Excerpt!
“My dad is a lawyer,” I murmur.
Seth raises an eyebrow. “Is he one of the ones who gets the job done?”
“Yeah,” I say, and the word tastes like a bitter confession. My dad knew his job right from the start of the trial: keep my mom out of prison. The prosecuting attorneys had a clean-cut case against my mom, but my dad had twenty years of experience at twisting evidence, confusing juries, and making guilty people look innocent. He never actually spoke in court, since even the dumbest jury would have realized how biased he was. But he orchestrated her entire defense behind the scenes and had his business partner make the appearances in the courtroom.
It worked. My dad got his job done, my mom walked free, and I limped away with enough guilt to drown beneath for a lifetime.
Seth lets out a deep sigh, breaking the silence around us. He slips off his sunglasses and rubs his palm over his face, and as he draws his hand away, I’m able to see his eyes for the first time. They’re nothing like his brother’s. His eyes are an intense hazel color, gold in the center that branches out to a deep green. His gaze stares at nothing, and his right eye drifts slightly out of alignment with his left, but it’s nearly impossible to tell there’s anything wrong with them.
“Why do you wear sunglasses?” I ask. I bite my lip as soon as the question is out, realizing it’s probably rude. But I’m genuinely curious. I thought his eyes must have been disfigured if he hid them with glasses, so it’s kind of shocking to see how beautiful they are.
He smirks a little as he slips the dark glasses back on. “You’re really quite skeptical of my fashion sense, aren’t you?”
“Sorry,” I mutter.
“Don’t be,” he says with a shrug. “I don’t mind. And I wear them because the light makes my eyes hurt. For me, being blind doesn’t mean everything is totally black, although I wish it did sometimes. All I can see are changes in light, but it stings. So the glasses help with that.”
He leans back against the railing of the porch, and before I get a chance to respond, he waves a hand at me. “I’m answering all your questions, but you’re not answering mine,” he says. “Why do you act scared around me?”
I stare at the ground, tracing a mindless pattern in the snow with the tip of my cane. “You know how you said I remind you of someone?”
“Yeah. What about it?”
I risk a glance up at him. “You remind me of someone, too.”
Lea Holder watched a boy die in the same DUI accident that ruined Lea’s legs and threw her little sister into a coma. As the only eye-witness to the accident, if she tells the truth in court, the drunk driver will go to prison and the dead boy’s family will have justice.
But Lea lies.
If she had told the truth, Lea would have put her own mom in prison for causing the accident. With the trial over and her mom set free, Lea attempts to rebuild her shattered life as she waits for her little sister to wake from her coma.
When Lea transfers schools, she finds herself in the same senior class as Seth Ashbury, the brother of the boy her mom killed. As Lea gets to know the person buried underneath Seth’s grief, she quickly falls for his quick wit and passionate soul. But Seth remains completely oblivious that Lea is the same girl who robbed his family of justice.
As their relationship deepens, Lea finally gets a taste of the love that’s been missing from her life since the accident. But soon she’s faced with a choice: she can continue her lies and accept the comfort it gives them both. Or she can tell Seth the truth about everything, and risk destroying both her family and her newfound love.
But Lea lies.
If she had told the truth, Lea would have put her own mom in prison for causing the accident. With the trial over and her mom set free, Lea attempts to rebuild her shattered life as she waits for her little sister to wake from her coma.
When Lea transfers schools, she finds herself in the same senior class as Seth Ashbury, the brother of the boy her mom killed. As Lea gets to know the person buried underneath Seth’s grief, she quickly falls for his quick wit and passionate soul. But Seth remains completely oblivious that Lea is the same girl who robbed his family of justice.
As their relationship deepens, Lea finally gets a taste of the love that’s been missing from her life since the accident. But soon she’s faced with a choice: she can continue her lies and accept the comfort it gives them both. Or she can tell Seth the truth about everything, and risk destroying both her family and her newfound love.
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Author bio:
Olivia Rivers is a hybrid author of Young Adult fiction. Her works include the independently published novels “This is What Goodbye Looks Like” and “In the Hope of Memories,” along with the traditionally published novel “Tone Deaf” (Skyhorse 2016.) As a certified geek, she enjoys experimenting with new publishing technologies, and her online serials have received over 1,000,000 hits on Wattpad.com. When Olivia isn’t working as a writer, she’s a typical teen attending college in Northern California. Olivia is represented by Laurie McLean of Fuse Literary, and nothing thrills her more than hearing from readers.
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