Amaranthine

 12/1/2011 - A/N: Amaranthine is now available in paperback! Ebook version should be available soon: for more details, please visit my profile. 

Also a quick thank you for those who take the time to vote...  the only way an author becomes sucessful is to get noticed... without those of you who take the time to read and push that button, I wouldn't even be a speck on anyone's radar. So just so you know, you guys are the best. I appreciate it more than words can say.

Leah

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used factiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business companies, events or locals is entirely coincidental.

No part of the publication and its associated content may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without written permission of the author.

Copyright © 2011 Leah Crichton

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-9878234-0-3

ISBN-13: 978-0-9878234-03 

Vexatious: (vek-sey-shuhs)

causing vexation, troublesome, annoying, agitating, afflictive

full of trouble, disquiet, disturbed

Vexatious.

That’s what most parents were.

But not mine.

They crossed over that invisible line from vexatious to utterly insufferable a long time ago. It’s fair to say maybe they even danced a little jig across it. The evidence was indisputable and documented right there on my birth certificate, under ‘given name.’ It was not so much a name as it was a punishment. I’m positive it was that moment, the one when they held me in their arms and decided to stick me with the name Ireland, that fated me for a life filled with disasters of epic proportions.

I accepted this a long time ago. It was better that way. Accepting fate instead of trying to fight it. So, this had nothing to do with my lack of acceptance, and everything to do with the rate at which my prophecy was materializing. It was cause for alarm. This latest fiasco of theirs just confirmed my knowledge even more, proved the disaster theory true and made me a little sad. Maybe a lot sad.

Moving from our home across the country to a sprawling concrete metropolis was nothing less than unforgivable. At present, never speaking to either of them again bumped everything else from the prestigious number one rank on my to-do list. Kissing Derek Worthington held the number one spot since fifth grade, so in a matter of moments, they’d done a lot of bumping. I’m pretty sure they broke some kind of record.

Yet miraculously, maybe even foolishly, I clung to hope that in a city so big I’d blend in and be nothing more than a number. Invisible. It wouldn’t be much of a change from how I felt now, so it didn’t seem unreasonable things might just remain that way.

For the last several hours, I hadn’t moved an inch; not noticeably, at least. Still as a statue, sitting with my arms across my chest and my iPod stuck into my ears, I leaned against the car door and stared out the window trying to absorb anything other than the green of the trees meshing with the grey mountains in a fantastic blur, but my dad drove so fast, it was next to impossible.

Every muscle in my body ached and burned, screaming at me to stretch, but I wouldn’t budge. I wanted to make it painfully clear that I wasn’t jovial about our adventure, just in case I gave them reason to doubt.

I glared over at my older brother Luke, who sat beside me with his nose stuck to the pages of a book. His carefree attitude made me insanely jealous much like his precognitive ability of knowing when I was staring at him. He looked up. “What’s happening I.Q.?”

The ‘Q’ stood for Quinn, my middle name. If I were ever able to figure out why it wasn’t my first, solving the mystery of how they put the caramel into a Caramilk bar would be a piece of cake.

“Nothing,” I mumbled, tracing my finger along the white circle of my iPod.