Autumn Drawings

By Kelli Huffman

Seventeen-year-old Xo lives by herself, having filed for emancipation when she was sixteen in order to escape her parents’ drug-controlled lives. A high school junior, she faces constant bullying from her classmates—even from Beth, who is supposedly her friend. She works as a waitress after school to support herself.

Although Xo endures flashbacks to the trauma she experienced at the hands of her parents, she wants to believe she has put her troubled childhood behind her. But when a figure emerges from the shadows and upends her life, she soon discovers that the past is coming back to haunt her in the form of her parents’ dealer and his teenage son, Kit, one of Xo’s classmates. As she struggles with terrible memories, she finds a possible ally in Kit, even if he is one of the ones holding her captive. But only time will tell whether the two of them can escape the violence of their lives and find happiness together.

In this novella, a teenage girl living on her own deals with the consequences of her parents’ poor choices and finds an unlikely source of hope and happiness in her kidnapper’s son.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: May 16, 2019
• ISBN: 9781480878181

Kelli Huffman

Kelli Huffman is a young writer who seeks to open the eyes of her readers and make them truly think. She currently lives in New Castle, Pennsylvania.

Book preview

Copyright © 2019 Kelli Huffman.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Archway Publishing

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.archwaypublishing.com

1 [phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-4808-7817-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-7818-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019906650

Archway Publishing rev. date: 6/5/2019

CONTENTS

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

About The Author

1

E arlier that day in history class, there was a girl asleep at her desk. Everyone in the class was laughing, making fun of her, and throwing stuff at her. The teacher felt bad for her and told everyone to stop. When he tapped her shoulder, she shot up suddenly and gave a little yelp. The entire class was dying of laughter, and her face turned a dark red in embarrassment. That girl was me.

Xo! (Zoe) someone called from behind me. Louder and louder, my name was called as the person approached me. My friend Beth came up behind me. I turned around and flashed a smile. Immediately, she started laughing at me.

You should have seen yourself in history; you looked so stupid, she said. Beth went on and on laughing about it, but I didn’t find it funny, not one bit. I was used to being laughed at, so I joined in as much as I could. Being the joke of all my friends and most of my school, I learned to fake a smile most of the time.

No one hung out with me because they liked me or thought I was cool; it was because they always had something to laugh about when I was around. Yes, it bothered me, but I’d learned to deal with it. I know I look like I play the victim, but why make new friends after all this time? It’s too hard to build a new group of friends once you are in eleventh grade. If I was being honest, the same things would happen if I tried to make new friends. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t tried to make them stop by sticking up for myself, but every time I did, they turned it into another joke and made me feel dumb for it. I could deal with it for another year.

While listening to Beth go on and on about all of her boy problems, I passed Keith. Beth caught me looking at him longer than I should have and stopped walking. She looked at me and said, You’re welcome, then winked at me.

I liked Keith, but he didn’t need to know that. I tried to grab her shoulder before she could reach him, but she slipped out of my grip.

I didn’t know what to do, so I froze like always. Just standing there and watching, looking like an idiot. Beth started talking to him as though she’d known him forever. He looked at me, then back at Beth, and started laughing, and then she started laughing too.

Immediately, I was embarrassed. I panicked and walked away. I didn’t know what they’d said, and I didn’t want to know. I just headed to my car and didn’t look back or stop. Before I could leave, Beth caught up to me. I decided not to say or ask anything about what had happened, and it didn’t seem as if she wanted to tell me either.

I started the car, and before I could play music, Beth took the auxiliary cord from me and said, No, your awful music will not be played while I’m in the car.

I was giving her a ride, doing her a favor, and she talked to me like that. Instead of putting her