Breaking Rules by Puckett Tracie

Author:Puckett, Tracie [Puckett, Tracie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tracie Puckett
Published: 2014-02-07T06:00:00+00:00

Ten

I should’ve never let Gabe walk out the door, but I couldn’t see that I had any other choice. With the mood Dad was in, he would never let him hang around, and even if he had, I knew better than to even entertain the idea. I couldn’t get any more distracted, and I wasn’t about to get any closer to Gabe, only to be ripped away.

Besides, even if Dad hadn’t made plans to uproot and move back to LA, I still let myself get carried away with thoughts that I should never have had in the first place. Yeah, Gabriel Raddick was the only reason I felt things I had never felt before. He was the reason I started questioning all the things that I never thought I would question. He was the reason I finally learned that maybe I had it in me to feel an emotion that was so much stronger than the hatred and resentment I’d carried around for so many years. He was the one who had me considering the possibility of breaking a rule—the rule!

But I couldn’t be that stupid.

I’d watched my parents split apart, the only two people I never imagined giving up. They loved each other once, and their relationship crashed and burned. But even after it had shattered, even after there was nothing left to save, they had an image to protect. Even that, though, the thing they cared most about protecting, couldn’t save them from the inevitable. And if my parents couldn’t make their relationship work to hold up appearances, then I wasn’t convinced there was hope for anyone.

Letting go of everything I’d learned from their marital demise, I still knew better than to fall into the trap. I’d read hundreds of novels, and I’d watched thousands of rom-com movies with my sister. While Bailey was dumb enough to fall for all of the mushy-gushy love nonsense, I knew better. I knew that those tingling, warm, fuzzy feelings that Gabe sparked inside of me were nothing but crazy, little jitters girls get when a cute guy pays them any kind of attention. It wasn’t love. It was just a buzz, and one that would fizzle out in due time.

Just a crush, Mandy, I reminded myself. A stupid crush that would go away the moment we packed up, boarded a plane, and landed in California. I may like Gabriel Raddick in the moment, and I had no choice but to admit the truth to myself (because come on, who was I trying to kid?), but so what? If there was one thing I learned from my mother, it was that it didn’t take more than a few seconds to just flip a switch on feelings. When it came time, I’d forget Gabe the same way my mother had forgotten about us. I could stop liking him whenever I wanted to.

“What’s gotcha down?” Jones asked, leaning on the counter at the Sugar High Bakery, where we’d both landed part-time jobs over the summer.

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