All I Have Left Read online

  A novel by Shey Stahl

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

  The opinions expressed in this book are solely those of the author.

  All I Have Left

  Copyright © 2014 by Shey Stahl

  ISBN-13: 978-1500182335

  ISBN-10: 1500182338

  Published in the United States of America

  EBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared, or given away. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is a crime punishable by law. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded to or downloaded from file sharing sites, or distributed in any other way via the internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement including infringement without monetary gain is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to five years in federal prison and a fine of $250.000.

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the author.

  Cover Art: Allusion Graphics, LLC/Book Formatting & Publishing and Elaine York

  www.allusiongraphics.com

  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Allusion-Graphics-LLCPublishing-Book-Formatting/165028483514574

  Interior Design and Formatting/Proofing:

  Elaine York, Allusion Graphics, LLC

  Warning

  This book is not suitable for anyone under the age of eighteen. It contains graphic sexual encounters, both consensual and non-consensual. Please be warned there is rape and abuse in this book. Some scenes in this book contain difficult subject matter and be hard to read.

  If you or someone you know has been a victim of rape, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1.800.656.HOPE

  For Elaine.

  I owe you so much, I’ll start with a dedication and soon that Slurpee and a bag of Funyuns.

  The Boy, thank you for never letting go of my dreams for me.

  Honey Girl, love you baby girl. Sparkly blue green eyes tell me every day how much you love me. I hope that you see how much I love you and need that little giggle every morning.

  My parents, thank you for believing in me. Mommy, sometimes you just need your mom. Thank you for holding me while I cried. Thank you for being the first one to ever read this story two years ago. It’s because of your push that I decided to publish it.

  Sister, I love you. Sisters are forever and even though we go weeks without talking sometimes, you’re always there when I need you.

  Shanna, I can’t do any of this without you!

  Janet, I love you. But if you show me one more gator picture I’m not sure if I will ever come see you. Stop that. Those funny pics you send make it worth it.

  Elaine, we’ve become too close. Whenever I look through our messages I sometimes wonder if there’s anything we don’t talk about. I will never forget the McDonalds bomber. Seriously though, I can’t thank you enough for all this. Your support means the world to me. There’s nothing, no words I could say right now that would even come close to telling you how much I appreciate everything you’ve done.

  The Gearheads and Shey’s Shit Show, you keep me going. I love that I can pop in anytime and you girls are there when I need you.

  Thank you to the hundreds of emails I got begging me to continue writing and the authors who gave me the push to go on when I didn’t think I could anymore. I appreciate it more than you’ll ever know. I didn’t think I would pick up the pen again, I thought it was over for me and to have support of just friends, people looking out for me, was more than I ever thought would happen.

  My friends, the girls there for me and checking on me when I forget to socialize, or withdraw, Erin, Janet, Elaine, Megan, Callie, Kellie, Lisa, Michelle and Barb.

  You just can’t beat the person who never gives up.

  Babe Ruth

  A Beginning: Grayson

  Chapter 1: Evie

  Chapter 2: Grayson

  Chapter 3: Evie

  Chapter 4: Grayson

  Chapter 5: Evie

  Chapter 6: Grayson

  Chapter 7: Evie

  Chapter 8: Grayson

  Chapter 9: Evie

  Chapter 10: Grayson

  Chapter 11: Evie

  Chapter 12: Grayson

  Chapter 13: Evie

  Chapter 14: Grayson

  Chapter 15: Evie

  Chapter 16: Grayson

  Chapter 17: Evie

  Chapter 18: Grayson

  Chapter 19: Evie

  Chapter 20: Grayson

  Chapter 21: Evie

  Chapter 22: Evie

  An Ending: Grayson

  About the Author

  June 2000

  Have you ever wanted something so much you’ve heard the sound?

  A rapid heartbeat, a distant thud followed by heavy breathing as your body tried to naturally react to it.

  I knew we had too much to drink, but I didn’t care right then. I’ve heard that sound.

  Wrapping my arms over her, I brought her to my bed wrapping the blanket around her. Her skin, so warm, was doing what it always did in the eighteen-year-old me. Only now, I wanted more. I wanted everything she would give me.

  Maybe it was that we were eighteen, maybe it was that we both just didn’t care anymore, either way, I knew where this was going despite her having a boyfriend. And I couldn’t fucking stop it. There was no way.

  We were alone in the house but once we were inside my room, something seemed different about her and I couldn’t quite place it.

  Had she heard that same sound?

  When we came up to my room, I think we knew it was heading here. We did.

  Her head was buried in my neck, her lips pushed against skin, my hand roaming over skin I’d never had the pleasure of touching before.

  So many times I’d imagined this, and though my dreams felt real at times, I knew it would never be. Evie was off limits in all the ways I wanted her. Had I acted on it, our relationship wouldn’t be the same. I was sure of that.

  But then Evie surprised me when she turned in my arms. Our bodies shifted against one another, out want written all over our faces. The sky, brightened from the moon, seemed to provide just enough light that I saw the longing in those green eyes I loved so much.

  We may have been best friends but sometimes the intimacy of friendship shared caused the same wants, desires, and needs of regular couples. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing?

  “Please,” she whispered, her hands moving over my shoulders and then down my back reaching for my shirt.

  After I pulled my shirt over my head, her hands were on the button of my jeans, waiting.

  “What about Chris?” I could barely get the words out I was breathing so heavy.

  She didn’t look at me, her eyes and hands over my chest. “Please…”

  My kisses, incapable of slowing, seemed to be just as impatient and frenzied as hers. My hands worked her tank top off to find her skin suddenly heated.

  “Please what?” The words fell from my lips urgently as I covered her body with mine. Spreading her legs apart with my own, I found myself where I desperately wanted to be.

  “Just come closer…” she said, making a low sound that felt like something she shouldn’t know how to do. I felt that sound all through my body as she kissed up my throat to my mouth.

  This time I met he
r mouth, pushing my tongue inside. She responded with another moan and my arms went weak bringing our chests together.

  My hand slid down over her hip, pulling her thigh and moving my legs slightly as my weight shifted forward. Finally she could feel me and knew where I wanted it to go. I always wanted it to go here.

  “Have you ever?” I knew the answer, she hadn’t, but I asked despite that. Part of me wanted to know. Another part of me didn’t care.

  She shook her head against my shoulder as our movements became destined on one direction, a direction neither of us had been before with anyone. I didn’t want to think about what happened if maybe we went further, and by chance shit changed between us, and for the most part, I wasn’t thinking that. What I was thinking about was that I had no experience in this and didn’t know what came next.

  Do I take her pants off? Should I take mine off first? Should I wait for her to do it?

  Fuck. Stop thinking.

  So I did. Well with my brain anyway. Other parts were all go for thinking, or at least doing.

  “Grayson…” she moaned when I moved my heavy wet kisses lower and over the top of her exposed breast.

  Fuck yeah. The sound nearly had me ripping her pants off.

  “Do you want to…?” I whispered. “I…do you?”

  Pulling back, I looked at her trying to decide if what I said scared her. She moved her hips again, her head turned to the window and her eyes to the sky almost appearing to be looking for divine intervention before she uttered the words I so desperately wanted to hear. “Yes…”

  Leaning back away, the space between us filled with the cool air. My hand reached for my nightstand anxiously grasping for the condoms Josh gave me, all the while keeping my eyes locked with hers. I swallowed when she sat up on her elbows and removed her bra. Then she shimmied out of her jeans and panties leaving herself completely naked before me.

  Jesus.

  Well that solved my problem of what to do next.

  Right about then was when I stopped thinking all together. I would do whatever she had in mind. There was a little voice telling me this would be the deal breaker with us and this would be my only chance with her but I wanted it, regardless.

  I was leaving in two weeks, and I hadn’t told her. Did I ever plan on telling her?

  The outcome from tonight would be the defining moment in that decision.

  I moved to hover over her again after taking my jeans off and getting the condom on.

  Through all that she never hesitated, until I was between her legs, naked, ready to go further.

  Her eyes never left mine until I smiled, then she blinked, laughed, and then looked back at the sky. She sighed, her gaze back on mine when I tangled my hands into her hair, holding her face still so she’d look at me.

  “Hey,” again, I could barely get the words out. “We don’t have to do this.”

  It felt like her body sank into mine, only I was on top of her. She wiggled slightly and I knew she was agreeing to give me the greatest gift anyone could give. My arms were bent at the elbows, placed on either side of her head. I didn’t know what to do with my hands because if I had my way, I would be touching her all over but I didn’t want to scare her.

  I tried not to think about anything but her reactions had me feeling that she wanted it as much as I did. She wasn’t with Chris tonight, she was with me, where she belonged. Though I knew shit would change, I loved that we had this, right now, alone and it was something we would never forget. A piece of ourselves we’d never given before.

  I had worked my way right to her entrance, and hesitated myself.

  She stared up at me, her eyes half-closed.

  Neither of us were looking at each other when I did push forward. It wasn’t like the movies I’d seen where they kept eye contact. No, hell no. My face was buried in my pillow to keep from losing my shit as soon as I pushed forward and I couldn’t tell you where hers was. All I knew was that it hurt her, judging by the whimper of discomfort and the way her body tightened as soon as I was in.

  For me, it is this, the sound of my heartbreaking. She knows it too, I see it staring back at me when we finally did make eye contact.

  I know the sound of my heart breaking because it’s all I’ll ever have after this.

  I’m not sure our story will ever have a happy ending. It’s hard to imagine it will now.

  There’s so much tragedy everywhere you look, but there’s something beautiful in this moment we have. She doesn’t know it but I have just given her every piece of my heart and I’m not sure she will want anything to do with it after I leave. I can hope that we will always be mine. Always together no matter the distance that separates us.

  I focused on this one moment, right then, and remembered the sound of just a girl, and a boy who was willing to give all he had left just to see her again.

  April 2003

  I have a photograph beside my bed in the top drawer of my nightstand. That photograph is of two kids sitting on the tailgate of a black Chevy, wrapped in a moment; this was where I wanted to be. Only now, it’s just a distant memory. Underneath that photograph was a letter. A letter I read nearly every night, to help bring myself back to that moment.

  I don’t want to be in the one I’m in right now, with the wrong guy, being told that I should have answered the first time he called.

  It didn’t matter to him that I was in the shower. What mattered was that I wasn’t his first priority.

  He’s an asshole.

  “I have to go,” I said, knowing Frankie would be here any minute.

  “I’ll be over to get you then. I’ll drive you.”

  “No,” I sighed. “Frankie is driving me because I’m singing tonight.”

  “Since when?” His voice was fire as I spoke of something I didn’t clear with him first.

  “Since like an hour ago when Ethan asked.”

  Shane was quiet, I could hear the inhale, and then the heavy exhale as he smoked his cigarette. “I’ll see you there then and we’ll go back to my place.”

  There was no sense in arguing with him. It never did any good.

  Like I said, he’s an asshole.

  Shane Lawson is my boyfriend as of the last eight months. I met him while having lunch with mom at Lawson Industries, where she works for his dad on a landscaping design project.

  Shane could be all the things that captivated a woman, especially a girl like me, romantic and charming when he wanted to be, but that changed. As soon as we started having sex, it got so much worse on the controlling end. Now he thought he could tell me what to do, and who to talk to, and when I didn’t do what he wanted, he reacted.

  Honestly, it scares the shit out of me because he has a way about him that makes you believe he is caring and sweet but I’m not buying it, the guy is a straight up tool who’s possessive and controlling. You think I would have realized this in the beginning. You know, saw the tendencies. But I didn’t. Or at least I ignored them.

  On our first date, he spent more time flirting with the eighteen-year-old waitress than talking to me, but sadly, here I was months later still dating the asshole and regretting every minute of it.

  Ethan, my brother, hates him and refuses to come home when he is over and my mother has nothing but hatred for him. They see through it just like me but I feel trapped by the situation.

  I’m also well aware of the fact that I’m not the only girl in his life. I doubt I ever was.

  Which is why I believe my mom hates him so much. Shane is exactly the way my father was to her. I don’t remember much about my father but I do remember when I was four he tried to get my mom back. She had to file a restraining order against him while Ethan and I stayed with Grayson’s parents, Wyatt and Julia, for a week. He ignored the restraining order and put her in the hospital. Needless to say, we haven’t seen or heard from him since.

  I never wanted to be that girl who fell into the ways of their mother, mirroring my life with hers, but somehow I’d become everythi
ng that I promised myself I wouldn’t…I had become my mom.

  My friends are all assholes.

  It’s such a blanket statement, right? But it’s true.

  I’ve never been a big drinker because I’ve never been one who can handle my booze easy. In fact, I actually have never handled my liquor well. It always ends in me doing something stupid.

  My biggest problem is my friends. Those assholes. They enjoy testing my boundaries and see just how drunk they can get me at times. It’s like a game for them. They enjoy letting me act like a complete fool.

  Fortunately, for them, when I’m at that point, I don’t care and will to do whatever they want.

  And that explains why my ass is getting ready to go up on stage to sing in front of the entire town of Pinckard, Alabama, tonight.

  As soon as Frankie and Ethan thought they could get away with it, they started handing over the beers at two o’clock this afternoon. That’s when I agreed to sing with my brother’s band.

  Then, Frankie, decided to help me get ready.

  Not only was I wearing heels, but also the black dress she stuck me in that barely covered my ass.

  Frankie, makes me crazy most days but I can’t live without her. She has an obsession with making me do things I don’t want to do but it always seems to turn out good. Her greatest pleasure in life is telling everyone how to live their life. Which is why she’s a nurse. She’s likes to control people and taking care of them allows her to exhibit her need for control.

  How we are friends is beyond my realm of understanding…we’re very different from each other.

  I’m a little more southern so to speak. A simple and somber kind of girl, who wears flip-flops and cut-off jeans any chance she can get. I get moody, am annoyed easily and the only men who were ever attracted to me were assholes. I can attract any prick within a hundred mile radius of anywhere I go. Shane was a perfect example of that.

  “I don’t understand why I have to wear this, Francine.” I said to Frankie. She knew I meant business when I said her full name.