Hi Wattpad! I'm Sarah White, a winner of the 2013 Harlequin and Wattpad contest with my first story, Rookie in Love. I'm also the author of two Watty-winning stories, Saving Hope (2015) and When it's Over (2016). This is my first block party and I'm very excited to be a part of it.
In 2016, HarperTeen published my first YA, Our Broken Pieces. It's been such a fun experience to have a book out there in the wild! I couldn't be more excited about the release of my second YA story, Let Me List the Ways which releases August 7, 2018!
I'm grateful that HarperTeen has given me the opportunity to share with the world a character very near to my heart. If you want to dip your feet into the world of some of the people I admire most, pick up a copy. I wrote this book for my niece who was diagnosed at eleven-months-old with Type I diabetes. She asked me to write her a story and I wanted the main character to represent Type 1 warriors so she could see herself on the pages and readers can experience what she goes through every day as a diabetic.
I am so happy to include a preview of the first chapter!
I FELL IN love with Nolan Walker one hot afternoon on the
playground of our small grade school. I have read that love
feels like falling or flying, but on that Friday so many years
ago, it was more like a bright light that descended upon the
blacktop, lighting up everything in its path with a warm
glow.
I'd been sick all week, running a low-grade fever and
feeling flushed and shaky, but I hadn't wanted to miss a
chance to play at recess with my best friend, which is how
I found myself at the far edge of the blacktop playing King
of the Court with Nolan. I was leaning up against the small
brick wall when my world began to go black. It's odd that I
didn't try to get help, to alert the teacher that something was
wrong, but I didn't. Instead, as my vision began to tunnel, I
looked over at Nolan. I watched Nolan as his eyes moved to
mine and he let the small red rubber ball fly right past him
in a move so uncharacteristically Nolan I felt my head tilt
with curiosity. I saw his lips form my name, but the sound
was drowned out by the growing ringing in my ears. Nolan
caught me just as I tumbled to the ground.
I guess you could say that day was the scariest day of
my life and one I would not soon forget. Hours later I'd sat
in a too-large hospital bed in the local children's hospital as
the doctor explained to my parents that I was a type 1 diabetic
and would be insulin dependent for the rest of my life.
I can remember the thoughts bouncing through my head as I
stared at the brightly painted murals on the otherwise bleak
walls: I was a sick child—and Nolan Walker had saved my
life.
LetMeListWays_txt_ed3_cc15.indd 2 5/10/18 2:14 PM
one
"NOLAN!" MY MOTHER screeched playfully as I heard
the back door slam. I quickly smoothed my hair, which was
pulled back into a ponytail, my long brown waves hanging in a messy
tangle to the middle of my back. His feet fell
heavy on our stairs as he trotted up to my room, my mom
laughing from below.
"Sorry, Mrs. Clark!" he shouted down to her. "I didn't
mean to startle you, I promise." I could hear the hidden smile
in his words. He loved scaring my mom and she loved being a
part of his little game. I wasn't the only Clark who seemed to
love Nolan—just the only one who didn't love him like family.
LetMeListWays_txt_ed3_cc15.indd 3 5/10/18 2:14 PM
The knob to my room spun and the door cracked open
to reveal a smiling Nolan, his bright blue eyes laughing and
his perfect lips curling up in a knowing smile. His hair was
getting a little too long, but the way the deep brown strands
nearly covered his forehead made me swoon a little. The feeling
only intensified when he gave me a small wink.
I tossed a crumpled piece of paper at him but he quickly
shut the door so that the paper bounced off the back of the
white wood. I giggled when he quickly opened it again,
peeking his face back into my room and offering me a scolding look.
"Are you cranky, Zie? I come bearing gifts." He slid
inside the door and closed it behind him, something my parents
would never object to. Nolan and I were around each
other so much he was practically their other child.
I tossed my pencil down on my desk and used my feet
to tip myself back onto the hind legs of the chair. "I don't get
this. I hate that I have to memorize all this stuff when I'm
going to forget it a few months later. Besides, when is any
one really going to grill me about the Louisiana Purchase?"
I blew out a breath, my bangs scattering across my forehead.
His low chuckle seemed to slide gently over my skin.
"I thought you and Regan were going to study together."
He moved next to me and leaned back against my desk.
I squinted a bit as I looked up at him. "We might have been kicked out of the library for being too loud yesterday."
Nolan laughed and shook his head. "You girls are trouble together." He spun my book around and glanced at the material I'd been trying to cram.
"For the life of me I can't imagine what you would have been loud about. This is some
pretty dry material."
"We didn't really get to the studying part of the session."
I took my book back and returned it to its position in front
of me. Quietly I mumbled, "We shouldn't have sat in the
romance section."
Nolan quirked an eyebrow and leaned closer to hear me
better. "I'm sorry. What does sitting in the romance section
have to do with being loud?"
I rolled my eyes and gave him a little shove, pointing to
my kit on the desk behind him. "Hand me that." I huffed out
a breath. "We had every intention of studying, but there was
this stack of old romance books sitting on the table calling
our names." I glanced up at his face as he tried to contain his
smile. "They were the cheesy ones with the man perched on
something like a rock or a boat and some woman hanging
from him." I mimicked the women's desperate poses.
"How did reading get you kicked out of a library?" he
asked, laughing. He grabbed my kit off the edge of the desk
and tossed it to me.
"You can't keep that gold to yourself!" I proclaimed in earnest.
"We took turns reading aloud the best scenes, which may or may not
have been appropriate near the senior book club." I shrugged again.
He shook his head. "Leave it to you and Regan to corrupt the seniors."
He glanced down at my history book again pointedly. "You're
great at memorizing useless information, Zie. This test should
be a piece of cake. Besides, I brought you a treat and some
studying incentive." His eyes met mine, and that was all it took
to make my stomach do a little flip. I wanted to brush his bangs
out of his eyes but it seemed too intimate. "Of course, it's not as
good as naked man chest, but it'll have to do."
I smiled at him as I slid the test strip into the meter. The
day I found out I had type 1 diabetes, the doctor had explained
that my pancreas didn't produce insulin, the hormone my cells
needed to convert sugar into energy, but all I heard was that I
was going to need to give myself shots and poke my own fingers
multiple times a day for the rest of my life. When you're a child,
there are very few things more terrifying than that. But the thing
about living with an incurable condition is that you have no choice
but to get used to it. My parents and I quickly had to learn how to
test my blood sugar levels throughout the day, and how to figure out
the correct doses of insulin to inject so that I stayed in an acceptable
range. There was a lot of practicing, and Nolan had been there
through all of it. He had been there in those first few days when
my fingertips had turned purple from the pricks. He offered up
his own so I could practice on him too. He had been there when,
in sixth grade, I decided I didn't want to be diabetic anymore
because it was too much work, only to be reminded very sternly
by my endocrinologist that if I didn't check myself regularly and administer
insulin when I needed it, I was at risk of some serious health
issues, including everything from going blind to needing to
have a limb amputated. Nolan had held me as I cried. And he
was still there now, always keeping an eye out for the signs
that my blood sugar had gotten too low or too high, and quietly
supporting me every time I had a setback. I knew that
kind of unconditional friendship wasn't easy to find, which
was why it was such a simple decision for me to keep my
feelings for Nolan secret. There was no way I could ever risk
jeopardizing what we had.
Nolan glanced at my meter and made a small tsk-tsk with
his mouth, but then shot me that devastating grin again.
"Sixty-one, Sugar," he said, using his other nickname for me.
"That's why you can't remember shit." He dug through his
pocket and pulled out six Hershey's Kisses, to help me get
my blood sugar back to the appropriate 90 to 120 range I
shrugged and tossed a Kiss into my mouth, rolling up the small
square of tinfoil and throwing it at him. "Well," he
said, catching the foil and then flicking it off his palm for the
perfect shot right to my forehead, "now that I'm here, I might
as well help you study." He kicked off his shoes and lay back
on my bed, making himself comfortable on my pillows. I
watched him with mild amusement. He used to spend the
night when we were younger and we'd both fit, but now his
tall frame made his feet nearly dangle off the end, and the
way his strong arms folded behind his head made the once-
big bed seem child-sized. I giggled at the thought and he
narrowed his eyes at me.
"What's so funny?"
I unwrapped another Kiss and put it on my tongue,
taking a moment to enjoy the smooth flavor. Finally, around
the melting lump of chocolate, I answered, "You look like
Goldilocks in the baby bear's bed."
"Is that so?" he asked sarcastically. "I think this bed is
'just right.'" In one quick move he reached down and grabbed
my ankle, pulling me off balance so that the front legs of the
chair I was leaning back in slammed to the floor. That time
he was the one laughing.
I moved to pinch him as he shut his eyes and rested, but
he must have sensed what I had in mind because his hand shot out
and captured my wrist. He cracked one eye open and gave me a
heart-stopping smirk. "I know you better than you know yourself."
As the words fell from his mouth, he yanked on my arm, pulling
me from my chair, down onto the bed with him. I moved to get up
but he just held me tighter, dramatically rubbing my bangs
and the wispy hair that had escaped my elastic band into
my face like a toddler would pet a puppy. "There, there, Sugar,"
he teased, and I laughed, giving up on trying to break free
from his hold.
He finally released me and we both sat up, moving to the
edge of my small bed so he could pull the huge textbook onto
his lap. He flipped through the pages of my open notebook
on my desk until he found a clean page and ripped it from
the spiral binding, setting it on the pages of the textbook.
Next he pulled a pen from the cup where I kept them and
clicked its point down so he could write. "I think it's time for
one of our lists," he said seriously, titling the page TOP TEN
REASONS ZIE WILL NAIL THIS TEST.
I laughed. Even though I probably wouldn't nail the test,
I knew I would save this one just like I had the hundred or
so other ones we'd written over the course of our friendship.
Nolan turned to look at me, and for a second I thought he
might say something serious because he pulled in a breath
and gave me his full attention, but then no words came out
"What?" I finally managed a whisper. His eyes left mine
long enough to take in the rest of my face. His mouth opened
to answer, but then quickly shut again.
His head shaking slightly, he smiled and whispered
back, "Nothing."
***
I hope you enjoyed the preview. I look forward to getting to know you all better on Wattpad. Don't forget to check out my first published book, Our Broken Pieces out now.
SarahWhiteWrite will giveaway signed copies of Our Broken Pieces to 2 lucky winner(s)! My giveaway is open to readers in the USA and Canada.
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