GETTING OVER YOU: a novel by: Read online

  GETTING OVER YOU

  a novel by:

  Jaxson Kidman

  Contents

  Foreword

  Getting Over You

  Prologue

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Epilogue

  Preview EVERY OTHER WEEKEND

  Hey darlin’

  About the Author

  Foreword

  From the heart and soul of worldwide bestselling author Jaxson Kidman comes the story of what happens years after a summer ‘thing’ occurred…

  “I know you,” she said.

  “And I know you,” I said right back.

  “You do?” she asked.

  “You’re the girl who painted.”

  “You’re the boy who played guitar,” she said.

  “Crosby,” I said, now offering my hand.

  “Josie,” she said.

  Written by Jaxson Kidman

  * * *

  Getting Over You

  Everything has changed, except the way he looks at me.

  He's the boy from that summer ten years ago.

  We're almost strangers.

  We're way more than friends.

  He still plays guitar.

  I still paint.

  He makes me laugh.

  I make him forget.

  He might just be my soulmate but,

  I'm not sure I can take that chance.

  Because maybe you can let your past go...

  But what if your past won't let you go?

  Prologue

  One Last… (part 1)

  THEN

  Crosby

  All I needed was one more line to finish the song, but my eyes refused to look away from the towel spread out next to me. There was a large, green dinosaur head with beady eyes staring at me, cruel eyes, jaws open, poised for an attack. Halfway down the neck there was a smear mark of yellow cheese, which almost looked like a wound.

  I laughed when I saw it.

  I stood up and wiped the dirt, grass, and sand off the back of my legs and my ass.

  My bare feet to the ground, taking in a relaxing day, fulfilling ten promises at once, I looked left to right and counted the people. For no reason other than giving my mind an excuse to shift gears for one second.

  At the muddy, claylike shore, I watched as he built a sandcastle. I told myself I was going to get him to a real beach soon. Not that he didn’t love the lake. It was serene, quiet, with the backdrop of tall mountains that were in some ways a little scary if you stared too long. How in the hell did this form the way it did? A flat piece of land, a body of water, and then rising up out of it all, a massive forest.

  I tapped my fingers to my legs, wondering if I could make a line out of it.

  Rising from the ground, treetops kiss the sky, a hidden wall, a shield of…

  “It all…,” I said and quickly shook my head.

  I heard the notes playing in my head. I saw my fingers on the keyboard. My fingers on the guitar. A basic drumbeat because the song didn’t need anything fancy. This was about the music and finding the right line.

  I ran a hand through my hair.

  My five minutes were up.

  I gave myself five minutes to think and then it was time to pay full attention to him. Juggling promise after promise kept me and my mind moving.

  I took two steps and paused and watched as he and two new friends shifted gears from a crooked sandcastle with a missing tower to digging a hole.

  That was the fun thing to do.

  Just dig.

  For hours.

  Because as a kid, it made sense to believe you could actually dig your way to China. Because why not? If the world was round, then digging made sense, right?

  He looked at me and smiled.

  That smile was his way of telling me he was good. He was happy with his new friends.

  So, I hung back and let him have fun.

  “So, she said to me, if you can’t handle the truth, then I’ll just give you lies.”

  I turned my head and saw two guys throwing a football back and forth.

  Talking about one of the guy’s relationship with his girlfriend.

  But that line stuck with me.

  If you can’t handle the truth, then I’ll just give you lies.

  It was a little wordy though.

  Maybe something like…

  If You can’t handle the truth, I’ll just give you lies.

  That was decent.

  I walked back to our stuff and dropped down to one knee. I tore open my bag to get my notebook of music, lyrics, and ideas. I hurried to jot down the line in many forms. Just to keep the rawness of the line and see if it could actually become part of the song.

  I clicked the pen shut and read the line over and over, nodding as I did so.

  I started to tap the pen to the notebook, playing the rhythm of the song.

  When I heard the first scream, I didn’t think anything of it. I was lost in the song. The music. Finding the perfect words to make this song work.

  Someone else shouted and that’s when I turned my head.

  My eyes went right to the middle of the lake.

  Then moved down to the shore.

  There were three kids… now only two…

  I threw my notebook to the ground and started to run.

  People shouted for help.

  I ran.

  Fast.

  Toward the water.

  I jumped into the water, telling myself this was impossible.

  This was fucking impossible.

  How did this happen?

  That question would haunt me as I swam… and haunt me for the rest of my life.

  I couldn’t get to him in time.

  Prologue

  One Last… (part 2)

  THEN

  Josie

  We had an agreement.

  I wouldn’t smoke, and he wouldn’t drink and drive.

  To me, the agreement was a little one-sided. I was giving up more than he was. He could still drink. He could still get sloppy drunk. He could even stumble his way home.

  But I could no longer smoke.

  The worst part about it?

  He had good reason to hate it and hate me for smoking.

  He lost his grandmother to lung cancer when he was seventeen.

  Yet his father was a raging alcoholic, but that was a whole other argument.

  I really didn’t mind the agreement so much. I figured it was my way of showing him how much I loved him. Which I did. I really did.

  Even if we fought over stupid crap, that’s just what couples did.

  It wasn’t supposed
to be perfect.

  We were figuring ourselves out. We were figuring each other out.

  That’s how it went.

  That’s how it worked.

  Now I was done with him.

  I sat in my car and wiped away another round of tears, really thinking about my life without him in it.

  It was for the better.

  It had to be for the better.

  He drank too much, and a woman kissed him.

  The defense he brought to the table was that, first off, he told me about it. And second, the woman kissed him. He swore to me he didn’t kiss her back.

  What he didn’t understand was that this was just another block stacked up on a tower that couldn’t hold for much longer. And in many ways, that block tower fell over. The pieces scattered on the floor, months, years, and memories left to be stepped on and reduced to ashes.

  When my forgiveness didn’t come fast enough, he accused me of pushing him away. I just stood there and let him say what he wanted before he finally stormed out the door. I chased after him, stayed on the porch, and told him that we needed to talk.

  His version of we need to talk was to go out and get wasted. Then find a way home and actually tell me the truth. So that meant I could expect him home around midnight or so, hear him scramble and slur on his words. Then my plan was to let him sleep on the couch and tomorrow morning… end it.

  For good.

  For real.

  I had no choice but to just be done.

  Which brought me to sitting in my car.

  I wiped away the tears for good (at least for now) and went into the convenience store to buy a pack of cigarettes.

  Fuck the agreement.

  Those three words hit me hard as I slammed the money on the counter.

  The man behind the counter raised an eyebrow. When he asked if I needed anything else, I grabbed a lighter and then the biggest candy bar I could find.

  Now I was done.

  I drove back home and put the candy bar and the cigarettes - and the lighter - on the kitchen table. I let the guilt get the best of me, so I set up my easel and decided to paint. Basically, I threw black paint at a white canvas.

  The splotches looked like nothing, but to me… it was hurt and anger.

  No, it wasn’t that at all.

  It was stupid.

  It was fucking black splotches on a fucking canvas.

  I snatched up the candy bar and the cigarettes off the table and went out back.

  I was going to smoke cigarettes until I was sick. Then take a shower and spray the heck out of myself with perfume, just to be safe. Then tomorrow, when I made sure he knew we were done for good, I was going to smoke the rest of the pack.

  Then officially quit for good.

  Because it would be on my terms.

  No agreement.

  I wanted to smoke, tonight.

  And tomorrow, I wanted to quit.

  To be honest, the chocolate tasted better than the cigarette did.

  I lit up a second cigarette and looked at the empty candy bar wrapper, wishing I’d bought a second one.

  I took the first drag off the second cigarette when I heard a knocking sound.

  I jumped and gasped, flicking the cigarette across the backyard, waving my hand as I exhaled a cloud of smoke.

  As I moved through the kitchen, I stopped at the sink and quickly washed my hands with dish soap and ripped open the junk drawer to find a piece of gum. I stuffed an old piece of gum into my mouth, needing the mint to hide the smoke.

  “Door’s open,” I called out as I walked to the living room.

  It was too early for him to come home, unless he was drinking hard. Which meant one of his dumbass friends would be bringing him home.

  The front door didn’t open though.

  Just another knock.

  When I opened the front door, I let out a gasp when I saw two police officers standing there. They each had their hands at the front of their bodies. A somber look on their faces.

  The officer on the left asked for my name.

  I gave it to him.

  The officer on the right then spoke words that changed my life forever.

  There’s been an accident…

  1

  With This Step…

  NOW

  Crosby

  I couldn’t breathe.

  My lungs burned and felt like they were collapsing.

  The pain from my legs moved up my body and settled into my chest.

  Sometimes it spread into my sides, ripping like a jagged, rusted end of a knife. Constantly cutting and twisting, but you’d never see blood.

  I looked at my wrist and growled as I pumped my arms and legs even more.

  Up ahead there was a stop sign that I needed to get to. There was no other choice. I only had ten seconds to get to the fucking stop sign. I had to touch it with my bare hands. It was the only way to make this all seem right.

  The seconds ticked away in my head.

  When I blinked, I saw water splashing up over my face.

  I saw the black dot out in the water.

  Then I saw the black dot disappear.

  I let out a painful scream in the predawn hour of the morning as my watch started to beep.

  I reached out with my right hand and missed the stop sign by a few feet.

  It took me another two seconds before I could touch it.

  When I did, I clung to it as though it were the last branch keeping me from falling two hundred feet into an alligator pit.

  I gasped and groaned, bent over, gritting my teeth.

  My body hurt. My chest was on fire.

  I had been up for almost two hours. I punished myself at the gym and was now finishing it off with a run.

  My hands shook as I stood up, still using the stop sign to keep myself from falling over.

  I put my head back, fighting away that sense of panic. That sense of my body thinking it was going to die. But it wasn’t going to die. I would regain my breathing. I would sweat like crazy for a little while. And then it would be all over.

  Headlights flickered from behind me.

  I turned my head and saw a car approaching.

  When it got to the stop sign, the passenger window rolled down.

  “Hey, buddy, are you okay?” a guy yelled out the window at me.

  I crouched and gave a wave. “Fine. Just out for a run.”

  “You sure? You need water? I have a couple of extra bottles.”

  “I’m good,” I said. “I’m good. Thank you.”

  “You got it.”

  The window went up and the car turned left.

  I lifted my gaze and looked across the street.

  Two houses down on the right was where I lived.

  A tucked away place you’d never find unless I told you where I lived.

  Which was the way I liked it. The way I needed it.

  A place where I could hide from being called a murderer.

  * * *

  I walked home, drank a bottle of water, and went upstairs to go back to sleep. Usually after a long workout, I could sleep without nightmares.

  So, I crashed to the bed, soaked with sweat, not giving a damn about it.

  I dreamt about nothing and woke to the sound of the doorbell ringing and pounding.

  I rolled out of the bed feeling hungover.

  Every part of my body ached in a way that was hard to actually describe. Because the ache came from my heart and it never went away. No matter how many miles I ran or how much I could bench press, the pain in my chest was there forever.

  The sight.

  The sounds.

  What I left behind.

  And all the words were right, true, and I deserved them all.

  I opened the front door and saw Jonny standing there with a guitar case slung over his back and a black bag in his left hand.

  He was holding a coffee in each hand.

  Ripped jeans, a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and black framed glasse
s. He grinned and handed me a coffee.

  “You look like shit,” he said.

  “Good morning to you,” I mumbled.

  “Brother, it’s one in the afternoon. Which is why I’m here. We have a writing session, remember?”

  “Oh, shit. I thought that was on Thursday.”

  “It is Thursday,” Jonny said.

  “Fuck,” I said. “Well, come in. Let’s get set up.”

  Jonny stepped into my house and paused. “Hey. You smell like shit.”

  “You should try working out once in a while yourself,” I said.

  He patted his stomach. “Chicks dig the Dad Bod look.”

  “No, they don’t,” I said.

  “Plus, you work out plenty for the both of us. I mean, shit, Cros, you’re fucking built like a wall.”

  “Are you here to write music with me or hit on me?” I asked.

  “Tell you what,” Jonny said, “I’ll get my shit set up and you go take a shower. We have to get some actual work done today. Jackie wants at least a demo song. We have to give him something before he pulls the plug and moves on.”

  “We’re fine.”

  “We’re not,” he said. “I’m patient…”

  “Then why are you worried?” I asked. “We’ll get something today.”

  “You always say that.”

  “And you keep showing up.”

  “Because it’s my fucking job. And if you don’t get your shit together, I’m not going to have that job.”

  “Tough break,” I said. “If you lose this job then how will you afford all those amazing flannels.”

  “You’re an asshole, Crosby.”

  “Again… you keep showing up. Thanks for the coffee.”

  I drank the coffee and walked to the bathroom.

  I had been writing music for as long as I could remember. My dream of being a famous musician started with me writing jingles for a little while, getting paid a lot of money to write something that would stick in people’s minds. I kept writing my own music on the side, but I hadn’t touched that in a long time. For good reason. Now I worked with Jonny and we wrote songs for anyone that needed one. Most calls came from Nashville or Los Angeles, and as long as we could come up with something decent enough to throw on an album as a filler, life was good. Every now and again, we’d come up with a decent enough hit song.