Scattered Colors

By Jessica Prince

Life has always been easy for Freya Linden.
Happiness. Family. Love.

Until the unthinkable happens and she's forced to grow up and face reality.
The once bright colors of her life fade into black and white, leaving her a colorless shell full of loneliness.

Then she meets him.

Parker Owens is broken, hiding his sorrow behind a mask, pretending to still be the popular boy with all the answers. But Freya sees through his façade. Suffering lingers in his soulful eyes, creating a connection between the two kindred spirits.
Together, they begin to heal.
He breathes life back into her world. She gives him peace.

But happiness isn't a guarantee.
Sometimes you have to fight for what you want.
And sometimes, if the person you love can't share their secrets, you have to walk away.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jessica Prince
• Release date: Mar 29, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370331284

Book preview

Part One

BLACK AND WHITE

Chapter One

Freya

Y ou sure you don’t need a ride ?

I turned in my friends’ direction to see Carey and Lisa loading their drill bags in the back of Carey’s car.

I’m sure! I yelled back. A quick glance at my watch showed that my mother was already ten minutes late. I bet she just got caught in traffic. She’ll be here any minute. I’ll see you guys tomorrow.

My friends sent me quick waves as they climbed into the car and started out of our high school parking lot. I pulled the strap of my own drill bag from my shoulder and dropped it to the ground before taking a seat on the rough concrete sidewalk. Every inch of my body hurt. My poor, aching muscles cried out in relief as I leaned back against my bag. Competition had been brutal this year, but my Drill Team had walked away victorious, having won first place overall. Dancing wasn’t necessarily a passion of mine, but I stuck with it because of the look of sheer joy on my mother’s face every time she saw me perform. Dance had been her dream but as she told it, having two left feet had nipped that dream in the bud early on. She’d enrolled me in every class imaginable once I was old enough, and I kept at it because it made her happy. But with my senior year coming up, I was counting down the time until I could walk away from it all. After graduation, I was done.

Closing my eyes against the bright sunlight, I leaned my head back and listened to the noise of the city. I could hear the faint sounds of cars honking, of sirens in the distance, but none of it fazed me. Chicago had been home to me my entire life; the hustle and bustle noises came with the territory, and I’d grown accustomed to tuning them all out.

Another glance at my watch. Twenty minutes late.

Where is she?

Hitting redial on my cell, I tried calling her again and just like the last time, it went unanswered. Worry stirred in my belly with every minute that ticked by. My mother wasn’t the type of person to ever be late, and I couldn’t remember the last time she hadn’t answered my call. Dread formed a massive knot in my chest as the hands on my watch continued to turn with no signs of Mom. The longer I sat on the hard ground, the louder the voice in my head began to shout.

Something was definitely wrong.

---

"No. No!" The soul-crushing devastation in my father’s voice was the only sound that could penetrate the blood rushing in my ears.

I’m sorry, sir. The doctor spoke with a calm, methodical tone which had no doubt been honed over years of having to break bad news to families just like mine, families who had lost someone they loved.

For six days, my father and I sat vigil at my mother’s bedside, hoping and praying she would pull through. Phrases like she’s strong and she’s a fighter had given us both the hope that she’d somehow manage to make it, that one day her eyes would miraculously open and our lives would go back to the way they’d been. For six long, excruciating days, it felt like the pause button had been pushed on my life and I was just waiting impatiently for it to start back up again. That was, until just moments ago. Six days of fighting and my mother had finally lost the battle for her life and slipped away.

It didn’t feel real. It couldn’t be. I was having a nightmare; that was the only explanation that made any sense. I was asleep. I’d wake up any moment and my mother would be there, alive and happy, just like any other day. She hadn’t really been hit head-on by a drunk driver on her way to pick me up. It was all just a bad dream that my imagination had somehow conjured up.

Just a dream, just a dream, I kept repeating in my head, refusing to look at my mother’s lifeless body lying in the hospital bed just feet away.

She was going to open her eyes at any moment and everything would be all right. I knew if I could just see those bright blue eyes, so similar to my own, that the world would un-pause and start moving again, just as it was meant to.

But her eyes never opened. And with the loss of her shiny, happy blue eyes, the rest of the color in the world began to dim.

---

Colorless.

That had been my world the day we put my mother in the ground. There was no vibrancy, no bold, vivid colors; just black, white, and gray. Everything from the angry storm clouds that filled the sky to the umbrellas held over our heads at the graveside service to the suits and dresses the mourners around me wore as they paid their respects were cloaked in those cold, desolate tones. I could remember spending the entire day on autopilot, my body moving robotically from one place to another, too overwhelmed to process what was going on around me. I still couldn’t bring myself to believe it was all really happening. Every morning, I woke up and expected to find my mother in the kitchen preparing breakfast and every morning, my heart wrenched and broke all over again as remembrance took hold, leaving a hole inside my world that couldn’t be filled.

My father and I spent that day side by side in silence, coping with our loss together yet still separately. He seemed to be turning into himself, holding his emotions at bay until he was in the privacy of my parents’ bedroom. I guessed he didn’t realize I could hear his cries of agony through the walls every night. Neither of us had spoken much in the days leading up to the funeral. It was as if we didn’t know what to say to each other to lessen the hurt.

In the days that followed Mom’s funeral, the colors of life remained missing. The happiness, which had once filled my household as I grew up, had dwindled. As that first month ticked by, my father eventually pulled himself from the comforts of his room in order to go to work. I went through the motions of going to school but couldn’t bring myself to feel any of the excitement my fellow classmates exhibited at the thought of the school year soon coming to a close. While my friends all tried their hardest to show their support, I just couldn’t seem to pull myself out of the constant state of numbing disbelief I was living in. One question ran through my mind constantly: Is this really my life?

In the second month following her death, it grew apparent that my father appeared to have found solace in burying himself in his work. He’d always been a workaholic to an extent, but Mom always had a way of reining him in. She insisted that weekends were to be spent together. We’d been the kind of family that had taken vacations together or lazed around the house Saturday and Sunday, doing nothing but enjoying each other’s company. With her gone, Dad slowly began spending less and less time at home. When he was around, I noticed that he struggled to look at me. On the occasions where we actually managed to make eye contact, I saw flashes of pain fill his eyes before he quickly turned away. For me, month two brought an unwelcomed sense of constant pain. The numbness had eventually faded, and the sporadic forgetfulness that she was actually gone was no more. When I woke up in the mornings, it was with the knowledge that I was more than likely going to be spending the day alone while Dad was at the clinic.

By month three, things had grown even more dismal. I didn’t have the energy or desire to hang out with friends, leaving each one of their phone calls unanswered. The school year rolled to a close without me so much as noticing. Summertime only meant hours upon hours of sitting alone in my quiet house by myself. Dad had taken throwing himself into his work to an extreme. I began making dinners each night in the hopes of coaxing him home at a reasonable hour, but most nights I ate alone at our dining room table before packing up the leftovers and storing them in the fridge. The only reason I knew he was aware of my cooking was because the leftovers would be missing the following morning when I woke up. He knew the lengths I was going to and still couldn’t pull himself from his grief long enough to sit down for a meal with his daughter. To make matters worse, he’d gone from looking at me every once in a while with a pained expression to stopping almost completely.

I managed to find the courage to ask him why that was one rare night when he got home before I’d fallen asleep.

Why won’t you look at me, Daddy? I’d asked in a tearful voice as I tried my hardest to get his eyes to meet mine.

When he spoke, his voice was weak and broken, something I was so unused to. Growing up, I’d always believed my father to be strong and courageous. With four softly spoken words, he shattered that image. It hurts too much.

An involuntary sob burst free from my chest as warm tears made tracks down my cheeks.

I’m so sorry, Freya. I’m so sorry. He walked from the living room and shut himself in his bedroom for the remainder of the night. I knew my father was crushed by the loss of Mom. They’d been together since college and, while I had friends who came from families of divorce, I’d been raised in a household where my parents never hid their affection from me. They were constantly hugging or kissing to the point of embarrassment. I understood his pain, but that didn’t take away from the stinging slap his words left me feeling. As month three progressed, my pain grew more intense, almost unbearable. The fact that my father couldn’t even look at me—because I was a constant reminder of his beloved wife—compounded my pain with loneliness at what felt like the loss of my father, as well. I could see that soul-deep hurt one could only feel when they looked at the carbon copy of the person they’d loved and lost too early in life.

I was the spitting image of my mother. That thought used to bring me joy. But ever since losing her, just looking in the mirror stabbed at my heart. We had the same light brown hair that would shine with natural red highlights when the light hit it just right. Our eyes were the same wide-set, expressive, cerulean blue that tended to turn different shades depending on our mood. Mom used to say there was no hiding what we were feeling, that our emotions reflected in our eyes, showing everything no matter how hard we tried to hide it. But since that awful day, the light that used to reflect in my eyes was gone. There was no happiness, no sadness, just stark emptiness looking back at me. Everything about my face—eyes, ears, nose, chin, lips, cheekbones—were all exactly like hers. It was a blessing and a curse all at the same time.

I began to doubt that things were ever going to go back to the way they used to be. I started to question if the colors would ever come back to my world. I lay in bed at night, silently crying, thinking that things couldn’t get any worse. Sadly, I was mistaken. Month three had been the hardest yet, but it was in month four that I would discover my life could, in fact, get worse. Month four was when I lost what was left of the life I’d grown to know. Month four was when what little I had was stripped away completely.

Month four was when my pain grew tenfold and I began to truly resent my father.

Chapter Two

Freya

Y ou’ll love it here, Freya. Just wait and see .

I tuned my father’s voice out as I looked through the passenger window. Even the beautiful view whipping past me wasn’t enough to pull me from my morose mood. If the serenity of the white-capped waves crashing along the pebbled shoreline or the tree-lined cliffs overlooking the ocean weren’t enough to cheer me up, then my father’s pathetic attempt at reassurance certainly wasn’t going to do it.

It had been a long, three-day drive from Chicago to the tiny, Pacific Northwest town of Sommerspoint, Washington. Three days filled with, it’s such a lovely town, Freya; wait until you see the beach, Freya; and my absolute favorite, this is a chance for us to start over, Freya.

I didn’t want to start over. I wanted to go home.

Home to the beautiful house I’d grown up in just outside of Chicago. The house where my mother had played with me, cooked meals, read me bedtime stories before tucking me in snuggly every night, where my family would cuddle close on the couch watching movies on the weekends. Home was that house filled with the memories of my mom, memories of a happier time, memories I cherished.

But the house was gone.

Only four months after burying her, my father decided he could no longer handle living in that house surrounded by the memory of my mother. Where they gave me comfort, those same memories haunted my dad. He sold the family clinic he’d opened in the city two years before I’d been born to move us all the way across the country to some town where the population was just barely out of the triple digits. Sommerspoint. Even the name was serene.

I hated it.

Everything had been done without my input. He never once asked how I felt about the move. He didn’t care. The only thing that mattered to him was running away from the memories he was unable to handle. Without so much as talking to me, he put our house on the market and sold it and his clinic. He’d contacted a colleague of his from medical school who ran a family practice in Sommerspoint and agreed to come on as a partner. The first I heard of our plans to start a new life thousands of miles away had been the week before.

The quick knock on my bedroom door had drawn my gaze from the book I’d been reading to see my father standing in the doorway. We’re moving to Washington. You need to pack; we’ll be leaving first thing Monday morning. That was it. That was all he said before turning and walking away, leaving me reeling from the bomb he’d just dropped.

So, you’re not talking to me at all? my father asked after several minutes passed without a response to his last comment.

What’s there to talk about? I asked sullenly, never taking my eyes off the landscape as it passed by.

His heavy sigh echoed through the car. You’ll get used to this place. You just need to get settled in.

I didn’t bother arguing. There was no use. If he wanted to believe moving away from everything and everyone we’d ever known and loved would be an easy adjustment, then I’d let him. He could use that thought to keep himself comfortable. I was a realist. I knew exactly what was going to happen. We’d get settled, Dad would go back to working long hours, and I’d go back to being alone. That was what my life had become. Despite the fact that we’d moved, I knew things weren’t going to change. He wasn’t staying away from me because he wanted to grieve privately. No, he kept his distance because it hurt too much to look at me.

Part of me couldn’t fault my father for not being able to look at me, but the other part resented the hell out of him. I resented him for the distance he’d put between us, for the way he left me to handle my mother’s death all on my own, without a shoulder to cry on. I couldn’t help but think a stronger man would have been able to suck it up and find a way to help his daughter heal, but he wasn’t strong. He’d proven that in his actions over the past four months. Our move was just another red flag showing me I was on my own. No one was going to take care of me but me. It was a sad, sad lesson for a seventeen-year-old to have to learn.

The remainder of the drive up the coast was silent. I’d just begun to doze when my father turned the car onto a gravel driveway lined with the thickest, tallest trees I’d ever seen. Even if the sun hadn’t already started its descent from the sky, the light wouldn’t have been able to break through the denseness of the leaves. I took in the picturesque landscape all around as we drove closer and closer to our new home. What I saw once everything came into view made my jaw drop slightly and my eyes widen in awe.

It wasn’t the massive two-story craftsman—although it was quite gorgeous—which left me speechless. It was the view of what was beyond the house that had me mesmerized.

The furniture is already set up, Dad said as he turned the key, shutting off the car’s engine. The movers unloaded everything yesterday. All that’s left is to unpack are the boxes.

Ignoring his words, I opened the car door to climb out. I’m going to take a look around. Be back in a bit.

I didn’t wait for his response before taking off around the side of the house. The view was absolutely breathtaking. The house sat on a bluff overlooking the Pacific. There were no fences surrounding the property. Our backyard was massive, at least fifty yards before it butted right up to the edge of the cliff, nothing to be seen but miles and miles of ocean. To say the view was stunning would have been a massive understatement. I could have stared at that view for hours and never grown tired of it.

Taking another step toward the edge of the cliff, I glanced down at the beach. One look was all it took and I knew right then and there I was in love with what I saw below me. The ground was covered in sand and pebbles. Downed trees that looked like they’d been there forever lay on their sides. Stepping back from the edge, I scanned the area, looking for a way down. It wasn’t that far of a drop, but there was no way I was climbing down a rocky cliff face all alone. Luckily, off to my right was a path worn into the grass. I followed it until I made it to the quiet beach. Once I was at the shoreline, I turned in a full circle, soaking up everything that surrounded me. With water in front of me, a rocky wall that led up to my new home behind, while magnificent trees and cliffs jutted out on both sides. It was amazing. My mom would have loved it.

As soon as that thought crossed my mind, it felt like a balloon had popped, deflating all the wonder and joy I’d momentarily felt as I took in my surroundings, thrusting me back into a harsh reality where my mom was gone and I was on my own. Walking over to one of the fallen trees, I ran my fingers across the trunk where years of rain and tides had left the surface smooth. I took a seat on the weathered wood and watched the waves roll in as tears streamed down my face.

I couldn’t help but wonder when that big, gaping hole she’d left behind when she died would finally begin to heal and close up. Some days it felt like the pain was almost too much to bear.

I miss you, I whispered into the breeze as it blew past me.

Are you a crazy person? I spun around with a gasp, unaware there was anyone on the beach besides me. My breath instantly stalled as my eyes roamed helplessly over the boy standing before me. Dark brown hair flopped over his forehead messily, nearly masking equally dark eyes. The sun glinted off the piercing in his bottom lip, drawing my attention to his mouth. As I scanned further down, I saw he was wearing a plain white t-shirt and a pair of worn-out jeans with a chain hanging from his belt loop to his back pocket. The faded Converses on his feet also appeared to have been worn frequently, ripped and scuffed in places like only a favorite pair of shoes could be. Nothing about his clothing was all that impressive, but the way they hugged his body showed off lean yet well-defined muscles.

He was, by far, one of the most attractive boys I’d ever seen. It wasn’t just his body or the way he dressed that made him so good-looking, though. There was something in the way he was carrying himself. He had an almost-cocky arrogance in his body language. Everything from the slow, casual swagger he had as he walked toward me to the smirk that tilted the corner of his full lips up screamed confident. It was as if he was well aware of who he was and completely comfortable in that knowledge. A deep chuckle pulled my attention back up to his face where his smirk slowly spread into a full-on smile. I’d just been busted checking him out.

Um…what?

His head tipped to the side as his eyes narrowed. He was studying me closely, like something about me sitting there alone on a beach fascinated him. His attention was both thrilling and disconcerting all at the same time. His eyes were so focused, as though he was seeing things a stranger shouldn’t see, and I wasn’t sure I liked it.

I asked if you were a crazy person, he repeated. The deep timbre of his voice sent a shiver through my body.

No! I let out an offended huff, hugging my arms around my stomach like they were somehow going to protect me from the strange boy who had come out of nowhere. Are you? I asked, my tone full of hostility.

The boy stepped even closer and I noticed he looked to be right around my age. I’m not the one sitting on a log talking to myself. His eyes glinted with humor, but I wasn’t finding anything about our small exchange to be funny.

My lip curled in derision. I wasn’t talking to myself, I said sharply.

He leaned down to pick up one of the pebbles off the beach and began tossing it from hand to hand. Looked that way to me. What’s your name? I’ve never seen you around here before.

We just moved into the house on the bluff, I answered, pointing up at the cliff behind me. I’m Freya Linden and you are?

Parker Owens. He thrust his hand out for me to shake. Freya, huh? That’s a weird name. Guess it fits you, weird name for the weird girl who talks to herself on an empty beach.

I felt my cheeks heat at his insult. I’d never been the type of girl who was easily offended. My mom had taught me from an early age to ignore people’s hatefulness. She always said mean people were just scared, pathetic human beings who needed to build themselves up by knocking other people down. I was usually able to brush insults off, but having Parker call me weird pricked at something inside of me. I couldn’t explain it, especially since I didn’t know the guy from Adam, but for some reason, it bothered me.

I stood from my spot on the log and started toward the path that led up the cliff. You’re an asshole, I ground out as I walked away. What was wrong with me? First I got my feelings hurt, and then the best I could come up with was to call him an asshole? I was awesome when it came to hurling insults at someone who was acting like a jackass. Maybe it was sleep deprivation. Maybe all those hours in a car had thrown me off, but no matter the excuse, in Parker’s presence, I was most definitely off my game.

Whoa, whoa. Wait a second. I heard the rocks fly up from the ground as he ran after me. I was only teasing you, he said, grabbing hold of my elbow and turning me to face him. It was a joke. I didn’t mean anything by it.

I frowned as I jerked my arm from his hold. What’s funny about being a jerk to someone you’ve just met?

He ran his hands through his unruly hair and released a breath. Look, I’m sorry. Really. You just looked a little…I don’t know, lost, I guess. I didn’t mean to be a dick. I was just trying to lighten the mood for you.

I didn’t like how he seemed to be able to read me so well, but more than that, I didn’t like the way he made it feel like I had a million butterflies flapping around in my belly. I’d met the guy all of five minutes ago, for crying out loud. I needed to get away from Parker and his creepy insightfulness.

I opened my mouth to toss a smart remark back at him just as my father called my name from up above us.

Gotta go, I said, turning around and continuing up the path.

It’s been a pleasure, Freya Linden.

Can’t say the same, Parker Owens, I called over my shoulder.

Feisty. I’m looking forward to seeing you around, new girl.

I didn’t bother responding that I hoped to never have to see him again because a part of me—a very tiny part I refused to acknowledge—was kind of excited at the prospect of running into Parker Owens again. Even if I had found him the slightest bit detestable.

It was official. I’d been in Sommerspoint for all of an hour and I was already losing my mind.

---

Parker

---

Freya Linden.

The name was just as interesting as the girl herself.

As I made my way home, taking the route along the beach to clear my head, the last thing I expected was to run into a beautiful girl sitting on a log crying as she stared out at the ocean. My walk on the beach was something I did regularly to escape the turbulence of my life. I craved the solitude I usually had on the long, lonely expanse of sand and pebbles. I’d left Cassidy’s house an hour earlier and was in desperate need of the salty sea air to clear out the chaos in my mind. I didn’t understand why I kept going back. The girl drove me insane on a good day, but on days like this one, she did nothing but add to the stark blackness of my life.

I’d made the right decision to end my relationship with Cassidy a while back, but when I was having a bad day, it was just too easy to fall back into a routine—or into Cassidy’s bed, to be exact—in an attempt to get a reprieve from the bad days. Unfortunately, that reprieve had come to an end. I’d used my ex as a fallback plan for too long and she was starting to push. Pushing for us to get back together, pushing for us to be something we just weren’t, pushing me to tell her I loved her when, in all honestly, I wasn’t even sure I liked her.

As I made my way back home, that emptiness I’d started feeling inside after every encounter with Cassidy had started to grow. I didn’t know how much longer I could continue going on the way I was before the darkness swallowed me whole. If I were being

Reviews for Scattered Colors

[Stina Altheide · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of the best stories I have ever read. Wow...forgiveness, healing, grief...romance. I cried A LOT...but good tears. Making me rethink some things and people in my life. Excellent story.