Almost Everything (Nickayla Quinn Trilogy Book 2) Read online




  Contents

  Almost Everything

  Copyright

  Blurb

  Note to the Reader

  Dedication

  ...

  One.

  Two.

  Three.

  Four.

  Five.

  Six.

  Seven.

  Eight.

  Nine.

  Ten.

  Eleven.

  Twelve.

  Thirteen.

  Fourteen.

  Fifteen.

  Sixteen.

  Seventeen.

  Eighteen.

  Nineteen.

  Twenty.

  Twenty One.

  Twenty Two.

  Twenty Three.

  Twenty Four.

  Twenty Five.

  Twenty Six.

  Twenty Seven.

  Twenty Eight.

  Twenty Nine.

  Thirty.

  Thirty One.

  Thirty Two.

  Thirty Three.

  Thirty Four.

  Thirty Five.

  Thirty Six.

  Thirty Seven.

  Acknowledgments

  Playlist

  About the Author

  Coming Soon...

  Almost Everything

  A Nickayla Quinn Novel

  Book 2

  Jasmine Carolina

  Copyright

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review or article, without written permission from the author. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.

  Anyone caught putting this book up for illegal downloading or pirating it will be immediately subjected to a notice to remove the book from their site or face a lawsuit.

  Support independent authors by respecting them and their hard work—please purchase only authorized editions.

  Almost Everything is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First Edition: November 2014

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Cover designed by Jasmine Carolina

  Almost Everything © 2014 Jasmine Carolina

  Blurb

  Nickayla Quinn has fought her demons and won…

  A year after she faced her issues head-on, Nic’s life couldn’t be better. She can’t remember a time when she was this happy. Settling in with her boyfriend, college acceptance letters, and her graduation from high school on the horizon, everything should be perfect. And it almost is.

  Colin Westwick’s demons are back to haunt him…

  After receiving startling news, everything the young couple thought they knew about love, family, hope, and trust has come to a staggering halt before falling apart piece by piece. With the loss of one of Colin’s loved ones comes the reappearance of one from his past, leaving Nickayla to fight twice as hard for the both of them.

  He kept his promise to save her, but can she keep the one she made to save him back?

  Note to the Reader

  This novel is the sequel to my debut novel, Losing Me. It is book two in my Nickayla Quinn Trilogy. If you have not read Losing Me, please locate it on Amazon.com, where it can be downloaded for free. This novel ends in a cliffhanger.

  If you loved Almost Everything, I’d love it if you left a review on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and/or Goodreads.

  Before proceeding, I’d like to leave a disclaimer that this is a YA/NA Contemporary Romance novel. While some subjects are more mature, there are no sex scenes. Any scenes that are remotely sexy are done through fade-to-black. This novel is primarily for teenagers, and in order to make this story realistic, the teenagers in this story curse. Beware of profanity.

  Please do not leave a negative review of this novel because you don’t like the way my characters talks.

  For the fans, wherever you are. You matter. You’re the ones who got me here.

  ...

  "The world I believe in is one where embracing your light doesn't mean ignoring your dark."

  - Kevin Breel

  One.

  Pulling into the gravel road behind the lake, I inhale deeply. I shut my car off, holding my hand up to shield my eyes from the sun. My breath catches as I walk toward the edge of the lake, kneeling there and sticking my hand in the cool water.

  Colin comes up behind me, his arms wrapping around my middle from behind, his lips in my hair as he whispers soothing words in my ear.

  So much has changed since this time last year. For starters, it isn’t raining.

  A year before, I’d come to this exact same lake in the hopes of drowning myself. As I look at my reflection in the clear water of the lake, my hair pulled back into a ponytail, an easy smile on my face and the boy I love by my side, I know that I would barely recognize the girl that I was a year before if I saw her before me.

  I turn to face my boyfriend, and his eyes regard me with caution. He knows precisely where we are and the significance that it holds for me. On this day, one year before, I’d attempted to end my life, and he’d saved me from myself.

  I’m not sure why, when my mom suggested that we—all my friends and family—get together for dinner, I volunteered that we do it at the lake house. I wasn’t sure if I wanted everyone to intrude on my private place, and I was definitely rethinking it when she’d decided to schedule that dinner on the anniversary of my last suicide attempt and the day I’d met Colin.

  The day is here, and there’s no turning back, even if I’m shaky and anxious at the thought of so many people being here.

  “You okay, pretty girl?” Colin asks, taking my chin between his thumb and forefinger, forcing me to meet his cool, green gaze.

  I nod.

  I’ve lost count of the amount of times he’s asked me that question that day alone, but I’m not annoyed by it. I know that he’s just looking out for me, and giving me the opportunity to back out of the dinner and make the night a private one between the two of us.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” I say. “I’m just...reminiscing.”

  I get to my feet, taking his hand and leading him toward the lake house. He pulls me backward, and I bump into his chest, giggling as he wraps his arms around me and dips me low.

  “Whatever happens, Nickayla, today is the start of the rest of our lives,” Colin says smoothly, kissing me on the lips. “So be here with me. We can reminisce later.”

  I smile, giving him a nod as he restores me right side up. We walk toward the open door,

  “Mom! Daddy!” I exclaim, twelve envelopes weighing my purse down. “We’re here!”

  Colin trails behind me, a nervous grin etched upon his face.

  The door’s wide open, which I assume is because people are still arriving. My best friend Michele’s car is parked out front, right beside my parents’, my brother’s girlfriend Sarah’s mom’s car is on the street, and my older brother Nathan’s SUV is behind my dad’s pickup. Everyone’s gathered around for such a special day.

  “You ready?” Colin asks, wrapping his arm lightly around my waist.

  I nod, stepping over the threshold of the house and closing the door behind me. Once I’m inside, I’m ambushed by hugs and cries of congratulations, even though nothing’s happened yet.

  Michele’s sisters, Cecilia and Alyson wrap me in a hug simultaneously, shaking hands with Colin and giving me their nods
of approval. My three nieces, Emerson, Kenzie, and Callie all vie for my attention, while Michele tries to avoid eye contact with my best friend and her ex-boyfriend, Brody.

  “Hey, Mich,” I say, hugging her. “How’s the boy?”

  Her face lights up like a Christmas tree at my question.

  The previous summer, she’d taken a trip with Colin and me to his hometown of Big Springs, North Carolina with a broken heart and the hope for a new start. She got a little more than she’d bargained for when Brody, the cause of her broken heart, showed up just as she was getting to know someone new. By the end of the summer, she had two boys who wanted to be with her, and one very difficult choice to make.

  “The boy is great—and even hotter than last summer. He still hasn’t gotten rid of his beard from No Shave November, and you know how I feel about scruff,” Michele gushes, showing me a picture of her boyfriend, Hayden, smiling for the camera with his now four-year-old daughter, Skylar.

  I catch Brody’s eye for only a second before some unknown emotion flashes across his face. He still gives me a smile, and I wave to him as I tell Michele to pass a “hello” on to Hayden for me.

  My twin brother Nikkolas is sitting at the kitchen table with his girlfriend Sarah, chopping up pickles, olives, and hardboiled eggs for my mom’s potato salad.

  “Hey, Nikky,” I say, squeezing my brother’s shoulder.

  I haven’t seen much of him since I’d moved in with Colin back in September, so any time that I get to see him is time that I cherish.

  “Hey, Kales,” he says, smiling up at me.

  I pluck a spear of a dill pickle from the pile of vegetables that he’s cutting, sticking it in my mouth and taking a bite. “Where’s Daddy?” I ask.

  “He’s outside at the grill,” Sarah replies. “He’s been going crazy waiting for you, but the food’s almost done so you may as well stay inside.”

  I nod, taking a seat at the kitchen table.

  The lake house is the spot where many important things happened. It’s owned by my Nonna, and my friends and I’ve spent the summers of our childhoods at the lake house. It’s where Michele had had her first kiss, where Brody got over his irrational fear of swimming, where Nikkolas asked Sarah to be his girlfriend, and, most recently, where Colin and I had had our very first argument as a couple, over six months ago.

  “I can’t believe you suggested we do this here!” Michele exclaims, plopping down in a seat next to me. “I wish Hayden was here so that he could see it. Seriously, I hate that I can’t share this with him.”

  I can’t pretend that I understand what she means, but I nod in agreement anyway. She and Hayden have been in a long distance relationship since we left Big Springs, and she’s counting the days until we graduate from high school so that she can go back and be with him.

  “Yeah, well, we can always put him on Skype,” I suggest. “Come on, cough ‘em up. I’ve got mine and Colin’s in my purse.”

  Nikkolas reaches into his backpack, pulling out seven envelopes, both his and Sarah’s, and Michele empties her purse of four envelopes. Brody only has two in his back pocket, but his letters join everyone else’s as I dump my envelopes and Colin’s into the center of the table.

  Colin comes up behind me, his hands on my shoulders as he takes a picture of our pile of letters and uploads it to Instagram. I hear a ding come from my cell phone, and I pull it out, reading the notification.

  @CDaniel12 tagged you in a comment: College response letter opening dinner with the love of my life and some of my fave people in the world. #collegebound #seniors #excited #LakeHouseMemories @NicAlicia @MichtheBitch @BDurham @EmmysMommy08 @NikQuinn08.

  I grin up at my boyfriend, the reality of what’s about to happen finally hitting me.

  Colin and I applied to all of the same colleges, and when the letters started pouring in like the day Harry Potter got his letters from Hogwarts, we decided that we wanted to share the decision about our futures with the people that we loved.

  “Real cheesy, Westwick,” Michele says, her eyes lighting up as she checks her notifications as well. “It just sucks that none of us will be here next year when Aly, Suze, Nomi, and Cason get their letters. We’ll be off doing our own things while our younger siblings are doing the very thing that we’re doing right now. It’s surreal, isn’t it?”

  I nod, feeling sullen after her comment.

  My younger sister, Naomi, has been so torn up about the prospect of all of us going off to college and leaving her behind—she’s only a year younger than us and we all grew up together—that she decided to skip the dinner completely and wait for our news to be announced via social media. She’s my only sister, and up until I moved out with Colin, we were incredibly close. I hate that she’s feeling sad, but I hate even more that I won’t be able to be there when she decides what college she’s going to attend for her higher education.

  “Eerie is more like it,” Colin says, running his thumb along his chin as he stares off into space. “My brother is four years older than me, so I never knew what it was like to be torn up about him going away, but with Susanna…we’re practically best friends. It’s weird talking about this because in a blink of an eye this will be our reality.”

  I know exactly what he means. None of my friends have truly accepted the fact that we’re all going to be out in the real world once high school is over. Besides Brody, the only people outside Colin and I—we’d been on our own and fending for ourselves for six months—that understand what the real world is like are Nikkolas and Sarah, who had their daughter Emerson in our freshman year. Sure, Michele was likely going off to North Carolina to be with her boyfriend who had a daughter—boom, instant family—but that’s nothing like what the rest of us have to deal with.

  Brody has been taking care of his younger siblings, Cason and Dalis—who were out in at the dock of the lake—since he was ten years old when their mother died and their dad took to drinking, so he’s likely the most adult one of all my friends.

  “Okay, that’s enough!” Brody says, laughing. “In six months, we’ll all walk the stage and we’ll likely say goodbye to each other for a while. But that’s six months from now. Sure, we have history—” he looks directly at Michele when he says the word history, “but that doesn’t mean that we can’t enjoy what little time we have left together.” He turns to Michele, and she blushes as his eyes turn on her. “Mich, what’s that quote you love from that old CW show, One Tree Hill? The one about music?”

  She grins, finally looking up from her cell phone and clearing her throat.

  She takes his hand, then takes mine as I flank her other side. “’Every song ends, but is that any reason not to enjoy the music?’” she quotes fearlessly. She squeezes my hand with tears glistening in her eyes. “As much as it pains me to say this, Brody’s right. We should enjoy our time together while we’ve still got time together.”

  Brody chuckles loudly, his eyes brightening.

  “Was that really so hard to say?” he inquires.

  “Excruciating,” Michele retorts.

  I can’t help but admire their banter and how far they’ve come as friends again since last summer. They could finally be in the same room together without there being tension, and they even talk every now and then.

  Colin walks over to the refrigerator, pulling out a can of Sun Drop for himself.

  “Baby, do you want something to drink?” he asks me.

  “A Coke would be wonderful; thanks,” I reply.

  As Colin gets me something to drink, I grin at my best friend, surprised that he’s able to handle being here with Michele. Ever since we returned from Big Springs, Brody’s been hanging around Colin and me more than usual. If Michie isn’t with us, whining about how much she misses Hayden, Brody’s with us, whining about how much he misses Michie.

  Brody’s my best friend, and I love him, but I hate that he’s hurting. He’s been trying to move past all that happened over the summer, and so far, he’s been doing horribly.
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br />   “Hey, babe, why don’t you get out your laptop so we can get Hayden on Skype,” I suggest, turning to Colin as he hands me my drink. “This is a huge moment.”

  “Sure.” He’s out of the room and headed to the living room within seconds.

  I can’t believe how far we’ve come. Just last year, the prospect of a future—any future at all—was beyond me. And now, not only can I picture a future, but I can picture one with Colin and one with all the people that I love. It’s a sobering thought that within a matter of months, we’ll all be living different lives.

  “Oh, did I tell you, Nikky, I got a job at that new restaurant across the street from the Galleria?” I ask my brother, sitting forward.

  My twin brother’s eyes shoot up in surprise, and Sarah squeals in delight. “Oh, that fancy shmancy dig with the French name?” Nikkolas replies. “When did you even apply there?”

  I’ve wanted to work ever since I moved in with Colin. He continues to insist that his job at Little Sicily is all we need to get by, especially since we aren’t paying rent or any bills besides cable, but I keep insisting that I need to pull my own weight around the household. I can’t stand the idea of letting him take care of me—I’m perfectly capable of taking half the burden off of him.

  “Yeah, it’s called Le Chateau D’If. I applied like two weeks ago and the owner called me back for an interview the following day. I just found out yesterday that I’ve got the job. I start on Monday.” I’m beyond excited to share the news with my family and friends. Outside of the internship back in Big Springs, the job at Le Chateau D’If is the first job that I’ve gotten on my own. “It’s a real upscale place. There’s a bar attached and there’s live music, too! You know that local band, Silence of Sound? They’re the regular entertainment there. I’m pretty excited though, because I get to invite you guys to the grand opening.”

  Just as I finish my sentence, Colin strolls back into the kitchen, laughing loudly at something, laptop in hand. He sets his laptop up on the counter, pushing the screen back so that all of us can see what’s on it.