He hasn’t spoken to me in months.

Jess and Giovanni are totally in love, and are in a constant state of liplock. They can’t keep their hands off of each other. It’s like, enough already!!!

As if it wasn’t bad enough that I have to watch them making out with each other all day, when I get home I have to deal with Megan and Scott, from across the street.

Scott finally gave in to Megan’s charm and they are dating. It’s like a total gropefest, and Mikey is constantly terrorizing them.

Jimmy has been quiet. He hangs out and stuff, and we still talk and text, but he’s not the same since Cassie died.

Needless to say, I haven’t tried to talk to him about how I feel about him or ask him out. The time just hasn’t been right.

Finally, to top it all off, I’m grounded.

I mean… No phone, no hanging out with friends, stuck in the house – GROUNDED!

And not just your run of the mill grounding either… grounded over winter break!

My report card came yesterday… It wasn’t good.

My parents took one look at it and wigged out!

I’ve never been a straight-A student, but I usually maintain As and Bs.

With everything that has happened so far this year, my grades have slipped, and I’m close to failing Chemistry. English and Math aren’t looking so hot either.

Mom flipped her lid. Missy, I know you’ve had a tough year, but this is unacceptable. You spend plenty of time hanging out with your friends and you planned the walk for Cassie, which was a wonderful thing, but you obviously aren’t putting the time in on your classes. Until your grades come up, you’re grounded. You’ll remain grounded until I have notes from each of your teachers saying you have improved. You need to talk to each of them tomorrow and see what you need to do to bring your grades up: tutoring, extra credit, whatever…

Sheesh… You’d think I’d been kicking puppies or something, for as mad as she got! I guess the teacher in her can’t stand the thought of her kids failing in school.

Oh, I forgot to add the best part. I’m going to have to take Chemistry again this semester, since I failed, and guess who my tutor is going to be… My old pal, the one who acted like my friend, then went all psycho on me and stole my boyfriend… Layla.

Perfect!

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Winter Break:

Winter break has been totally lame.

I can’t talk to anyone, can’t go anywhere, and can’t do anything.

Mikey has a more exciting social life than I do.

Scott has spent the entire winter break on our couch. Every time I go in there to watch Arrow, I have to step over his super gangly legs.

He and Megan just sit there holding hands and giggling. It’s revolting.

I’ve spoke briefly to Jess and she and Giovanni are spending every possible second together.

Since I don’t have my phone, I haven’t been able to text Jimmy, so I don’t know how his break is going. We were all supposed to get together to exchange gifts and celebrate before Christmas, but I can’t even do that now. Mom said I can give everyone their gifts when school starts back up.

Lame.

I’ve been basically living like Cinderella. I get up and clean, then cook, then clean again. I usually have to watch Max and Monica for a while when Mom goes shopping, which was fine at the beginning of break, but now it’s getting old.

I mean, seriously, did they have me just so they would have a built-in babysitter?

I feel like I am in this total funk and I don’t know how to get out. I’m in a bad mood all of the time. I don’t care about what I’m wearing, what’s the point; I just walk around in basketball shorts and a T-shirt all day. It’s not like I’m going anywhere.

I feel like the joy has been sucked out of me.

Dramatic, I know, but I’m totally serious. I am actually looking forward to break being over and going back to school.

I have to get out of this house.

I need to see my friends again.

I don’t feel like doing anything.

I’m so bored, even writing in this journal is boring…

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School:

Okay, I know I have been horrible about writing in my journal. Winter Break sucked and I just didn’t have anything to write. There was nothing good happening.

But now, I’m back in school. Out of the prison that was once my home, and back with my friends.

Well, almost back with my friends.

It’s like I never see Jess without Giovanni anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I like Giovanni, but I miss spending time with just Jess.

Jimmy and I don’t have any classes together, so I only get to see him at lunch. He’s pretty quiet. I try to talk to him and get him to smile, but he has this horrible sadness about him.

I don’t know how to change him back.

I’ve been meeting with Layla after school for my Chemistry tutoring, and she’s actually been pretty cool.

She and Mo are still dating; they’ve been together for a while now, and all of the bad blood that was between us because of Brian is gone.

She asked me if I wanted to go with her to listen to a band play this weekend, and I said sure. It’s not like Jess or Jimmy is beating down my door to hang out, and I don’t want another weekend at home.

Should be fun.

My classes this semester are okay, nothing too terribly hard. I’m sure I’ll do better in Chemistry now, with Layla’s help. She has a way of explaining things that makes it pretty easy to understand.

The only class I’m not thrilled with is my Algebra class. I have Mr. Moto and he’s pretty strict. He yelled at me for talking to another student, and I was just trying to find out what page we were on.

Jeez.

I’m still grounded, so when I get home I have to do my homework and study. Then I help my mom make dinner, followed by chores. My parents said that they would allow me more freedom on the weekends, as long as my homework and chores are done, so when I asked if I could hang out with Layla this weekend, Mom said, Yes.

I didn’t tell her we are going to see a band.

I know, that’s bad… but I know if I mentioned it she would have totally said, No.

What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her, right?

So, anyway, after I finished my homework and helped Mom with the chili, I went into the living room to see what everyone else was doing.

Mikey was playing a baseball game on the PS3, and Megan and Scott were sitting on the couch holding hands (gag) and watching Mikey play. Monica was on the floor holding a game in her lap and trying to convince everyone to play with her.

I’ll play, I said as I sat down next to her.

She smiled up at me and I felt a tug in my heart. She’s so cute and so sweet. I probably don’t spend as much time with her as I should.

She’d picked out this game where you have to wear a contraption on your head, then you pick a card and put it on your head facing out so the other people playing can see it, then you have to guess what it is. They were all Disney characters. We’d played it before and it was actually pretty fun.

As we started setting everything up, Mikey turned off