Page 122 of Bred

ALWAYS YOU

LAURA LOVETT

PROLOGUE

BRINLEY

Mysisterpoundsonthe bathroom door as I hug the toilet bowl, trying like hell to keep from getting my dress nasty as I retch into the toilet.

“Brinley, what the hell? Let me in. Are you okay?”

I hear her worried voice on the other side of the door, but I can’t deal with that right now. Trembling in the aftermath of getting sick, I sink back into the fluffy tulle puff of my prom dress and reach for a hand towel to wipe my mouth with.

It’s just a bug.

Just a bug that won’t go away, that has made me sick every morning, noon, and evening for the past week and a half. A bug that makes it impossible to sleep at night, that makes my breasts too tender to touch.

Just a bug, that’s all.

Yeah, right.

I’ve given up on that explanation, but I haven’t taken a test yet.

What will Lucas think?

I know a baby isnotin his plans—not anytime soon, at least.

He loves me, though. We’re going to spend our whole lives together. I think it will be okay.

I was going to ask him to take me to the store for a test tonight after prom so we could find out together…

But prom started an hour ago and he still isn’t here to pick me up.

He usually does things on his own schedule, but he has never been this late before. It’s getting harder and harder to avoid the pitying looks of my mom—who has never liked him—and my sister who has always been worried about me dating an older guy.

I guess that’s not entirely fair. It’s not just that he’s older, but the stuff he gets into.

Illegalstuff.

He has had a hard life, though. They don’t understand. He started down that sketchy path because he had to. It was the only way to help out his family. Once you start down a path like that, it’s hard to just stop.

But he will. He’s promised he will. We’ve got plans after I graduate high school. He’s saving up all the money he can and we’re going to get out of this town. We’re gonna—

Bristol bangs on the door again.

Sighing, I gather up my poofy dress and crawl over to open the bathroom door.

I love my sister, but my gut fills with dread at the concern splashed across her face as she enters the bathroom.

I must look terrible. “Is it bad?” I ask, grabbing the ledge of the counter so I can pull myself up. Once my dress is smoothed down, I look in the mirror. The eye makeup I applied so carefully is a smudged mess. My perfect cat eye is still intact thanks to waterproof eyeliner, but dark rivers of washed away eyeshadow and pencil liner surround my green eyes and make me look like a sad raccoon.

“Not my best look,” I state.

My sensible sister doesn’tsaythat it hardly matters since it appears Lucas isn’t picking me up, anyway, but she’s probably thinking it.

I know he wasn’texcitedabout going to my senior prom. He didn’t even go to his when he was in high school. According to the stories he told me that made me die of jealousy, he was making a run to Florida and spent prom night with a couple blondes in a cheap hotel room.

I’m not jealous at all.