My Last Season With You

By SVC Ricketts

“Dealing with your own terminal illness is easier than telling your best friend that you’re in love with her. Just sayin’.” – Regina Callahan

Reggie Callahan has come to terms with her prognosis of less than a year to live. She’s been dealing with it all summer thanks to blacking out and falling off her horse back home in Wisconsin. Instead of starting her junior year, she’s only back at New York University to tie up loose ends. One of them is breaking the news to her childhood friend, actress and model, Desi St. Clair. For Reggie, telling her that she is sick, and leaving the city is harder than learning you’re going to die.

Until Desi kisses her.

This isn’t a story about gender preference or about living with cancer. Plain and simple, it’s about love and what people are willing to endure to live without regrets and savor every moment.

A portion of all sales will go to Free2Luv, a non-profit charity that supports anti-bullying & the freedom of expression.

**This is a STANDALONE novella. It is not part of a series, and does not contain a cliffhanger. This book is intended for mature audiences. Does NOT contain explicit or graphic sexual scenes. **

• Language: English
• Publisher: SVC Ricketts
• Release date: Nov 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9781502506603

SVC Ricketts

SVC Ricketts is a Contemporary Romance author and professional smart alec (self-professed). Her work has been recognized by the Pacific Northwest Writers Association and was selected as a finalist for the 2013 PNWA Literary Competition in the Romance category. Raised between Southern California and Oahu, she moved to the Pacific Northwest in 1993 and although she loves it here, her heart belongs to the Islands - it always will. When she's not in, what she loving calls "book-mode," she multitasks her life between her hilarious adult special needs daughter, super smexy husband of 11 years, two dogs, and sweating out her stress in a hot yoga studio. She's also an avid Twitter (@SVC_Ricketts) and Facebook (SVC Ricketts) addict (again, self-professed). If you want to check out her other ramblings, you can visit her at www.SmexyIndieAuthor.com.

Book preview

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My Last Season With You

Copyright © 2014 by SVC Ricketts

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without the express consent of the copyright owner.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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.

Cover Art by Ashbee Designs (http://www.ashbeedesigns.com/)

Photos by Chaoss, Minerva Studio, and Coka

Formatting by Champagne Formats (http://thewineyreader.com/champagneformats/)

First Edition: October 2014

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Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Acknowledgements

About the Author

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FROM A DISTANCE TO A passerby, I suppose I look like I’m just loitering on the steps of the fountain in Washington Square Park, huddled against the sudden, bone-numbing arrival of a New York autumn. I admit, I do have a homeless, no-purpose sort of thing going on. Seeing as it is early September though, I was not prepared for this degree of chill before I left the apartment. Yet here I sit with my wool pea coat vised tightly around me, my jean-clad legs drawn to my chest, and my arms wrapped around them. It’s not a casual I don't care demeanor that most New Yorkers seem to be born with. That laissez-faire confidence is something I have never been able to successfully project. Today is no exception. Instead of mimicking them, I’m waiting in my jittery, neurotic, spastic normality. My knees bounce and my skin is clammy as I scan the surroundings for her. I don’t know how we’ve stayed friends since we were kids, and I really don’t care. I’m just glad we did.

A burning sensation has crept into my knees from being in this same position for so long, and a concrete, flat-ass pain makes me shift my weight between butt cheeks. A grunt of uneasiness dislodges from my throat as I stretch out. Now that I am no longer hunched over, an icy breeze fingers through my hair, causing it to fall into my eyes. She hates that. She thinks my almost black, muddy-brown eyes are beautiful and should be seen. She's always brushing my bangs away from my eyes. I do the same to her, but it's not for the same reason. I just like touching her. Tucking a shiny, espresso-colored curl behind her ear sends tiny bolts of electricity through me. Just thinking about it makes a shoulder-shaking shiver tingle down my spine. We used to have the same color hair when we were kids, but now hers changes on-demand for her modeling and acting gigs. In the early years of youth, my hippy parents would never cut my hair, so it was the same length as Desi’s all through our grammar and high school years. I hated looking like a girl.

With a gloved finger, I push the sleeve of my coat back slightly to uncover my watch. She said 4:30, right? I pull my phone out to make sure. It flashes to confirm 4:52. Sigh.

A chuckle rolls through me, though; Desi has never been known to be timely. She lives in a world all her own. One with supermodels, casting calls, agents, and photo shoots, with school balanced between it all. Her focus is astonishing.

Her time is so precious now. At the beginning of our first year at NYU, we were each other’s shadows. Since then, we’ve hardly seen each other for more than fifteen minutes at a time. Under normal circumstances that would be considered weird, because not only is she my best friend - my only, in fact - we’re roommates.

In her defense, it is common knowledge that the Performing Arts class has a tendency to run late. To be honest though, if she asked me, I’d witness the first snowfall, wait through the thaw, see it nourish the new buds of spring, and then suffer through the humidity of summer just to see her.

Directing my focus to slide up to the famous arch in front of me, I appreciate its enormity and strength. I was eight years old when my parents brought me here the first time and told me the history of how the arch came to be. Come on, I was eight! All I remember was thinking the underbelly looked like octopus suction cups. Two years ago, I brought Desi here the day we arrived from Wisconsin to start our first year at NYU. She laughed at my geekiness when I made the comparison. I carry the musicality of her laugh in my head. To me, it’s a symphony of pure joy. The thought makes me smile on my darkest days - days like today.

The corners of my lips draw down with the gravity of what I’m about to do. She’s not going to like what I have to say, but I have to tell her something. I can’t just leave school without some excuse. There is a sharp and jagged knot in my stomach that bears a resemblance to a peach pit. It pings painfully inside me. I hate lying to her. Out of habit, my fingers flick in trance to Ravel’s Concerto. It’s something I’ve done since I was seven. I can almost feel the ivory piano keys reverberating beneath the pads of my fingers.

My knees jackhammer as I jerk my head around, looking anxiously for her dark hair, visualizing the ghost of her and the conversation we need to have. Vigorously shaking my hands free of tension, I braid my arms around my midsection and blow out a huff of air. This time, it’s not because I’m cold.

I can do this. I can do this. My blood is hurtling through my veins as if I just finished the toughest equestrian jumping course on the circuit; which is ridiculous in my condition. Besides the fact, Mom hasn't let me on my horse, PB, since…well, for a while now. I tilt my head back to look at the arch again and release another loud, exasperated sigh. How do I tell her I'm leaving her?

WE CAN TELL EACH OTHER anything, right? Desi asked in her little voice one night when we were twelve years old.

The memory floods through the dizziness and the dull, persistent pain that has set up permanent camp in my head. Back then, she was at our house all the time, and eventually regular sleepovers became the norm. Her parents were, let’s just say to be kind, absent. My mom and dad loved Desi, so when she stayed over, sometimes we’d all put our sleeping bags in the living room near the fireplace and pretend we were camping out. I often lay awake watching her sleep. Her lashes fluttered and her face would flinch with dreams, giving evidence of the calamity in her life.

I didn’t know whether it was the early winter snowstorm rattling the windows or the hope of a snow day being called, but that night she tossed and turned before asking me the odd question. She wouldn’t let me close the curtains—something about being able to see the night sky, even though we couldn’t with the windows frosted and caked with snow. The fire danced behind her, giving her a mesmerizing glow, and her clear, fern-green eyes sparkled in the dim shadows of the living room. She was beautiful even at twelve.

Desi scooted her obnoxiously hot pink sleeping bag closer to mine so we were almost nose to nose. My heart raced, and my nerves sensed every charged ion between us. She had me breathless and panting, anxious to fill my senses with her scent. I counted the tiny freckles on her nose and cheeks. Staring at them was the only thing keeping me somewhat sane.

Richie kissed me yesterday, she whispered timidly.

In that instant, my eyes went wide, everything in me going as cold as a barefoot walk in the snow. A heavy knot tightened around my heart and settled in my belly. I could feel myself dying with every second of silence that followed. Boys taking notice of her was an inevitable, but I detested thinking of it, and I wasn’t sure I had the stamina to watch happen.

Her lashes blinked to the same rhythm as my heartbeat. The honey-colored flecks in Desi’s eyes disappeared as her pupils enlarged and her irises thinned. Her eyes grew saucer-wide, probing mine. Well? Aren’t you going to say anything? she asked, flinching.

My gut twisted, and I could barely organize my thoughts into words. A flood of angry blood rushed through my veins, scorching me from the inside. Desi could always read my eyes, so I dipped my head, pretending to snuggle deeper in my sleeping bag.

Did you like it? I muffled out, trying to squeeze the bitterness from my tone. With my hands balled up into fists under my chin, my body curled in tighter until my fingers began to

Reviews for My Last Season With You

[Geri B · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Truly a beautiful, yet heart-wrenching story that had me both laughing and crying! I will never forget this story.