Promises Broken

By KA Stalter

When Briggs and Paige met, they made an unlikely pair, but somehow they understood each other. Both outcasts with less than ideal homelives, they quickly formed a close friendship. But at fifteen, Briggs was forced to leave town and break a promise to his best friend. Now, nearly three years later, with Paige never far from his mind, he decides to revisit his past and along the way discovers she is no longer the kid he remembers. And his feelings for her are anything but friendly.

Originally published in the Between Hearts Anthology

This is a short story. It's a prologue for Brigg's and Paige's upcoming full length novel All My Mistakes

• Language: English
• Publisher: KA Stalter
• Release date: May 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463338797

KA Stalter

I'm a reader first, an avid music fan, a frequent concert-goer, a silly mom, a zealous blogger & a virgin author.A while back one of my favorite bands (The Avett Bros) tweeted that they were featured in a book and everyone should buy it. (Slammed by Colleen Hoover). So I read it and my love for reading was rekindled. Consequently, my blog, Obsessed with Romance, was born.After figuring out that having characters running around in my head talking to me was, in fact, not the norm, I decided to write one of their stories. So with a little encouragement, a few missteps and a crap load of support, I published my first short story.

Book preview

Promises Broken

K A Stalter

Published by Smashwords

Copyright © 2018 by K A Stalter All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Contents

Chapter 1: The Memory

Chapter 2: Sad Song

Chapter 3: Hate Me

Epilogue: This is Letting Go

About the Author

Acknowledgements

CHAPTER 1

THE MEMORY

SOME THINGS IN LIFE ARE BETTER FORGOTTEN, AT LEAST THAT'S MY

excuse for the gaping holes in my memory. The shrink at my last group home called it a defense mechanism. I think it's because there isn't a whole lot of shit in my life worth recalling, and most of the stuff I can remember, I'd rather forget.

So the fact my stomach just launched into free fall is fucking surprising and the memory, the damn good memory that just took my breath away, twists me up in ways I've never experienced before. Good and bad, joy and sorrow, all mixed together and paralyzing me. Usually my memories, when they do come, clobber me over the head and send me into a tail spin. But this is different. This memory is a good one, though so damn bittersweet.

I'm staring down at the cake Declan set in front of me and it looks nothing like the cake I'm remembering, the cake Paige decorated for my sixteenth birthday. Declan's cake has Happy 18th Briggs written across the top in the practiced handwriting of a professional. White frosting, blue lettering, the words carefully scribed across a music staff next to a large black treble clef. Nothing about it should remind me of the barely legible scrawl from that cake two years ago, but it does. Maybe because they're the only two times since my mom left that anyone in my life had cared enough to bother marking the occasion. God that cake Paige made was awful, but I fucking miss how she made me feel.

Taking three deep, steadying breaths, I let my head fall forward, using my hair to shield my eyes from view. If I don't get it together Declan and his parents will give me that look again. I freaking hate that look. Pity, empathy and the tiniest bit of fear. They worry I'm going to lose my shit. I'm pretty sure they know by now I won't do anything crazy, they just hate feeling helpless. And I hate making them nervous. Hopefully they just think I'm making a wish right now. Not a chance of that happening though. I gave up wishing a long time ago, probably around the time I was nine.

Life taught me a valuable lesson pretty early on: hope is more painful than the void created by its absence. Hope fucking hurts. But if I did wish, if I could hope, I know exactly what I'd wish for. I'd wish to go back to my last day with Paige so I could tell her goodbye. I'd wish for one last minute with her to make sure she knew what she meant to me, to tell her not to worry, not to be afraid for me and to ask her not to cry. Because I know she cried.

Lifting my head, I place a fake ass smile on my face and blow out the candles. I don't bother with a wish.

****

A SINGLE PALE light fixture illuminates the Forsythe's back patio as I sit on a deck chair coaxing random