Sophie's Secret Read online

Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Next in the Whispers series

  The Whispers Series

  About the Author

  Sophie’s Secret

  Tara West

  Copyright © 2011 by Tara West

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited.

  Cover Art by Tamra Westberry

  Dedication

  For my yearbook and newspaper students who encouraged me to write. I hope you are pursuing your own dreams. And for Mary, my number one cheerleader, a young woman now, who is making a difference in the world. I am so proud that I was a part of your lives. I miss you all.

  Finally, for baby Sophia. Your smile is my inspiration.

  Chapter One

  “Do you remember your first time?” My best friend, AJ Dawson, checked under the door to make sure her mother’s feet weren’t nearby.

  I sighed, leaning against the cushioned, and surprisingly feminine, satin headboard of AJ’s twin bed. For the past six years, I’d been trying to erase that awful experience from my mind. “Yeah.”

  “Who was it with?” Krysta Richards, my other best friend, scooted closer.

  I shuddered as an icy chill swept up my spine. “My mom.” I focused on one of the millions of Clay Matthews posters on the bedroom wall, trying to shut out that painful memory.

  AJ’s eyes widened. She pushed herself off of her beanbag chair and sat directly beneath me on her plush white carpet. “What was she thinking?”

  I shifted my gaze to AJ’s petite, white cosmetic table, which looked ready to crumble under the weight of her athletic gear. “She was depressed about my grandma,” I breathed.

  Next to the time my chubby butt split my too- tight leotards in ballet class, this was one Childhood memory I wanted to forget—my first telepathic experience. Though I heard my mother’s voice in my head clearly, she wasn’t speaking. She was on the phone, just listening, eyes downcast and shoulders slumped. I thought I was going crazy.

  Then the voice was louder, echoing in my skull. How can I live without her? But Mom’s lips didn’t move. After she hung up, she began to weep, and then fell to the floor in a motionless heap. My grandmother had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer and given three months to live.

  Although I was just a child, I knew I had been listening to my mom’s thoughts.

  At about that time, I met AJ and Krysta on the playground. We made unusual friends—AJ was the jock, Krysta was the princess, and until my recent transformation, I was the fat dork.

  So how did we wind up as best friends? Our “gifts” drew us together. My friends were my safety net, AJ had visions and Krysta received visits from the dead. Around them, I didn’t feel like a freak and we pledged to keep our gifts secret.

  Luckily for us, we didn’t have these supernatural experiences too often, or we’d have been labeled freaks at school. We just wanted to be teens, trying to survive the pressures of school, parents and fitting in.

  Since this was the weekend, we could sit around in AJ’s room, listening to The Band Perry, while forgetting about the outside world. Unless we were interrupted by AJ’s mom.

  “Whatcha doin’?” Mrs. Dawson peered through a crack in the door.

  “Go away,” AJ’s two favorite words for her mother.

  AJ used this expression on her mom every ten minutes. Like clockwork, we could depend on Mrs. Dawson’s unannounced interruption into our privacy. She didn’t bother me so much but I didn’t have to live with it.

  “Such a little snot,” Mrs. Dawson sweetly intoned and slammed the door behind her. That was that, until this exact dialogue would repeat itself ten minutes later.

  Unless…every so often Mrs. Dawson added a twist to the routine, throwing me smack in the middle. Thank God she didn’t do it this time or I would be forced to answer the question, “Sophie, do you talk to your mother like this?”

  I would look from mother to daughter, hoping one would give me an out. When neither spoke, they left me with no choice but to answer honestly, “No, Mrs. Dawson.”

  AJ would roll her crystal blue eyes and say, “Her mother doesn’t interrupt us every ten minutes.”

  AJ’s way of saying the word “mother” like it was some venomous, foul stench, always fascinated me. I suppose this wasn’t Mrs. Dawson’s fault. If AJ and Krysta hadn’t been wild children the summer before eighth grade, Mrs. Dawson wouldn’t have become such a pest.

  That was the summer Krysta’s mom ran off with a bail bondsman. Krysta’s dad worked nights, leaving no adult supervision at her apartment. Krysta begged us not to tell anyone about her mom. We kept our promise and AJ spent almost every night at Krysta’s.

  They ran around all night, hanging out with the wrong crowd. I didn’t want to be caught up in their trouble, so I stopped answering their calls. They figured it out.

  At the end of the summer, they were busted by the cops when AJ asked a guy at the gas station to buy her beer. I thought it was pretty ironic AJ didn’t see that coming.

  When my mom found out, she put me in private school for a year. I wasn’t too surprised by my mom’s reaction. She never had much faith in me, not when she could compare me to my two perfect sisters. I guess my mom was afraid I’d be influenced by my friends’ bad decisions. What she failed to notice was I had already made the choice not to be influenced by them.

  After Krysta’s dad took up drinking, she found shelter at AJ’s house on the weekends. Mrs. Dawson let Krysta stay because she felt sorry for her but she still didn’t trust either one of them.

  AJ put her head in her hands. “God, why can’t she leave me alone?”

  Ignoring her question, a question we’d heard a thousand times, Krysta painted her toes and I reached for Krysta’s Cosmo.

  “I wish my mom would buy me Cosmo.” I couldn’t believe I was reading a magazine with sex advice. Like girls did it all the time. I felt a twinge of jealousy that Krysta could read whatever she wanted, and then I remembered all the other crap she had to deal with at home.

  “My dad’s new girlfriend is only 23. She bought it. Does this pink match my skin type?” Krysta pointed her skinny toes at us; a concerned expression crossed her brow, as if all hope for life’s happiness hinged on the color of her nails.

  “Pink is everybody’s skin type.”

  AJ didn’t bother to look at Krysta’s nails. She was too busy fuming over her mom’s latest interruption. Besides, AJ wasn’t the type to be interested in fashion. She’d worn her straight blonde hair in the same ponytail since I could remember. AJ was one of the few girls I knew who could still look good without makeup, which she only wore on special occasions. In fact, if she wasn’t such a jock, with her bright blue eyes, perfect little nose, and high cheekbones, she’d probably be the prettiest girl in school. As far as clothes, much to her mother’s disappointment, AJ picked comfort over style, preferring to wear old jeans and her softball jerseys.

  AJ stretched out on her stomach and grabbed a rubber chicken off the floor. “Do you like his newest girlfriend?”

  “I don’t know. I guess.” Krysta reached toward me and grabbed the magazine, flipping to the table of contents. “Does Cosmo say anything about nail color?”r />
  Although her dad couldn’t afford many nice clothes, Krysta followed the latest fashion trends by wearing her hair and makeup like Miranda Kerr or Gisele. She even dyed and straightened her dark curly hair in an attempt to look like blonde Taylor Swift. Quite a contrast to her large dark eyes and olive complexion. AJ and I didn’t have the heart to tell her she looked stupid.

  AJ flicked the chicken’s head with her forefinger. “I bet it’s cool not having your mother around bugging you all the time.”

  That was a totally insensitive thing to say. I felt it in my bones. I felt it in Krysta’s bones, as I watched her hand clench the corner of the magazine, her face expressionless.

  We both waited for Krysta’s outburst. She said nothing as she set down the magazine and quietly walked out of the room.

  “That was a stupid thing to say, AJ.” I didn’t criticize my best friend often, but this time she needed it.

  “Go talk to her.” AJ rolled her eyes and buried her face in her pillow.

  “No, you go talk to her. You said it.”

  Okay, one of AJ’s flaws—she didn’t handle feelings well. Raised under the shadow of her jock big brother, she wanted to be like him in every way and that meant having no ‘girl’ emotions whatsoever.

  AJ lifted her head and looked directly at me with widened eyes. “I don’t know what to say. You’re good at this stuff.”

  “Try saying ‘I’m sorry’. Try asking her if she wants to talk about it.”

  “No!” AJ twisted her lips in that disgusted scowl, as if I’d just asked her to French kiss Cody Miller. Grody Cody Miller, the kid who was tricked into eating an Ex-Lax bar and crapped his pants on the bus.

  Someone had to comfort Krysta. When I realized I had to be that person, anger fueled my movements as I stormed off. I hadn’t even taken one step before knocking Krysta’s shimmery pink nail polish all over AJ’s white carpet. “Crap! Krysta didn’t put the lid on this polish.”

  AJ jumped off her bed and rushed to the spill. “We’ve got to clean this up before my mother finds out.”

  “Whatcha doin’?”

  Too late.

  ****

  AJ’s mom was surprisingly understanding about the nail polish. She only made us promise that in the future, we’d paint our nails in the kitchen.

  Krysta came back from the bathroom, looked around, and grabbed some nail polish remover. She cleaned the spill like nothing was wrong. I was a little stunned by her reaction, but relieved I wouldn’t have to prevent a confrontation.

  The stain came up quickly, but the remover left a horrible smell. AJ and Krysta suggested we move to the living room, but I didn’t want to go in there. The Mikes could show up. AJ’s brother, Mike #1, and his best friend, Mike #2, were two grades ahead of us and very popular. I couldn’t risk telling AJ and Krysta my secret with them around. Even though they went to a different school, gossip knew no limits in my world. I would never be able to show my face again if my secret was revealed.

  “Let’s just open the window and stay in your bedroom, AJ,” I suggested while I climbed onto the bed and slid open AJ’s window.

  “Why? It smells in here.” Krysta fanned her nose, acting like she’d pass out.

  “Come on, Krysta, you paint your nails all the time. You’re used to the smell. Besides,” I hesitated, looking out the window to see if anyone was in the front yard, behind the bushes, or within one hundred yards of hearing distance. “I think I like a guy at school.”

  Smell forgotten, Krysta and AJ perked up like AJ’s Shitzu, Patches, whenever we fried bacon. I feared they’d make too much of a big deal about this. After all, what if they didn’t like him, or worse, what if they thought he was out of my league?

  “Who’s the guy?” Krysta cooed and smiled, recognizing the significance of this momentous event.

  Sophie had a crush.

  Innocent, awkward Sophie who couldn’t even look a member of the opposite sex in the eyes. Crazed dreamer Sophie, who said she’d never ever consider a boyfriend, unless that boy was Taylor Lautner. Self-conscious, self-doubting Sophie, who’d just lost thirty pounds of baby fat last year and was still adjusting to new braces. That Sophie had a crush.

  I read the looks in their faces—their widened, amused eyes.

  Impossible.

  I’d spoken the truth. I didn’t know when it began, or how I started liking him, but I was in love with the guy who sat in front of me in English class, Jacob Flushman.

  “Jacob Flushman!” They screamed in unison. Oops. I said that last thought out loud. The cat was out of the bag now; there was no turning back. “Yeah, him.” I looked out of the window once more. One could never be too careful about these delicate secrets. If the Mikes found out, they’d tease me for sure. “Please don’t tell anyone.”

  “Jake Toilet Flush?” AJ laughed and landed on a beanbag chair in the corner of her room.

  “His name is Jacob. We’re freshmen now; AJ, it’s time to ditch little middle school names.” Actually, we were still in the middle school because the high school was overcrowded. So last year, they turned our middle school into a junior high, keeping us in that juvenile prison against our will.

  “Jake has big thighs.”

  Leave it to Krysta to point out any physical flaws. In her world, everyone should look like they just stepped out of Cosmo or YM.

  I pulled back my shoulders, ready to defend him. “He plays football. Football players are supposed to have big thighs.”

  “My brother plays football,” AJ jabbed, “Jake sits the bench.”

  “Your brother also has a zit juice collection on his bathroom mirror. People still think he’s cool.” I thought in confessing my crush, my two best friends would have been a little more supportive, but all they did was make fun of him. Their rude remarks cut hard. I liked Jacob and slamming him was like slamming me, too. “I don’t see either of you with hot boyfriends, or any boyfriends.”

  “Chill.” AJ glared. “You don’t have to get so sensitive. I get enough of that from my mother.”

  “Let’s look at his yearbook picture.”

  I feared Krysta would mention the yearbook. Although I couldn’t sense it at the moment, I knew what she was thinking. Let’s look at his huge thighs on the football page, so we can make fun of him.

  Krysta grabbed a yearbook off AJ’s bookshelf.

  Before she could turn the pages, I snatched it from her.

  “Give it back!” She tried to grab it out of my hands.

  At only five foot, two inches, she was no match for me. Last time I checked, I was five foot seven and still growing.

  “Only if you promise not to make fun of him.” In truth, I hadn’t seen Jacob’s eighth grade yearbook picture and I was very curious. Jacob had a crew cut, big brown eyes and the cutest little ears. I wondered if he was just as cute last year.

  “I promise.” She smiled wryly.

  Knowing I couldn’t trust her, I grabbed her Cosmo off the floor.

  “Swear on Gisele.” I handed her the magazine. Gisele seduced the camera lens with pursed lips.

  Krysta placed her hand on the model’s face. “I swear.”

  I handed Krysta the book. She could find his mug shot quickly. The way she liked to look at pictures, I knew she probably had the yearbook memorized.

  Krysta could have done it in her sleep. She flipped open to page twenty-three and pointed directly at Jacob. He had a lopsided grin and the pudgiest cheeks ever.

  “Oh-mi-god!” I screamed, setting off a chain reaction with Krysta and AJ, who’d joined me on the bed.

  “Now I see why you like him.” AJ laughed and flipped her ponytail. “He lost a bunch of weight like you did.”

  “He did?” Until now, I hadn’t known that. Jacob was new to Greenwood Junior High last year, when I was stuck in Covenant Christian Academy. Knowing this little fact made me like him even more. I was sure he knew what it was like to be teased about weight. He knew. Jake and I were made for each other. Now all I had to do
was convince him.

  But how? Although my friends insisted I wasn’t that chubby little dork anymore, I had trouble seeing myself as anything but Sophie “So Fat” Sinora. Although Jacob sat in front of me, he had never turned around to talk or even smile. I doubted he knew my name.

  “Hey.” Krysta said. “Maybe you can go to Freshmen Formal together.”

  The dance was only four weeks away. It was supposed to be some kind of a junior high homecoming. Sounded lame, but I still wanted to go. Some of the other girls in school were brave enough to find dates for the dance. I thought about asking Jacob, but I shook at the thought of rejection.

  “Yeah, maybe.” My voice faltered.

  I turned and stared at my reflection in the full length mirror hanging on AJ’s closet door. I had been exercising all summer, so any remnants of fat had been replaced by toned skin. My hair looked perfect today, but that’s because Krysta did it. Any other day, it just wouldn’t do what I wanted. I could never get the makeup thing down. My mom said my green eyes and thick lashes were my best asset, although Krysta had them drowning in so much eye shadow, I could barely see them. This, she said, would make my eyes look like a model’s, but I didn’t think so.

  I tried to smile at my reflection, and then quickly sealed my lips. I hated my braces. Food was always getting stuck in them and they made my lips look fat. Krysta said it was fashionable to have fat lips, but I didn’t see anything fashionable in looking like you were punched in the mouth.

  I sighed, my shoulders slumping, when I realized I had a lot of work to do. Even though I had lost weight, I still felt awkward in my skin which didn’t help my self-esteem one bit.

  I had to make Jacob notice me before I asked him to the dance. I knew he wouldn’t say ‘yes’ to a dork. I needed to prove to him and the rest of the school that I was cool. But kids were cruel, and they didn’t let old nicknames die easily. So how could a girl get a new reputation?

  Chapter Two

  Why did the day have to begin with pre-algebra? I should have been in Algebra One, but the counselors didn’t have faith in my education at the Christian Academy, so they made me repeat my math class with the bonehead freshmen.

  And her. The meanest girl in school—Lady Gaga wannabe, Summer Powers.