Life begins with you, p.1
Life Begins With You, page 1
Life Begins With You
A lesbian Romance Novel
By: Erica Lee
Copyright © 2017 By Erica Lee
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my best friend Alyssa. Thank you for all the love and support you have given me through the years. You believed in me when I didn't believe in myself. Also, thanks for being the inspiration for the character of Melissa.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Rebecca
Chapter 2: Cassie
Chapter 3: Rebecca
Chapter 4: Cassie
Chapter 5: Rebecca
Chapter 6: Cassie
Chapter 7: Rebecca
Chapter 8: Cassie
Chapter 9: Rebecca
Chapter 10: Cassie
Chapter 11: Rebecca
Chapter 12: Cassie
Chapter 13: Rebecca
Chapter 14: Cassie
Chapter 15: Rebecca
Chapter 16: Cassie
Chapter 17: Rebecca
Chapter 18: Cassie
Chapter 19: Rebecca
Chapter 20: Cassie
Chapter 21: Rebecca
Chapter 22: Cassie
Chapter 23: Rebecca
Chapter 24: Cassie
Chapter 25: Rebecca
Chapter 26: Cassie
Chapter 27: 5 Years Later
Chapter 1: Rebecca
25 years old. I stared at the MySpace page I had in middle school and high school and shook my head as I read the predictions for my life. By age 24, I was going to be living in a big city and married to a hot man with whom I had two kids and a dog. As I sat in my childhood bedroom that still had those dumb plastic glow in the dark stars on the ceiling, I wondered where I went wrong. Obviously, I had long since dealt with the fact that I wouldn't have a man in my life at this point. That became clear when I started to come to terms with my sexuality halfway through high school. By my senior year, I had come out to my family and a few friends. I waited until I had headed off to school in the city to come out to everyone else. Yes, I did the stereotypical Facebook status - it's the easiest way to hit every single person at once, including those you care about and those you don't.
Almost everyone in my life was super supportive. My mom had the hardest time accepting it. She just didn't see it coming. I guess my long brown hair that I always styled into loose curls and my preppy wardrobe had thrown her off. But underneath those curls and tight hollister t-shirts was the girl who would much rather kick a soccer ball than worry about impressing a guy. Looking back, she should have seen it coming. But looking back, I should have realized it much sooner too. She eventually came around to the idea and at this point, she just wanted me to find someone who made me happy.
But anyway, back to age 25. Instead of living in a city, I had ended up back at my parent’s house in our small town in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania. That wasn't my plan, but when my mom called to tell me that there was a 2nd grade teaching position open and the superintendent mentioned that it was mine if I wanted it, I knew I couldn't turn it down. I guess that was a benefit of living in a small town - everyone remembered me as the well mannered high school student, so it was easy to get an in. I know I should feel lucky. I have some friends who still haven't been able to find a teaching job and I was about to start my 4th year teaching second grade. In this way, I was lucky. I wasn't sure how I would ever be lucky in love though. Within a 30 mile radius, there were about 3 “out and proud” lesbians. I was one of them and the other two were married to each other, which was too bad since they were both smoking hot. Kaitlyn and Cindy Charming - they were originally from Minnesota, but had come to Pennsylvania for college and decided to settle down in this area after graduation. Cindy runs their local newspaper and also recently published a New York Times best seller. Kaitlyn is a high school biology teacher. Yes, I know everything about the two random lesbians who live about 30 miles from me and I met in passing once. That's what happens when you're a lonely lesbian stuck in a small town. Oh well, I guess I should just stick to putting all my focus on teaching.
I flipped from my MySpace page onto the school district website. At the beginning of August came the biggest day of summer for teachers - the revealing of the class list. I refreshed the website and was happy to see that it had been updated. I scrolled down on the page until I found my name, “Miss Rebecca Thomas.” I scanned for names of children of my former classmates, then reluctantly opened my email. I knew what was coming next. It was the dreaded “kids to look out for” list. This was when the 1st grade teachers emailed all of us second grade teachers to tell us who the troublemakers were. I hated that we were already putting labels on these kids at such a young age. They had barely started reading, writing, and arithmetic and we were already labeling them as slow, lazy, or down right impossible. I guess I shouldn't say we. Much to the dismay of the third grade teachers, I refused to partake in this. I always sent an email talking about the success the children had the previous year and any big gains they made. I never understood the point of having a preconceived idea of what my students would be like. If anything, I used the list in the opposite way of most teachers. I made sure I was extra aware of how these kids were doing in my class and put in a little extra effort to help them succeed. Don't get me wrong; I wanted to help everyone. I was known for staying after school whenever I could to provide kids with extra help. I’m not claiming to be some saint. Truth is, I really don't have anything else to do. I don't have any close friends in my home town. I'm cordial with the other teachers during school and hit up a happy hour with them every so often, but people in my town are too caught up in the small town gossip. I guess going to college in the city helped me to realize there's much bigger news in the world than who is dating who and who got wasted at the bar this past weekend. I spent most of my time working, hanging out with my parents, or skyping with my best friend, Melissa, who was currently living out all my MySpace dreams by living in Philadelphia with her boyfriend and their dog. My mom even recently suggested that I try online dating, only further proving how pathetic my life had become.
As I finished reading the names of the “troublemakers” in my class, I got a notification that a new email had come through. This was from Anna Timbers, one of the first grade teachers at our school and had the subject “You've got your work cut out for you.” I winced just seeing that sentence - not because I was truly worried about having my “work cut out” for me, but because I didn't even feel like reading whatever she had to say in this email. Anna was nice enough and from what I hear, she had done a great job during her first year teaching, but she wasn't the type of person I would go grab a drink with on a Friday night. Sure, I enjoyed eating lunch with her and discussing the latest celebrity gossip, but she also seemed to sort of enjoy other people’s pain. I grew increasingly annoyed as I read the words she wrote.
Hey there chick! Did you get a chance to read over your list of new little troublemakers? Yours always seems to be the longest, but I guess that's what you get for being the school saint with your “let's save every single child” attitude. But anyway, I have a big one for you to look out for. Her name is Katie Miller. Don't be thrown off by the fact that she will probably be the cutest child in your class. Her and her family are a flat out nightmare. She's actually pretty quiet, but trying to get her to do any work is a disaster. I think she only handed in a handful of homework assignments the whole year and test days were awful. She just sits and stares at her paper and you have to push her to even answer anything. The worst part is that she actually ends up doing pretty well, which just points to it being laziness. I'm not going to lie to you. With her lack of homework and participation, she shouldn't have passed my class, but some kids just need to be passed on.
She's not the worst part though. Her mother and father are barely involved. She was always late turning in permission slips and even had to miss one or two activities because they just never handed it in. I only met her mother once and she was a complete mess. Nope, you won't deal with her parents much, but I'll tell you who you will deal with - her awful older sister. You probably know her actually. She was in my grade. Her name is Cassie Hill. She was always getting in trouble in high school for fighting and stealing. Rumor has it she's even sold drugs. She’ll probably come to your classroom multiple times asking for ways to help her sister, but she never follows through. She normally would end up just getting huffy with me and storming out of the room. Even at 23, she's apparently still getting in fights as she had multiple bruises and black eyes the times I dealt with her.
Sorry. I know I sound terrible right now, but this family made my otherwise happy first year be filled with multiple headaches. It is a shame. She's a little cutie and actually had her sweet moments. She even seems to be pretty bright when she applies herself. But she's destined to be messed up. I know you don't believe in that, but just look at her family. The chances of her turning out ok are very slim unfortunately. Just be careful dedicating too much of your time to her.
By the way, have you looked up the guys who are going to be on the newest season of the bachelorette? There are some grade A hotties, but t
I shook my head. I found it amazing how Anna could say all of that and then end her email nonchalantly talking about the bachelorette. She pretty much just stamped “doomed” on this little girl’s forehead and then went right back to the trash we like to watch on tv. There were so many things that struck me about her email. First off, I was of course going to do anything to prove her wrong and help this little girl be successful. Secondly, I didn't understand how Anna wasn't feeling sincere sadness for this girl. She was right about her chances of succeeding being small. Unfortunately, that's how life goes. It's hard to grow out of the expectations people put on you, especially if they are really low. But it's still sad and worth a shot.
The part that really got to me though was finding out who Katie's sister is. Of course I knew Cassie Hill. Her and I had been best friends at one point. I still remember the day we met. I was in third grade and she was in first, but our school was so small that we all had recess together. One day at recess, a fifth grade boy started making fun of me for my glasses, calling me four eyes and geek. I had been sitting on the swings by myself so I just put my head down and tried to ignore it. Out of nowhere, little first grade Cassie walked up to him and punched him right in his manhood. As he fell to the ground wimpering, she held out her hand to me and said, “Hi I'm Cassie and I think we should be friends.”
Over the next two years, we were inseparable. Cassie spent many days swimming in my family’s pool and many nights sleeping over telling each other ghost stories. When I started middle school in 6th grade, we both made our own group of friends. I hung out with the preppy crowd while Cassie tended to hang out with the kids who had their recess privileges taken away for acting out in class. Even throughout this time, we still talked on the phone for hours and had sleepovers every once and awhile.
I remember that this was around the time my parents started to worry about our friendship. I was never too aware of how different Cassie's life was from mine until I noticed my parents whispering things about her not having a father and living in low income housing. I would also catch them saying words like “trouble” and “wrong crowd” whenever they had a conversation about Cassie. I remember one day when I was in 8th grade, my parents sat me down to talk to me about Cassie. They told me that they really did love her, but wanted me to be careful hanging around “someone like that.” They told me that no matter how hard we might try to help them, kids like that tend to find themselves in trouble and that I should just be careful. Don't take this the wrong way. My parents aren't terrible, judgmental people. I know they meant it when they told me how much they cared about Cassie. They bought her Christmas and birthday presents every year and even invited her to come on all of our family vacations. I know they were doing that just for Cassie because my older brother would always get mad that he couldn't take friends along. They also never actually told me that I shouldn't be friends with her. They just said that they would rather if she came to our house to hang out and that I should only spend time with her and not with the group of kids she hung out with aside from me. I thought it was weird they mentioned her coming to our house. I had never even been to Cassie’s house and had met her mom only a handful of times. But something about this conversation with my parents made me change the way I looked at Cassie. Suddenly I realized just how different our two groups of friends were and even how different the two of us were. It never occurred to me because I saw Cassie as the friend who protected me at recess and who continued to do that through middle school. She was the person I could call when people were being mean or school had gotten hard and she always had a way of making me feel better. But now I started to realize other things, like the fact that her and her friends liked to skip school and shoplift. She always told me how she felt bad afterwards, but she continued to do it anyway. She informed me that there was no way that I could understand. By the time I started high school, I convinced myself that we were just too different to be friends and slowly pulled away from her. Soon the phone calls stopped and the sleepovers were no longer even a thought. When Cassie got into high school when I was in 11th grade, we were like strangers passing in the hall. I would smile and say hi and she would normally nod at me with a grim look on her face.
I didn't think about it much through high school or college. I passed it off as just a friendship that drifted apart. But once I started teaching, it became more clear to me what I had done. I think that's why I am now so big on helping kids. I gave up on Cassie and often wondered if her life would be any different if I hadn't. I knew she had been in a lot of trouble in high school, but I never stepped in to help. By college, I had lost track of what she was doing completely. Until now, I didn't even know where she was living. But I hadn't stopped thinking about her. It made me a little sad to hear that she was still getting herself into trouble and even more sad to realize that she had a sister that I didn't even know about.
But now I'm just getting carried away in my thoughts. All I could do now was try my best to help her sister succeed. I did wonder if Cassie ever thought of me though and if our friendship had as big of an impact on her as it did on me.
Chapter 2: Cassie
“Shit,” I cursed as I looked at the class list for my sister online. I then proceeded to clench my fist and punch the keyboard of our old desktop computer that my mother had bought at a yard sale back in the early 2000’s when everyone else was switching to laptops. I was partly mad because I had just cursed when I had sworn to myself that I was going to stop. After hearing my little sister shout a profanity at her homework one night, I knew I had to try to get my mouth under control. But the main source of my anger was coming from the teacher she was given. I had gone to the school multiple times to request that Katie did not get Rebecca as her teacher and what did they do? Of course they gave her Rebecca. Everyone seemed shocked that I wouldn't want her. They told me that she's the “most requested 2nd grade teacher in the district,” but I didn't care what they said. I personally think she's an ignorant little goody two shoes. But no one cares what I think. I'm still just the same old troublemaker from high school to all of them. And it looks like they are right. I still don't have my sh...errr...I mean crap together.
So here we are. I was going to have to spend all year playing nice with Miss Rebecca Thomas. Believe it or not, there was a time when the two of us had been pretty close. But that was two stupid kids just kidding themselves. We had nothing in common. Thank God we ended up drifting apart before I got sucked into her annoying Hollister wearing prep clique. Although, I will point out that she always did look banging in those tight t-shirts. It might seem weird to spend high school admiring how hot your ex best friend is, but not when the whole friendship was a scam. And that's all she was to me anyway - a nice body, just like a bunch of other guys and girls at my school. I could appreciate every human form, but put feelings toward those people? No; that wasn't in my DNA. Although I must say, I was tempted to message her when I signed onto my facebook after many years of avoiding it and saw her coming out status. But what the hell was I supposed to say? Hey we used to practically be like family, but now you look downright bangable. Want to meet up for a good time? No, little miss perfect would never go for that. You'd be surprised how many girls do though. Guys going for that sort of line never surprised me. They are hornballs and would be happy to get with anyone, even the rough looking janitor from the children and youth center (yep, that's me). It always shocked me when girls gave into my not-so-subtle advances though. But I guess that's what happens when you live in rural Pennsylvania with a bunch of closeted, sexually deprived lesbians.
I need to stop letting my mind drift though. I had to figure out how in the hell I was going to get through this year. I guess if I could make it through last year, I could get through this year as well. Katie’s first grade teacher was Anna Timbers and she was awful. She was actually in my class all throughout school, but unlike Rebecca, we were never friends. She's a grade A bit...I mean.. she's just terrible. Anytime I tried to talk to her about my sister, she turned her nose up at me. Sure, I wasn’t the most cordial to her either, but wasn't it her job to act professional? Plus, she didn't help my sister at all. She did absolutely nothing for her. Even if it drives me mad dealing with someone like Rebecca, if she puts even a little bit more effort into helping my sister succeed I guess this year will go better than the last. I guess all there is to do is wait and see.
