I will always choose you

By Deborah Fasola

Greenville, South Carolina.

Tessa and Dexter have a peculiar game that has bound them together since adolescence, ever since he moved with his peculiar family into the house across from hers. While she develops a genuine obsession with the new neighbor, Dex views their relationship as mere amusement. Their special and eccentric friendship drives them to play with their own lives and those of others, constantly making bets and deliberately getting into trouble.

A crazier wager than before forces Tess's parents to send her away forever, to Florida, to live with Aunt Teddy. Tessa begins to despise Dexter for everything he put her through, and it is only through this hatred that she manages to move on after that terrible decision.

Synopsis:

Daytona Beach, Florida. Eight years later.

Tess can't believe her sister is about to get married, which means she has to return home for an entire weekend. Will she see him again? Will they still play together?

In a weaving of present and past, their wild story speaks to us about great love and how cruel the heart can be; about friendship and the devastating pains of life, which flow inexorably and cannot hold together what is meant to be lost or change what is written to remain united.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BadPress
• Release date: Jul 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9781667460710

Book preview

PART ONE

The memories that I would like to give you

CHAPTER ONE

It's about survival

––––––––

IDoes the fact that you've been sitting in that lamp for an hour now have anything to do with the wedding, by any chance?

Obviously yes, otherwise how could I tell everyone about living a social fairy tale if I'm not even a little tanned? Tell me, how many of those who live here in Florida can boast a cadaverous complexion like mine?

Nobody....

Nobody, exactly. And I have to look cool, that's obvious. I must look like a person of the world, someone who found her fairy tale on a Daytona beach, not a beautician and hairdresser who spends more time in this salon than anywhere else, just because she has no friends and never goes out....

Tess, what are you saying? You have friends. You have me, you have Jack... and then you also have a handsome boyfriend. And then the tan is overrated.

Tyler is boring.

It's not boring at all. But if you think it is, why are you still dating it?

I do not know. I suppose it's because it's taken for granted and things taken for granted are a safe haven: a place from which you can watch the waves and the open sea, but which never changes and doesn't let you take risks, it makes you feel calm. Do you understand what I mean? Also because I would never throw myself into the sea like this, not without a good cause and not at my age.

"eve nut, Tess, you sound like you're seventy," Rose chides me, then taps on the dome of minetanning coffinand and all the metallic artillery vibrates, including my butt.

In any case, it's hellishly hot in here because I've really been imprisoned in these sheets for too long, I'm gasping for air and what she says certainly doesn't help me. By tonight, however, I will be very similar to a lobster, guaranteed, since I don't even have the strength to go out at the moment.

What a boring person I am, sometimes I can't stand myself either.

Are you really saying you're staying with that guy because it's a given? Tessa, what the hell does that mean? my friend still rages, but deep down what does she know?

She's beautiful, always in the latest fashion, hangs out with friends, lots of nice and funny friends, and doesn't have to hide or pretend to be what she's not. Partner of a prestigious man who she also sleeps with and works with – giving me the minimum possible salary every month, like the handouts of a homeless man, while they are amusing themselves in every damn sense –, she is perfect and not she really has nothing wrong with her that can make her understand how they live insteadthose like me.

But she is my friend, this is true, and perhaps I shouldn't even have similar thoughts about her and whoever is buzzing around her, even if, objectively, what does she know about how it feels and has lived for...me?

"Yeah, you know, I mean it isReally a safe port. Someone like him will obviously never leave me or betray me, and I think at some point in life that's what a woman needs and not the thrill, the danger, the turmoil and the excitement all at once. No, those are things for when you are a teenager and by nature you are enterprising and you throw yourself into it, you are a daredevil, senseless, courageous, crazy as hell".

"You mean he'd never cheat on you because he's so bad no one gets him? And that you prefer a safe harbor to the undeniable charm of the waves? What bullshit! Is this really what you want, Tess? A man who gives you confidence but who will never give you the slightest adrenaline rush? A man you are ashamed to take to your sister's wedding, which you yourself are ashamed to attend, without a real and real why? I hear her sigh and maybe I even pity her; in addition, my bottom and back are on fire and, in order to avoid showing up at the wedding of the year covered in bubbles everywhere, I decide to leave theonly and I reach out my hand, waving it under Rose's nose as she keeps stalking me outside.

It's true, the few friends I have here are also very good friends who always worry about me, but they don't let me breathe and above all they don't conceive the way I live and behave.

Strange, right? They think I'm a kind of saint without knowing. A boring person without knowing anything, and that's perfectly fine, after all, because that's exactly what I want and what has made me resist in my new life here.

The beautiful thing about going elsewhere, running away and starting over from scratch, is precisely the possibility of changing your life and deciding from that moment on to be someone else, perhaps better, but whoever you want anyway.that and no longer the ugly person you may have become up to that point.

So you go away and with a sponge you delete everything and you can start over, like a sort of second chance, a rebirth.

Yes, my friends don't know much about my life, they don't know about when I was sent here by my aunt like a parcel because I couldn't stay at home anymore, and they don't know, therefore, why this marriage, which forces me to return to my Hometown, it's freaking me out.

I would not go back. Never.

And then I wouldn't want to take Tyler with me because that's actually how it is...Like this... oh my! I can't even find an adjective to attach to my boring boyfriend.

On the other hand, Rose is right, I admit it and in turn I ask myself: is this what I want? Do I really want a man who doesn't give me stimulation, adrenaline, who doesn't make me feel butterflies in my stomach or sparks, who doesn't make me feel bad if I just think about it and almost pass out if I just see it?

Well, yes... the idea is precisely to avoid all these things, at least it used to be, and this in order not to risk suffering anymore – at least until the end of my days – but I realize that boredom can kill as much as the pain.

Luckily the lights of the lamp go out and Rose lifts the lid allowing me to go out, to breathe and not to think anymore about what my boyfriend is like or, even worse, what I am like.

Indeed, as soon as I lift the plastic goggles, the unrewarding image of her in my mind is replaced by the vision of my sunny friend, glares at me with her hands resting on her hips.

It was my half hour break I justify myself as if it were needed.

You know I don't look at you like that for that. Why is this reunion driving you so crazy? You've been there for days but you're not present, yesterday you forgot two appointments and then you even forgot your house keys here... yes, they told me. But I think it's you who has to tell me something instead... what's going on? What is it at home that scares you so much?

I shrug anchoring my secret firmly and binding it deep in my mind. If I don't recall it, if no one knows, it means that it never existed and will never exist again.

I can't talk to her about it, to tell the truth I can't tell anyone about it at all.

Nothing, what do you want there to be? I just don't want to look like a fool, I haven't been home for eight years and since my aunt passed away, I haven't seen my parents even here. It's just weird, I suppose I rub the towel over myself as I speak and look at her, ashamed as always in relating to her.

Plus I'm sweating like I've been in the desert for hours and I sure look even worse than usual at the moment.

Not that I'm ugly or fat or unwatchable, I'm just one of many, nothing special, yet for some strange reason I never feel enough for anyone anywhere. She, on the other hand, is luminous, she is like a sun around which those who know her are forced to rotate, very close, with the risk of blinding themselves and the certainty of being obscured by its light.

The thing is, Tess, in six years and since I've known you, I've never seen you so distracted or so worried about your tan...

Tessa, Tyler's on the phone asking for you, on number two Jasmine's curly head peeks out from beyond the curtain of my current workstation; disappears after saying those words which however finally interrupted me and the highly suspicious Rose.

I snort but I'm partly glad to end this itchy intrusive conversation here.

Do you know what you have to do, Tess? Break up with that loser and go home, enjoy your loved ones without paranoia and then come back here more energized than ever!.

I don't know if I can do that, Rose. I cannot. I, I-I can't, I say suddenly, stammering, as I stand there, standing in front of her, clad only in an undergarment, sweaty and red as a pepper.

Perfect! I'm at the heart of where I work and I'm definitely making a fool of myself in the eyes of my friend and boss.

You can not? How would you say you can't? And what exactly are you referring to?

I can't go home... I panic and look around agitatedly, as if I were looking for an escape even now, even from here. And if I come back, I can't take Ty there. And if I go back I don't know if I'll survive....

Rose peers at me with a questioning frown, perhaps just worried or as if she were observing a crazy woman.

Why not?

It's... it's dangerous, I gasp.

Dangerous?

Yes. There are dangerous people. People who wouldn't want me there...

"But what you're saying! It's your sister's wedding, you must be there!'

No, it's dangerous I repeat really scared now that I'm forced to remember everything...

It's about survival, after all.

CHAPTER TWO

1990

––––––––

Lhe most boring thing in the world for me was summer. All the other kids my age loved that season immensely, while at the end of school I just wanted to commit suicide at the prospect of spending the summer with my family.

Basically, this meant having my parents and siblings around at all times; them stressing me out, watching me... they living big, while I carved out my space as an outcast only inside my room, even with forty degrees in the shade and without air conditioning.

Fortunately, however, in the summer of my thirteen years, something happened that completely moved it and that, in one way or another, changed my life forever.

That year the heat was particularly intense and the earth torrid, so much so that my grandfather complained about the lack of rain from morning to evening, ruining my need for silence to be able to cry over myself in peace. Moments that were already heavily compromised by the presence of my younger brother, in other wordsThe Executioner, who at the single and innocent age of six had already devised three hundred and twenty-five ways to completely ruin my days, especially if they were summer days and already horrible, unleashing my mother's fury against me with stubborn ability.

My loving older sister couldn't save me through it all, she was too busy hopping from backseat to bed in every parent-free house from here to the next three neighboring towns, thus leaving me completely at the mercy of a dark and sinister dwelling, and a family all against me.

But that summer something was happening. In its placid and needless quiet and aimless quiet, I awoke one morning to notice a moving truck in front of the Greendal house: the obnoxious neighbors who had moved out ten months earlier, sparking hilarity and celebration in me and my family. endless.

The house had been vacant for a long time but that day, shortly after the furniture arrived, other human beings were entering it under my curious eyes.

The hope of finding pleasant people vanished when, after two hours spent spying on them from my window, I saw my mother approaching their house with something in her hand - probably the usual apple pie that she gave to anyone who wanted to win her over - and then disappeared inside of their door and coming back shortly after with a tight expression on his face.

That same evening, at dinner, he informed us that the Greendal house was cursed and that any tenant who set foot in it almost magically became an obnoxious and unwieldy neighbor to us.

She had therefore forbidden us to have anything to do with them right away, which had neither surprised nor hurt me, since my social life - by choice but not only - was non-existent at the time, and since I knew how weird and brawler in turn.

And although I had noticed the presence of two little boys – who could have been my age, or perhaps my sister's – I didn't cry much from the maternal imposition, at least not as much as my sister Dana, who had probably already put eyes on the handsome neighbor who has just arrived.

I had noticed that too, actually, but unlike him I noticed everything so for me it was the norm.

My sister, on the other hand, had the innate predisposition to see trousers and bibs leaving out any other skirt. She had more male than female friends, in fact, and I believed it well since she knew how to make them all very happy indeed.

Dana and I spent three years but we were different like night and day, and we would have dealt with this new thing differently too.

So different that in the following months, and throughout the summer and autumn, I continued to observe the Gregoris from my window, often seeing my sister spending time in their garden and in their life, unbeknownst to my mother and perhaps with the secret collaboration of her father who obviously always supported her.

In a short time that spying on my sister, however, became almost pathological.

The more she dug her sharp nails into my neighbors gingerbread house, the more I was attracted to her. The more she sneaked behind their door, the more I wondered what she was doing with the Gregoris, sneaking in like a thief when Mom and Dad were away. What could they be doing in there?

Orgies? Satanic rites? Quran study? Wicca or Vodoo practices?

The Gregoris were four. I had idealized mother and father as beautiful and fashionable beings, although they were totally unknown to me and I had only seen them occasionally during their quick forays into the garden, and that idea had settled in my mind as an absolute truth.

And then there were their two children, who were certainly of interest to Dana, a boy and a girl, probably the same age as her, given how much my sister hated being around younger boys.

At any rate she captured them and lived them, while I remained on the sidelines as always.

And so those warm months passed and then winter flew by, leading me straight to the second summer spent in front of the new neighbors.

One day that summer, noticing my sister getting ready at all points and running like a maniac between the bathroom and her room, I was crushed by such a burning envy that I decided to ask her something to understand.

So you're going to the Gregoris today too? I asked sneaking up behind her, while she was putting on her make-up in front of the mirror in her room.

Dana jumped and turned to me with a snout like someone about to yell or punch you.

I really don't know what you're talking about. I'm going out with Leah today she answered pretending to be careless, too bad I knew exactly what my sister had been doing every day, let's say for about a year now.

Sure, and I'm the most popular person in Greenville. You know that if mom finds out, she...

At my teasing words, my sister whirled around. It was clear that I was provoking her, so she pointed the nib of the mascara she was holding at me and threatened me.

Stay out of my life, Tessa. Everyone at school is right, you're weird. And because of you, I'm the weird little girl's sister. Do you realize how humiliating this is for me?

I sighed. How melodramatic, damn it!

Dana was so limited that she couldn't be interested in anything other than her social image, and certainly not, for example, the fact that she was instead breaking a clear parental prohibition; for her it was almost all a game, a challenge.

And she certainly had never stood up for me at school to those who branded me weird or hopeless—in fact, I had learned that often and in places where we were less known, she had even denied being related to me in any way. What a bitch.

I guess, Dan, in fact you are not popular at all... are you? And it's all my fault. Ah, right, let's say that you conquer popularity relying only on your strength, despite the strange little sister, am I right? Especially on the strength that your legs have to open wide... it's like the law of gravity: universal, in the sense that it works for everyone I teased her viciously.

I didn't care that she hated me, she already did that when I was still good to her and completely under her thumb. Now I wanted to know what he did every day at the Gregoris'. I wanted to know why he sacrificed some of his summer social life and his crewsuper cool to go to them, asidedarla to the male of the house as I imagined, of course.

But did it really happen?

Dana having sex with a semi-stranger?

Naaa, despite being an easy girl, I thought my sister had at least a little salt in the pumpkin.

Be careful of yourself, little sister, it won't take long for your mother to send you to boarding school. And I'll lock you up forever, he threatened, grunting.

I sat on his bed giggling. Oh, how scary. And then what else? Will you make me give the death penalty? You forget that the Gregoris live opposite us and that I, being strange, am often at the window... And you know, I travel just as often with my faithful camera in my hands....

I saw her ears turn red with anger and her knuckles livid with the urge to strangle me forced to repress.

If you say something to mom, I...

"I won't tell you anything. I just want to know how I am, who I am... what do you do... you know, I would like to talk to you aboutsister stuff, all those thingsnormalthat we have always denied each other and that the sistersnormal instead they have."

Actually I didn't give a shit about sister stuff, I was just obsessed with Gregori. Forever. For a year or maybe even before their arrival if that was ever possible. Ever since I saw the mother come back with groceries in her arms and the father run out to help her and kiss her as soon as he arrived. Since I had accidentally caught the eye of their eldest son...

And since I'd seen their daughter blowing giant soap bubbles in the garden and then again the boy punching a boxing bag making my cheeks go red.

I didn't do certain things, I mean I didn't look at the boys. Those kinds of normal situations just didn't suit a girlpage like me, but this time I couldn't help it; all of them had become an obsession and a cure at the same time, perhaps because I had nothing else to do or perhaps because my mother had forbidden us to see them, even though in the end I had often caught her too knocking on their door and then whispering something to one of them .

Perhaps my sister was right: I was strange and saw what I wanted to see, and not even spying on my mind was lucid and thus recorded only what she wanted; maybe that was the case, but