Description:
Fate brings them together
Fame & lies keep them apart
One truth remains…
She’s become the Paly High girl with the most tragic story…
At 17, Tally Landon just wants to graduate and leave for New York to pursue ballet. Her best friend Marla convinces her to attend one last party—a college party—where she can be among strangers and evade the whisperings about her heartbreaking loss of her twin that follows her everywhere she goes. She meets Lincoln Presley, Stanford’s famous baseball wonder and has a little fun at his expense—when she lies about her age and who she really is—intent on being someone else for the night and escaping her tragic story.
His only focus is baseball, but he can’t forget the girl he saved on Valentine’s Day…
At 22, Lincoln Presley’s star is on the rise—about to finish at Stanford and expected to be taken early in Major League Baseball’s upcoming draft—his cousin’s party serves as a welcome distraction. But then, he sees the girl from Valentine’s Day that he saved from that horrific car accident and can’t quite hide his disappointment when she appears to look right through him and not remember him at all. He vows to learn her name at least before he leaves. What’s the harm in getting to know this girl? What’s the worst that can happen?
They share this incredible connection, but fate soon tests these star-crossed lovers in all kinds of ways...
And yet, despite the lies being told to protect the other, and the trappings of fame that continually separate them, and in lieu of the deception by those they’ve come to trust the most; one truth remains.
This much is true.
EXCERPT:
Excerpt from Chapter Seven of This Much Is True
The lies have just built
upon one another. One follows the other like connected dots on a road map; but
this path leads me to him, and I can’t stop now. Not yet. I hold my breath and
take quick inventory one by one of the lies I’ve told him. Name. Age. Birth
control. What am I doing? Why am I doing it?
He shakes his head. Then
he walks over to his night stand, blithely opens the drawer, and holds up a
foil packet in triumph. I take in air and slowly exhale with relief and nod
with approval of his Cracker Jack prize. When it comes to contraception, I’m
normally better prepared than this—but then nothing is normal anymore.
“Oh, good. Yes, let’s
use that, too.” Then my nerves get the better of me and begin to take over. I’m
shaking. What the hell is wrong with me? This is standard operating
procedure. I attempt to affect a casual air, slip off his bed and out of
his arms, and resume my innocuous tour of his room. The top two rows are filled
with books. I finger each one and read the names aloud. “Shakespeare,
Hemingway, Cheever? Have you read any of these?”
“No. I’m pre-med at
Stanford, but the major leagues are interested. The draft is coming up. We’ll
see what happens with baseball soon enough,” he says, looking a little uneasy.
“Stanford. Nice. My dad
went there. He’s a doctor—a surgeon. They’d like me to consider Stanford, but I
like NYU…” I shrug with nonchalance and have to hope he won’t ask me anymore
and wonder why I brought all this up to him in the first place. I’ve sent in
registration papers for NYU, but I won’t have time to go there. But isn’t
that what a twenty-year-old would be doing? Going to college? Desperate at
my over-sharing ways, I switch topics. “Dad saves a lot people—most of them
anyway.” I turn, look at Linc, and frown. I’m momentarily stopped by all these
thoughts of Holly that unexpectedly come rushing back at me in saying this. We
can’t save everyone, now can we? “Is that what you want to do? Save a lot
of people?” I can’t keep the sadness out of my voice.
“Saving people is the
ultimate,” he says with this disquiet. His grey-blue eyes darken, and he gets
this intense look.
I’m not completely sure
what I’ve done or said to upset him as much as I have myself. I automatically
step back from him, intent on fighting the demons plaguing me from the inside
alone. Our unsteady breaths begin to match up, and I look at him in growing
bewilderment.
“I don’t need saving.”
“No one said you did.”
“Really? No one said
anything to you at the party? Marla didn’t talk up my particular assets? Lay
the Landon girl because she fucking needs it.”
“Who’s Marla?”
Oh shit.
“I’m Holly and
definitely not the one you want to get involved with.” I start toward the door.
For some unknowable reason, he scares me. I feel out of control. This whole
scene has become too much, and all I want to do now is leave. Then I remember
my bag. I put it on his bed at one point. I close my eyes for a second, willing
myself to get it together. I turn around and face him. “My bag. I need it. It’s
got my stuff.”
He’s just staring at
me—wary, of course—because I’m sure I sound like a flipping lunatic.
“Stay. I’m scared, too,
because baseball is my sole focus.” Then, he shakes his head and gets this
apologetic look. “Med school is a plan B. I’m trying to finish early with an
undergraduate degree in biology, but it doesn’t really matter. My dad is intent
on me having me play in the Majors…Baseball is my sole focus. If all goes
according to the plan, I’ll get drafted in the first or second round, play in
some minor league working up to triple-A ball and eventually make my way up to
Major League Baseball in the next couple of years. Baseball. That’s all
there is. That’s the way it has to be.”
He gives me this
quizzical look as if to ensure I’ve heard all he’s said. Then he slowly
appraises me just like before. It’s disconcerting as if I’m auditioning for
some kind of part. He shakes his head and slowly smiles. “We should go.”
“We should go,” I echo
his words, defiantly lift my chin, and look right at him. “Most definitely.”
He doesn’t say anything
for a few minutes. He seems to be wrestling with indecision. Frustrated by his
silence, I turn and start toward the door again.
“You’re an incredible
dancer,” he says from behind me. “But you know that.”
I glance back at him
again with a little smile and then turn to face him more fully. “I’ve been
told…I have talent. I’m expected to be the next Polina Semionova.” I smile wide
and laugh at his confused face. “And you don’t even know who that is.” He gets
this sexy half-smile and shakes his head side-to-side, looking apologetic. I
nod and flip my hand toward him. “That’s big, like Major League Baseball
kind of big, Elvis.” I shake my head at him. “Look, I don’t want anything from
you.”
He looks relieved at
what I’ve said and I battle this distinct feeling of crushing disappointment at
seeing it. “And you shouldn’t expect anything from me, either,” I say more
unkindly than I intended.
Now he looks
surprisingly disconcerted by what I’ve just said. I take a step back from him
because, for some reason, I’m on edge again. As a counterbalance for feeling so
mysteriously out of control, I put my hands on my hips and breathe out, daring
him to come closer, daring him not to.
I hesitate and weigh my
options—leave or stay.
I’m not really sure what
I’m doing here any longer. Seducing guys is normally the easy part. I get what
I want. They get what they want. We move on. One night together, here or there;
sometimes not often, a party or two afterward together; and then there is the
inevitable ending. Because nobody gets that I have dance class. All the time.
That I don’t ever have a night off. That I don’t eat often. That I rarely
drink. That I do little else but dance and train.
Sure. People admire the
dedication but then they resent it. And me.
So. There are no
promises. No phone calls. No texts. No birthday cards. No love notes. No
flowers. No dates. No prom. There is only dance class and training; and
rehearsals and performances. A decade of those. A decade of life on a stage or
in a class. Five picture albums capture every performing moment and every
starring role I’ve ever had, but little else, because there has been nothing
else in all that time. Because when you’ve got the talent you have to
constantly train for it and perfect it in order to reach and remain at the
top—the most exceptional level of high achievement. Always.
Surely, the baseball player knows this.
It was easier to conduct
these superficial encounters in New York last summer. Marla and I soon
discovered after our arrival there that everyone was on their way to being
someone else. The superficiality of it all was not lost on anyone in that town;
there, everyone seemed to know that relationships were deal-breakers on the way
to fame and fortune. Surely, Lincoln Presley knows this, too. Because
who has time for such a distraction? The rules—in perfecting a God-given talent
and ultimately seeking fame—are known, followed, and kept. Things are casual,
however physical, and definitely noncommittal. The way things are.
Even so, here in Palo
Alto’s hometown sphere, the moral considerations for casual sex and no
commitments have become strangely confusing. I’m caught between who I was
before Holly died and who I am now. Is there a difference?
The old Tally needed
casual sex; wanted it, in fact. I was noncommittal, detached and uninvolved.
That’s all I asked for and needed. Then.
And now? I steadfastly hold on
to the belief that there can be no commitments of any kind beyond ballet
because I don’t want any complications. I still say no to: most phone
calls, to most texts, to most movies, to most parties, to all school dances, to
all Friday-night football games, to all prom and dinner dates. What’s the point
of going to dinner with someone who is just going to end up questioning why I
don’t ever eat anything?
Complications.
I don’t need them. I don’t want them.
I am so right about this.
“Would you like to go
out sometime? Not this weekend.” He shakes his head side-to-side and looks
hopeful. “I fly out to Tempe, Arizona tomorrow, after my game. And then we have
Regionals next weekend, but I know this great Italian place we could go to
sometime and maybe we could catch a movie or something afterward.”
It takes a full minute
to comprehend what he’s just asked me. I take a step back and eye him in
disbelief. “Are you asking me out? On a date? To dinner and
a movie?” I’m incredulous that he’s somehow guessed at my most recent
and truly errant thoughts.
“That’s about the safest
thing I can think of…to do…with you.” He half-smiles and looks a little dazed
and unsure of himself at the same time.
“The safest thing?” I
wave my hand around his bedroom. “I don’t do dinner or go to movies. And
this is a strange conversation to be having here in your bedroom.”
“How about now? Did you
eat dinner?” He moves swiftly past me, opens the door, and starts down the
hallway.
“No.” I follow him more
out of curiosity than anything wondering why we’re talking about a future date
and dinner.
“Did you want to go
back? To the party?” he asks, turning back to me briefly.
I don’t answer. No. I
just slowly trail after him and watch him make his way to the kitchen.
“Yes.” I finally
say, with this discernible, petulant whine. “I want to go back to the party.” I
cross my arms across my chest, but he essentially ignores what I’ve said and
keeps on walking. “I don’t eat, actually,” I say airily.
True.
He turns back to me
again, shakes his head, and gets this secret smile as if I just presented him
with the ultimate challenge. And maybe I have.
“Bring it, Elvis.”
He laughs.
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About the author:
Dark. Edgy. Contemporary. Romantic
Were we describing me? Or my fiction? Sorry. I drink too much...coffee, not enough water.
I swear too much for God and my mother, and I slip these into my fiction. Sorry.
I'm impatient, a perfectionist, a wordsmith, a dreamer, which ends up being good and bad. I'm a workaholic; ask my fam-dam-ily.
I've written four novels in as many years: Seeing Julia, Not To Us, When I See You, and my latest release This Much Is True.
If you love angsty, unpredictable love stories, I'm yours.
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