The Girl in the Love Song (Lost Boys #1)
Emma Scott
Before You Read
For this novel, featuring a musician who writes and plays his own music, I thought it was fitting to not only write his songs but make them a real experience for you, the reader. Therefore, when you arrive in a chapter in the book where our hero, Miller, sings to Violet, you can click on the song title and hear it. You must have a Spotify account if you want to listen to the songs in real-time, but the songs are FREE. If you’d rather not make a Spotify account, that’s fine too. The lyrics are printed in the book, too. Happy listening!
Dedication
For Robin, who saw this book when I couldn’t and who helped me get back up every time I fell down. With love.
Part I
i
Dear Diary,
The first thing you should know about me, since we’re going to be friends, is that my name is Violet McNamara, and I’m thirteen years old. Today is my birthday and you are one of my presents. Mom gave you to me because I’m on the “cusp of womanhood” —insert major eyeroll—and said I might want to write down my emotions. She says they’re bound to get “dramatic” at this age and writing them out can help keep them from burrowing deep and then spewing out later.
That’s ironic. Lately, she and Dad have been spewing out their “dramatic emotions,” screaming constantly at each other. Maybe they need a diary, too. Maybe that’s what I’ll get them for their anniversary next month. If they make it that far. I don’t know what happened. We were all so happy and then it started to dissolve, piece by piece.
God, they’re screaming right now. This house is huge and yet they fill it up with their rage. Where did it come from??? Makes my stomach feel weird and I just want it to stop.
Happy Birthday to me.
I set my pen down and put my headphones on. Absofacto blared in my ears, drowning out Mom and Dad’s raised voices. A shattering of glass broke through my music. I flinched, my heart jumping in my chest, and a teardrop smeared the ink on my first diary entry. I carefully dabbed it away, turned up the music, and waited for the storm to pass.
They’re done now, but God, one of them smashed something. Mom probably. That’s the second time that’s happened. Things are getting worse. Just two weeks ago, they were still sleeping in the same bed and now Mom’s taken over the bedroom and Dad’s in the den.
Maybe it’s a phase. Maybe if I work hard enough and make them proud of me, they’ll be happy again, and everything can go back to the way it was. I’m going to be a doctor. A surgeon. Someone who puts broken things back together. Maybe I’ll start with them, ha ha.
Anyway, I don’t want to write more about what’s happening to this family. I’ll write about something better. Namely, River Whitmore. <3
It’s probably every cliché multiplied by a million to fill a diary with thoughts about boys, but I’ve had a crush on River since forever. But if you saw him, Diary, you’d understand. He’s like a thirteen-year-old Henry Cavill, only not British. You can tell he’s going to be big and muscular and sexy when he’s older. (OMG I can’t believe I wrote that!)
ANYWAY, his dad owns Whitmore’s Auto Body shop, and River helps out there in the summer. When Dad takes the Jag in for any work, I tag along, even though I always clam up around River. Another cliché: the nerdy girl and the popular jock who doesn’t know she exists. He’s a star football player who’s going to keep playing quarterback all through high school and then in college or maybe he’ll go straight to the NFL.
That’s what his dad is always saying, anyway.
As for me, UCSC is my dream school. Santa Cruz is so beautiful. I can’t imagine living anywhere else. I’ll eventually have to leave for med school, of course, which will be hard since specializing in general surgery means years of study. And a crap-ton of student loan debt. But get this: for my last birthday, Mom and Dad said they’d pay for all of it!!!
I was over-the-moon happy when they told me. Grateful beyond words and glad because I could stay close to them. Only now it feels like our happy life was temporary, and it’s all falling apart. I don’t know what happened to them. Something money-related, I think. (See? Money can really suck)
Anyway, I~
My pen scratched at the paper as a sudden silence jarred me. There was a trellis on the wall outside my second-story bedroom, and a bunch of frogs that lived in the leafy vines had just gone quiet. Sometimes, I’d imagine River Whitmore climbing the trellis to rescue me from my parents and their disintegrating marriage, but it would also make a perfect ladder for an intruder. I snapped off my desk lamp and sank back into the darkness of my room, breath held.
Slowly, the frogs started up again.
I pushed my glasses higher up on my nose and looked out my window, over the darkened Pogonip forest of redwood and oak that bordered our backyard, then leaned over my desk and peered down.
There was a kid. A boy.
He looked about my age, though it was hard to tell only by the light of the moon hanging fatly in the sky. He had longish brown hair, and his shoulders were hunched into a dark jacket. The boy paced a small circle in frustration, as if he’d come to a dead-end—my house—and didn’t know where else to go.