From the Damage 1 - Opposites Attract Read online

  From the Damage:

  Opposites Attract

  written by:

  Jasmine Denton

  and

  Genna Denton

  World Castle Publishing

  http://www.worldcastlepublishing.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used factiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  World Castle Publishing

  Pensacola, Florida

  Copyright © by Jasmine Denton 2011

  Copyright © by Genna Denton 2011

  ISBN‐13: 9781937085230

  First Edition World Castle Publishing 2011

  http://www.worldcastlepublishing.com

  License Notes

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re‐sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you respecting the hard work of this author.

  Cover Artist: Spittyfish Designs

  Editor: Autumn Conley Bittick

  Printed in the United States

  Chapter One—Support Group

  The rain poured down as Kelly turned her car into the parking lot of the youth center. Grimacing, she looked up at the looming brick building with dread.

  Her parents were forcing her to go to this new support group for teens at the youth center. Even though she’d told them she didn’t need therapy—she was fine, just fine—her parents made it clear her attendance was mandatory. They almost dropped her off themselves, but she’d whined and insisted she could be trusted, and now she had to prove it. She really had no choice, though, but to show up, considering Kelly wouldn’t put it past her mother to give the counselor a call just to make sure she was there.

  Pulling her hoodie over her head, she took her key out of the ignition and sighed as she climbed out of her car. She ran across the parking lot, dodging puddles that pooled in the potholes. A crack of thunder rang out as she made it to the awning, where she turned and clicked the LOCK button on her keyless remote. After hearing the alert that her car was locked, she pulled open the heavy youth center door and wiped her feet on the rough WELCOME mat as she searched for a sign for the support group.

  A sign to the right of the hallway had an arrow beneath the words: Discover-U

  Center (Support Group for Troubled Teens), Room 303.

  She dragged herself to the elevator and arrived there about the same time as a thin girl with black hair. Hanging back, Kelly let the girl push the elevator buttons.

  When the girl pushed the illuminated 3, Kelly wondered if she was going to the support group, too, but she didn’t have the nerve to ask.

  Both girls stepped off the elevator and went to Room 303, where they were greeted by a young brunette woman whose nametag read DAPHNE. From the darkened sky, rain beat on the tall windows that staring down into the cavernous room.

  Fluorescent lights on the high ceiling illuminated the room, casting a bright glare on the glass above.

  “Hello,” the pretty brunette said, carrying a clipboard as she approached the two teens. “I’m Daphne. What are your names?”

  “Carmen,” the girl from the elevator said.

  Daphne pulled off a nametag with Carmen’s name on it and then turned to Kelly with a questioning look.

  “Kelly.”

  “It’s nice to meet you both. We’re so glad you’re here.” Daphne handed Kelly her nametag as a blond guy who looked a little bit older than her approached. “This is my colleague, Brett. He’ll be joining us from time to time. If you’ll go ahead and take a seat over there,” she said, pointing to a rough circle of nine overstuffed easy chairs that sat on a worn area rug. “We’ll get started in just a few minutes.”

  Kelly stuck the nametag on her purse as she walked over to an empty chair and plopped down in it.

  A few minutes later, a girl Kelly recognized from school came in: Meagan Parker, cheerleader extraordinaire.

  Great, Kelly thought as she shrank back in her chair. Just freaking great.

  When the clock struck six, Daphne walked into the middle of the circle while Brett took one of the empty chairs.

  “Now, I know you’re all here for very different reasons,” Daphne began in a gentle voice, “but it’s our hope that no matter what’s going on in your life, we can provide support. So, why don’t we start by introducing ourselves? You don’t have to say much—just your name and a reason you’re here.” She then walked over to the chair beside Brett, sat down, and fixed her gaze on Kelly.

  Why do I have to go first? Kelly thought with dread. Tucking a strand of blonde hair behind her ear, she cautiously began. “I’m Kelly. I guess I’m here because my parents are worried about me.” Nervousness swirling in her gut, she sneaked a glance around the room filled with strangers. There was an average-looking girl with sunken eyes whose nametag read KAY, sitting next to a guy with cold eyes. Ryder? Is that really his name? Meagan was sitting on the other side of him. Kelly found it so utterly awkward to run into someone from her school in group therapy. “Is that all?” she said.

  “Do I say more?”

  Daphne shook her head as she jotted notes on the clipboard she now held in her lap. She gave Kelly a comforting smile. “We’ll go more into detail later, whenever you’re ready. Right now, we just need to know the basics.” The chair next to Kelly was empty, so Daphne pointed to the next boy with her pen. “And you? Would you introduce yourself and tell us what brought you to the Discover-U Center?”

  The boy with blond hair and icy gray eyes shoved his hands into his pockets.

  “I’m Gage, and my car brought me here.”

  Daphne laughed, though she didn’t sound humored. “I meant why you’re here.”

  He rolled his eyes. “We already went over this in the one-on-one interview.”

  “Yes, I remember, but I’m asking you to tell the group.”

  Fixing his gaze on the clock to the far left of the room, he sighed. “It’s a condition of my probation. Apparently, I need anger management.” He made sarcastic quotation marks in the air around the term with his fingers.

  Probation? Kelly thought, shifting in her seat a little. She wondered what he’d been arrested for. Was it a violent crime? Stealing? She wasn’t frightened by it exactly; it was more intrigue than anything.

  Sitting next to Gage the felon was a mousy girl with black hair. She looked up from nervously picking at her fingernails. “I’m Carmen. I’m here because...” she trailed off, keeping her eyes on what was left of her fingernails.

  “It’s okay.” Daphne tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. Her voice sounded calm and quiet and overly sympathetic. “You can say it.”

  Carmen took a deep breath and raised her head. “My sister sent me here because our mom recently died.”

  “I’m very sorry to hear that,” Daphne said, the compassion evident on her features, finally proving to Kelly that Daphne wasn’t just some fraud paid by the state to listen to their crappy life stories.

  Carmen winced slightly as everybody in the room turned to look at her. Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she glanced down at the rug and kept her eyes there as Daphne motioned for the next person to speak.

  “I’m Meagan.” She twirled a strand of her long red hair around her finger and blew a bubble with her gum. Popping it suddenly, she contin
ued, “I’m doing the whole individual counseling thing, but my counselor said I should come here, too, for support or whatever. Go figure, right? It’s a support group.” She laughed and slunk back into her chair, still chewing rapidly on the gum.

  Kelly wondered why Meagan was in counseling and if she’d even recognized her to begin with. She hoped not.

  “I’m Kay,” said a girl with brown hair and purple bags under her eyes. “My parents are getting a divorce. It’s been really...well, it’s been hard on me.”

  Daphne smiled at Kay with a slight nod, then turned her focus to the last person, a boy with short brown hair and big brown eyes.

  His gaze darted away from her when she looked at him. “They call me Ryder,”

  he said. “A few months ago, there was a shooting at my school—”

  “At Westview?” Meagan interrupted, and Gage shuffled his feet. “I heard about that.”

  “Please wait until Ryder is finished before you ask questions,” Daphne directed.

  “The shooter held Gage and me and some other students hostage in the computer lab.”

  Gage glared at Ryder, who scoffed back at him.

  Daphne looked from one boy to the other, her eyebrows arching a bit. “That must have been very traumatic for both of you.”

  Gage swung his gaze to the floor, and Ryder shrugged.

  “Okay,” Daphne said, looking around the circle, “does anybody want to go into more detail?”

  The teenagers were silent, staring at Daphne with blank, reluctant faces. Kelly felt a little sorry and somewhat embarrassed for her, though not enough to spill her problems.

  “Okay, then. Let’s try something else.” Daphne reached beside her chair and pulled out a shopping bag. She took out seven leather-bound journals, then began to walk around the circle and hand them out. “Keep these journals. They’re personalized, and my number is on the front page,” she said, handing one to Gage. “Don’t hesitate to call me if you ever need to.” She made eye contact with everyone as they took the small notebook. “If you feel angry or sad, write about it,” she continued. “If you want to hurt yourself, write about it. If you have hurt yourself,” she said, handing a journal to Carmen, “write about it.” Then she glanced at Gage. “If you think this is stupid, write about it. Take this everywhere.” Once everyone had their journal in hand, she sat back down in her chair. “Go ahead and write your first entry now,” she said as she began to make notes on her clipboard.

  “This,” Gage said, his voice echoing in the silent room. “Is. Stupid.” He slammed the journal shut and tossed it into the empty chair between his and Kelly’s. “Done!” he announced, beaming a big fake smile.

  Kelly rolled her eyes at his immaturity.

  “That’s a great start,” Daphne said with a smirk. “I didn’t think you’d write anything.”

  Gage sighed and craned his head back against the chair to stare at the lights.

  “You think that’s going to help anything?” Ryder scoffed. “You can’t deal with the shooting by pretending it didn’t happen.”

  “Some idiot came to school with a gun and got killed. It didn’t have anything to do with me, so there’s nothing to deal with. Why the heck would I want to waste my time writing that down? There was enough written about it in the papers already.”

  Ryder glared at him. “You’re telling me it didn’t bother you to see your friend’s head blown off by a sniper?”

  “Well, gee, why don’t we talk about it? Better yet, let’s all hold hands and sing

  ‘Kumbaya’.”

  “Now that is a good idea,” Daphne said. “Come on. Everybody hold hands.”

  Gage narrowed his eyes at her. “You’ve got to be joking.”

  “But it was your idea,” she said sweetly. “Relax. I’m not going to make you, but Ryder is right. You can’t cope with something by avoiding it.”

  Gage scowled at no one in particular.

  Daphne moved to the middle of the circle and held up her clipboard. “Okay, now as much as I want you to learn to talk to me, I realize it may be easier to talk to your peers. Therefore, I have a little buddy system I want to try out. I’ve assigned each of you a ‘backup buddy’, based on the one-on-one interviews we did last week. You’ll be working with this person on the group projects I have planned. I hope you’ll be able to lean on your buddy too. Kay, you’re with Carmen, and Kelly is partnered with Gage, and—”

  “Excuse me?” Kelly whispered on reflex. Not only was she forced to attend therapy she didn’t want anything to do with—therapy sessions with some girl from her school that she could barely stand—but now she was paired up with the delinquent.

  Could this get any worse?

  When Daphne turned to look at her with a curious expression on her face and asked, “Did you say something?” Kelly wanted to disappear.

  Kelly stared like an idiot, trying to come up with an answer that wouldn’t make her sound like a total loser. “I was just going to ask if there’s a soda machine nearby.

  I’m really thirsty.”

  “Of course,” Daphne said. “Just go down the hall and to the right. You can’t miss it.”

  “Thanks,” she mumbled, grabbing her purse and scurrying out the door.

  On her way out, she heard Daphne continue, “Ryder, you’re with Meagan. Now, I want you all to find a spot to talk with your buddy and work on getting to know each other.”

  When Kelly came back to the room with a Diet Pepsi, she glanced at him nervously as she returned to her seat. He looked over at her, rolled his eyes, and then stood up and moved to the empty chair that had been between them.

  “So tell me...” He stretched his legs out and laced his fingers behind his head.

  “How worried could your parents possibly be? You look like you just stepped out of an issue of Parenting. ”

  “And you’ve read a lot of issues of Parenting?” Kelly asked with a small grin, knowing he couldn’t possibly be the type to sit and read much of anything, let alone parenting magazines.

  He laughed. “I’m serious though. Aren’t they overreacting, sending you here?”

  She shrugged. “It’s a long story.”

  “So start with the last straw—you know...that one event that finally landed you in freaking sharing-and-caring land.”

  “My parents are really conservative.”

  He looked at her expectantly, so she continued.

  “Around the last week of school, I was caught…” She paused, glancing down at her shoes for a second. “I was caught hooking up with this guy in the janitor’s closet.

  My parents hit the ceiling. I humiliated them beyond repair. ”

  Gage raised an eyebrow. “A boyfriend?”

  “Huh?” Kelly asked, lost in the angry emotions that always came with thinking about her parents. She was so distracted with bitter thoughts that she’d barely heard her backup buddy at all.

  “The guy.” Gage leaned forward. “Was he a boyfriend? ‘Cuz I figure, if he was a boyfriend, your parents would be embarrassed, but hey, couples make out, so really, what’s the shame? But if he wasn’t dating you, they’d be—how’d you say it? Humiliated beyond repair.”

  Is he mocking me? She couldn’t tell. Her cheeks flushing, she wanted to change the subject, but she found herself muttering, “No...he wasn’t a boyfriend.”

  “Well, now I’m interested.” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “You seem like such a good girl, so what are you doing ‘hooking up’, as you so delicately put it, with someone you’re not dating?”

  Who does this guy think he is? she thought as a small fire of indignation spread through her. “I don’t have to answer that,” she snapped, shooting him a glare.

  His gray eyes lit up as he chuckled. “Whoa! Calm down, Mr. Hyde.”

  She leaned forward to mock Gage. “What about you? Why are you so angry?”

  He laughed. “I’m not.”

  “Please.” She rolled her eyes. “You’re practical
ly on fire. Nobody can get too close because they might get burned.”

  “Maybe I want it that way.”

  “I bet you do.”

  He eyed her, but she ignored him, relaxed against the chair, and closed her eyes.

  The room smelled like clay and pastels, like the art classes she had loved in elementary school. The sound of the rain and the hushed voices of the others were somehow soothing.

  “What’s with these windows? You’d think therapy would be more private.”

  She jumped at the sound of his voice, then sat up straight and folded her hands neatly on her lap. “You can’t see in,” she said. “They’re just for light.”

  “How do you know?”

  She shrugged. “We have windows like that at my mom’s store.”

  He nodded.

  “So can I ask you something?” she said after yet another awkward moment of silence.

  “You just did.” When she stumbled on her words, he laughed. “Go ahead.”

  “Why are you on probation?”

  He shifted in his seat and cleared his throat with a loud cough that made people stare. “Well, given the alternative...”

  “Huh?”

  “So I don’t go to jail.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “I said you could ask. I didn’t say I’d answer.”

  “Well, if you ask me, I think you’re just scared.”

  “Then it’s a good thing I didn’t ask you.”

  Kelly shut up, folding her hands neatly in her lap again, and neither of them spoke for the rest of the session.

  ≈≈≈

  Still chewing rapidly on her gum, Meagan glanced over at Ryder and leaned forward. “Was it scary?”

  He glanced at her with a raised eyebrow.

  “The shooting,” she explained, as if he didn’t know what she was asking about.

  “Well, I wouldn’t want it to happen again.”

  Meagan laughed a little, but she felt like it sounded forced and awkward—like laughing just wasn’t appropriate in a support group, especially when talking about a school shooting. “No, I guess you wouldn’t.”

  “Was it scary?” Ryder asked suddenly.

  “Huh?”

  “Whatever brought you here,” he said, still looking at her with those deep brown eyes. “Was it scary?” he repeated.