Page 2 of If You Could Only See
I go to classand when I’mnot in class, I’mworking. And when I’m not in class or working, I’m studying orsleeping.
I. Do. Not.Bother. Anyone…EVER.
And I’m definitelynot the girl that guys fight over.
So, how wasitI’ve landed smack dab inthe middle of…
Well…I don’tknow whatthis is.
My mind wasstill tryingto process whathappened and why.
My eyes kept takingin the scene, but my mind kept flipping over in confusion. I mean,none of this makes any sense.
How did BransonMorgan even noticeme amongthe crowd of people here? And why would he choose me,of all people,to flirt with?
Branson evenknew my name. Why would he bother paying enough attentionto catch and remember myname?
And why, in thename of all that’s holy, wouldMason Buchanancome flying out of nowhere and start a fight with anyoneoverme?
Imean…Mason Buchananhatedme.
Chapter 1
Shane~
Sitting on thecouch, pajama pants cladded and everything, I went over my fallsemester schedule one last time. I couldn’t believethis was it.
I was only twosemesters away from graduatingBlaineview College with a degree in Business Management &Finance and I did it all on my own.
Sure, it meantI had missed out on the hyped up ‘college life’, but I didn’t mind.Getting a degree and beingable to feed myself took precedence over getting sloppy drunk andprobably roofied.
And, yeah, so Iwas a22-year-old virgin, butguys were in the same category as getting sloppy drunk and probablyroofied. And, no, I wasn’t saving my lady flower for that specialsomeone or waiting for marriage. I just hadn’t gotten around to thedating phase of my life.
I suppose Ishouldn’t be so cavalier about my virginity, but I wasn’t a bigbeliever in true love and fated destinies. I learned early onthat people were replaceableand my life was important to only one person.
Me.
Well, meand Jesus Christ, Our Lord andSavior.
And believeme…I wasn’t a zealous religious nut or anything like that, butgrowing up in foster homes, I prayed to God a lot. Andby His good graces alone, Igot through the system avoiding the deep evils that existed withinit.
I wish I couldpaint a sad, sorrowful story of my parents tragically dying in acar wreck when I was young or something like that, but thatwasn’tthe case. My parentshad both been drug addicts, and they both died with needles intheir veins.
Iwas five.
So, I was already used tobeing neglected by the time I was introduced to my caseworker.Therefore, the systematic neglect hadn’t bothered me much growingup, but the abuse had been something new. But with every lash ofthe belt and every slap across the face, I bargained with God thatI’d gladly suffer the physical abuse as long as it never crossedover to sexual abuse.
He must haveheard me and thought mycompromise worthy, because the random beatings continued, but I waslucky enough to survive the rest of the darknessunscathed.
I had spent thefirst ten years in foster care keeping my head down and trying toremain invisible. Iwanted tobelong somewhere permanently, and I thought if I kept myself frombeing an inconvenience I could stay.
Itdoesn’t work like that.
I learned thehard way that, even if a foster family wanted to keep me, unlessthey adopted you, they had to comply with thesupply and demand of places for lostchildren.
So, by the timeit was all said and done, Ihad lived with six different foster families, the last family beingwhere I stayed the longest. They had taken me in when I was 15 andthat was where I fostered out of.
They had been adecent family andsometimes Ifelt like they really liked me, but by the time they placed me withthem, I already had planned out a path for my life and not eventheir kindness would deter me from it.
