Waking Charley Vaughan Part 1

Waking Charley Vaughan.

ELLE BOTZ.

DEDICATION.

For Robby & Lucy.

To everyone who told me I could.

Thanks.

Mom- for never letting me settle for my first draft.

Megan- for reading every draft, and listening to every idea.

Sommer- for two amazing cover designs, and endless support.

Maranda- for giving me the jump start.

Rob- for your support. I love you.

My Editors:.

Stephen Parolini, The Novel Doctor- You made my first editorial review painless. Thanks for your honesty, and your encouragement.

Abigail Nichols- My dedicated line editor, proof reader, and "judger".

My Pre-Readers:.

Thank you all for taking the time to help me make this book better.

Lastly, thank you to everyone who buys my book. I hope you like reading it as much as I liked writing it.

prologue.

Charley - 2006.

"Momma, I am not running away from home. 19 year olds cannot 'run away'. They just move out."

"You are not just moving, Charley. You are pouting. In fact, you are throwing one of the biggest hissy fits I have ever seen." My mother replied.

Trying to get my mother to understand why an unmarried, 19 year old girl would move out of her parents' home to move across the country was possibly one of the most pointless tasks I could ever attempt. Still, I argued.

"I'm not pouting, Momma. I'm not mad, and I'm not pouting. I'm just going." I had to do this before I lost my nerve. I had to show her that she couldn't keep controlling me.

I got into my car, and Rebecca Vaughan marched over to my window. She tapped on it with one long, red fingernail. "Charley Vaughan, you get out of this dammed car right this minute!"

"Jackson!" She yelled, calling to my father who had remained inside the house. "Get out here! Come stop her!"

My sisters, Casey and Codey, were inside with him. I knew they were crying. I knew they would hate me for this. If they hadn't been too young, I would have taken them with me. If they hadn't still been in high school, we could have all packed up and left together. But I couldn't wait any longer. I couldn't take one more day of Rebecca Vaughan. I had to go.

Just then, I saw my dad-a tall, dark-skinned man with a kind face and sad eyes-walking down the front steps of the house I grew up in. I should have known he'd do what she told him. He always did.

He walked slowly, so my mother, in her infinite patience, stomped over to him and began pulling him by the hand at her pace. About four feet from the car, she stopped and shoved him forward. "Fix this!" she drawled in her thick, Mississippi, accent. "Your mother did this!" she said, "You had d.a.m.ned well better fix it!"

"Momma," I said softly, "There's nothing to fix. I'm just going to college."

"Going to college?" she laughed bitterly. "Charley Vaughan, you have not even been accepted to any schools out there in the middle of nowhere. And there are plenty of good colleges here in Mississippi. You do not need to move across the United States in order to go to college. You are mad at me, and you are running away. And I will not have any more of this nonsense."

My dad knelt down next to the car so that he could look at me face to face. "Hi, Honey," he said softly.

"Hi, Dad," I said, not looking at him. "I know what you are going to say, dad, but I can't do it."

"Shouldn't you at least get yourself a plan together?" He asked. "Don't leave like this, honey. Please."

"Dad, if I go back in there, I'm never going to get to leave. She'll chain me to a radiator or something, I swear."

My dad smiled slightly then. "Possibly," he conceded. "I just don't want to see you leave like this. Give me a chance to figure out a way to help you."

He could have helped me by standing up for one of his daughters for once, but I didn't tell him that. It wasn't as if he was going to change a lifelong behavior because I told him to. He only seemed to do what he was told when the instructions were coming from my mother anyway.

"Dad," I said, "ever since you told me what she did-how she's been lying to me, and Codey, and Casey all this time since Grandma died, I just can't make myself stay and put up with this anymore."

He sighed. "Maybe I was wrong to tell you that, Charley. I was just upset one night, and it wasn't my place to tell you anyway."

I tried not to roll my eyes. "It was your mother's will, Dad. You had every right to tell me." I still didn't know why he had let my mother change anything on it, or how that was even legal or possible, but it had happened. Somehow, she had convinced Grandma Lylah that she would do better to make my mother the executor of her will. And now, my mother, once again, had the futures of her three daughters entirely in her control.

My dad was still just looking at me. "I love you," he said. "I will love you no matter what you choose, but I am asking you to come back inside so that your mother will calm down. If you leave like this, it's going to be bad for us all. You know that, Charley."

I took a deep breath. He was right. I knew he was. I didn't want my sisters or my dad to have to suffer the wrath of Rebecca if I left like this. I exhaled, trying to figure out what to do.

"I'm not staying here forever, Dad," I told him.

"I know, Honey," he said as he helped me out of the car. He wrapped his arm around my shoulder and walked me up to the front door of the house. My mother looked at me with smug satisfaction. My blood boiled.

Late that night, I went around my bedroom collecting any and all money that I could remember hiding. My mother's name was on all of my bank accounts, so I had taken to hiding small bits of my money around the house for the past few years. It wouldn't be much, but I knew that she'd take everything her name was on as soon as she realized what I'd done. That was, if she hadn't already.

Without even counting it, I stuffed each bill into pocket of my messenger bag. I would count it when I got out.

I sat on my bed and looked around the room. I'd grown up here, but it still hadn't felt like home. Aside from the memories with my sisters, I'd been miserable there. This wasn't what leaving home was supposed to feel like. Or be like.

I walked down the upstairs hall quietly, and let myself into Codey's room. She was facing the window, her back to me. The sound of her breathing told me she was asleep. I walked over and placed the note I'd written her on her nightstand. I leaned down, and kissed my little sister on the head.

"I love you, Code," I said.

I walked across the hall and did the same for Casey, leaving her note on her pink dresser, and putting her blanket back over her. I kissed her chubby cheek.

"I love you, Casey-bear," I said, sniffling and wiping a tear from my cheek.

Quietly, I walked back down the hallway, and grabbed two bags from my bedroom floor. I tiptoed down the stairs, trying to will each creaky, old, stair to be silent as I stepped on it.

I loaded the bags into the trunk of my car. It was a silver BMW, and I hated it. It was going to be one of the first things I got rid of when I got to where ever I was going. My mother only bought them for us because of how they made her look to all her friends. She constantly held them over our heads, telling us how little we deserved them.

It was only upon my dad's insistence that they had been in each of our names, instead of all being in my mother's. I was never sure how he won that argument, but that night, I was thankful that he had.

I got into the driver's seat and started the car. I took what I hoped would be a last look at the home I grew up in. It looked like something out of a Southern Living type of magazine. It felt like it, too. It was cold, and manufactured. It wasn't mine, and I didn't want anything to do with it.

I drove off into the darkness, the gulf of Mexico to my left, and the smell of the ocean filling my car as I headed West-toward my freedom, and toward my future.

Sara - 2006.

It was a October day, and I was rus.h.i.+ng across campus: late as usual to one of my dull-beyond-words business cla.s.ses. I was close to a full blown sprint when I smacked into something I hadn't seen.

I looked down and saw the "something". It was a girl, probably close to my own age, limbs sprawled awkwardly, trying to collect herself and stand back up.

"Oh no!" I said to her. "I am so so so sorry!" I said, bending down to help her gather up the books and papers that were all around her.

"It's OK," she said softly. "I'm sorry. I wasn't paying attention."

I couldn't help laughing. I had practically hip checked the poor girl off of the sidewalk and she was apologizing to me."

"Umm, you don't need to apologize to me," I told her. "I was running like a madwoman trying to get to cla.s.s. I was not looking at where I was going, and I slammed into you like a freaking lineman. Trust me. I am the one who should be sorry."

She laughed. "Yeah, sorry," she said. Then looked down, a rosy color beginning to shade her tawny cheek.

"Wait," I said, "Did you just apologize to me for apologizing to me?" I asked her.

"Umm...yeah," she said, stuffing some papers into a text book.

"Don't do that. Like ever again," I said.

"Okay," she said, "Sor-"

"Don't!" I laughed. Then said, "I'm Sara. And I'm sorry again for b.u.mping into you. Are you sure you're OK?"

"Yeah," she said, giving herself a quick once over. "I'm fine. Just late for cla.s.s now," she said, then added quickly, "but-that's not your fault! I was late before we collided."

"Yeah," I said, "me too. Hence, the spastic sprint across campus. Where are you headed?"

"Business building," she said, spitting the words out like they tasted badly.

"Me too! I said, before realizing I probably sounded like a crazy person. No one normal should get that excited about something having a trip to the business building in common. All of my friends were Art majors, though, so I was excited by the thought of having someone to talk business with.

"Oh cool," she said, stuffing the last of her papers into the book. "It was nice, uh, b.u.mping into you," she said, then started to walk off. I noticed then that she was limping.

"Wait," I said, taking a few quick steps to catch up to her. She had pretty short legs, and didn't move them very quickly, so it only took a second.

"You look hurt," I said once I was beside her. I looked down at her leg and saw that her jeans were ripped, and her knee was bleeding.

"Oh, that?" she said, looking down. "That's nothing. I'm fine. I do that all the time."

"You slam your knee into concrete and rip your jeans all the time?" I asked her.

"Yep," she said, still hobbling toward the business building.

"Ok, whatever, weirdo," I said. I continued to walk beside her, deciding to just leave her alone and go to my cla.s.s. I stopped when I reached the door to my cla.s.s. I had to prepare for a ninja-like entrance. This professor hated when people were late. As I put my hand on the door handle, the limpy girl stopped next to me and sighed.

"Ohhh," I said to her, understanding her determination to get to cla.s.s. "You have Shep's cla.s.s too?" I asked her.

"Yep," she said, looking nervous. She placed her hand on the other door's handle, but made no move to open it.

"Are you going in?" she asked, looking over at me.

I looked at my watch. We were fifteen minutes late. I kind of wished I was bleeding too.

"Sure," I said, not moving.

"Yep," she said, "me too."

We stood there for a minute, neither of us moving. I don't know what incident was running through her head, but I was remembering the kid last week that came in late, and the reaming he got in front of the entire room-a room which consisted of easily 150 people. I wasn't a shy person, but who the h.e.l.l wants to get their a.s.s chewed in front of that many people?

"Umm...can I leave?" she asked me.

"What do you mean can you leave? You're a grown a.s.s person. You can do what you want."

"No," she said, "I mean, are you going to tell the professor you saw me if I bail right now?" some of her words carried a slight accent. I had no idea where from, but she was certainly not from Colorado. Some of her one-syllable words ended up having two.

"Since I don't even know your name that would be hard to do" I told her.

"Ok, good." She said, and turned to go without another word.

I followed her out. "Hey!" I called after her. "I'm not going in there now," I said.