Another GSP release from Author of the Week: Rowan Shannigan.
Maddie is a teenager who is in LOVE with a boy who is just so out of her league. She’s a dork, He’s a Jock. She’s plain, He’s Drop-Dead-Gorgeous! Of course, she doesn’t believe he could ever have feelings for her. Then, amazingly, he asks her to be his date to the dance. She’s totally shocked, skeptical and suspicious. Why would someone like him ask HER out? But Stephen has secrets and a crush of his own. Will she accept him when he lets her in on them?
Excerpt:
Chapter 1
Stephen Daniels; that’s the name of the boy I loved. Now, you have to understand, when I say loved I’m not referring to some little schoolgirl crush. I was not taken to flights of fancy. I never swooned when a cute boy walked past me. I never even really swooned with Stephen, either. Panicked if he walked near me? Yes. Stared at him when I thought he wasn’t paying attention? Of course. But what I felt for him wasn’t some fickle crush.
How do I know, you ask? It’s simple, really. My affection for him started the first day of kindergarten. I was walking past a row of desks and tripped over a book bag. He caught me and worried over whether I was hurt or not for the rest of the day.
Now, I won’t say we became fast friends. I was too shy, and he was too perfect. I’m not exaggerating, either. He was perfect. Beautiful green eyes, wavy blond hair, and a smile that just made my heart melt. He was an amazing person, too. From that very first year, and every year following . . .perfect because he wasn’t a stuck-up snob like other people who were naturally beautiful could be. No, not my Stephen; he was kind, with a huge heart. He was always friendly and outgoing. He never had a bad word to say to anyone.
Of course, he had so many people who were attracted to his natural inner and outer beauty that he really didn’t get to know me all that well. I was outside of his circle. But he still always found a way to be nice, and we sometimes talked to each other; when I wasn’t too busy being tongue-tied around him. Like I said, I never swooned, but I often stuttered like a fool in his presence.
Of course, I could never say I was the beautiful, outgoing girlfriend my Stephen so richly deserved. I’d like to tell you he fell madly in love with me the first time he saw me; just like I had with him. But the truth is: I didn’t believe he’d ever seen me. Not really, even though he went to my high school and had the same lunch hour as me. Heck, he was in five of six classes with me. He always had been in at least four classes with me ever since we started middle school. It almost seemed like some cosmic order was trying to thrust us together. Hmm . . . sometimes I wondered if he’d ever noticed it like I had.
We were as different as night and day. He sat in the front of the classes; I always lingered in the back. Where he was outgoing, I was the introvert. If I thought it would do me any good, I’d have tried to come out of my shell. But I was always scared to death of rejection. So I stayed where I was and just dared to daydream about him. Daydreaming can be almost as good; if more than a little unsatisfactory.
My name is Madison Elliot. My friends call me Maddie. Unfortunately, where Stephen is dreamy perfect, I’m only average. My hair is mousy brown. It doesn’t even have any highlights in it to make it look like it might have any luster. It’s long and straight. My eyes are just an average color of brown; nothing fancy, no sparkle in them, either. My mother says there are flecks of green in them and they light up when I laugh, but I really don’t see it. I think I was God’s idea of a joke.
The reason I say this is because . . . well, my mom was head cheerleader when she was in high school. My dad was the star quarterback on the football team. They were high school sweethearts who fell madly in love. When they got married, everyone said they were going to make such beautiful babies.
As a baby, I was sweet. I can admit it; I’ve seen the pictures. But from the age of two to the first year of school, something went drastically wrong. It’s like the opposite of that story, The Ugly Duckling. I started out being really pretty. Then, as I aged, I wilted like a flower without sunlight.
Add all these things together and it equals a sad existence, with a mundane life. Or at least, it did. My life would have stayed that way, I’m certain, if it hadn’t been for that fateful day, two weeks before the Christmas Dance of our eleventh grade year. That was the day everything changed.
Stephen and I were both in Miss Oscar’s homeroom. She was in charge of planning the Christmas Dance that year. She had been told to pick two students from her homeroom class to assist her in the planning. I don’t know if it was God or fate, but when she picked, Stephen and I were the two students she wanted to help her.
I don’t know how it happened, but during the time we were helping Miss Oscar plan for the dance, fate finally stepped in and my life—not to mention my luck—changed. I remember it all like it was yesterday . . .
Links:http://www.gypsyshadow.com/RowanShannigan.html#CDanceExc
Anne H Petzer 