From the outside looking in Garrison Davis seems like every other senior in high school. On the inside though, he’s an emotional wreck promising to not love anyone. He chooses to protect himself by vowing solitude. His dad is in prison for dealing drugs; his mother is a recovering addict and an emotional mess. The only thing that brings him joy is playing the drums and that feeling of being needed by his band. It is his escape, his passion. No one gets hurt or disappointed. That is until he lays his eyes on Reese at school. She is the exact example of what he cannot let himself get involved in. He would do nothing but drag her down with him.
“I want to tell her and show her how much I love her. I had loved her from the first time I spotted her in that courtyard smiling but I can’t, I won’t. She deserves so much more than I can offer. I’m the spawn of a drug dealer and an addict. I have never let myself love another person and now… I love her so much it hurts.”
Reese Owens is the exact opposite of Garrison. Inside she’s beaming; growing up in a happy home and on the outside she was a duck out of water. Her parents are the over protective set but are finally loosening the jail bars. Sophomore year in high school, she has never dated a boy and is envious of the social life her best friend Autumn Welch has. She meets Garrison and is instantly attracted to him. He pulls away when she pushes in. A whole new world opens up to Reese and she finds herself falling into situations she can’t get herself out of. Making bad decision after bad decision, she finds out the hard way on how life is full of choices. The one thing she wants more than anything is Garrison’s attention which she doesn’t get in return.
“How is it possible to love someone and keep it quiet? Never to utter those very words knowing he doesn’t feel the same way. I finally fall in love and he only wants to be friends. He is everything I have always wanted and he keeps me at a distance making sure we don’t get too close. How can I ignore my feelings and act like I don’t have them when we are around each other? How do I resist the urge to move my lips towards his when he is talking to me?”
Garrison realizes he has to be honest with Reese and tell her how he really feels before he loses her for good. Just maybe, he will get love in return for the first time in his life. When he finally convinces himself to come forth, a life changing event occurs that could take away the only person in his life that truly loves him.
Is it too late? Does he get the chance to tell her? And when he confesses does it matter?
PURCHASE LINK:
AMAZON
EXCERPT
*Garrison*
Morning after morning, I wake myself up. I don’t have the normal mother or father to tell me to have a good day or make me breakfast. Sure I’m a senior in high school, but I’ve never had that. Even in elementary I took care of myself. My dad was dealing heavy drugs at the time and when he wasn’t dealing he was high or sleeping. Mom had tried several times to stay drug free but wasn’t successful with it. My dad wanted her just like him, destroyed. I have never really known what it was like to have parents that care. They didn’t understand why I hated the life we lived. More times than not they voiced their frustration that I thought I was better than them.
I listened to people talk about how their parents were annoying and watched them like hawks. They had to lie to do things they wanted to do when caring parents would try to provide them a net, so they wouldn’t get hurt, something that was only a dream for me. I yearned for that and knew I was never going to get it. I saw things I shouldn’t have seen but all it did was make me want to strive even more to make it, to get away from it. I was going to make it, and I was going to be nothing like my parents.
My evenings were pretty identical to my mornings. I did my homework, drummed with the band and then made myself something to eat. Mom worked at a hotel in housekeeping and when she was home she was either sleeping or sitting in her room in silence. I don’t know if she knew if I was dead or alive half the time nor would she have cared. Well that’s not true. If I was dead Aunt Ellen wouldn’t be paying our bills.
This is my senior year and all of my friends were going to be hanging out, partying, and having a good time, while I was just going to be living my life. It was a vicious cycle, and I was willing to do it because I knew I would survive it all. I was going to go to college and do the one thing that would piss my parents off the most and I would have full satisfaction in doing just that. It was going to make me happy to put people away that made and sold drugs and destroyed lives just like mine was.
I am a Texas girl, mother of 2 amazing kiddos and married to my gorgeous soulmate for almost 20 years. I have a full time job in the medical field but hope one day to strictly write. I love to spend my free time reading, being outside and playing with my family and 4 fur babies. I am blessed to have very supportive friends and family that make my life worth living! I started to write at the instinct of “hey maybe I can do that!” and here I am. I have enjoyed every step of the journey. Every single person I hear from about my stories touches me and confirms the reason why I ventured into this insane dream of mine.
Reading Renee 
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