For A Reason Read online

  She loved me.

  I failed her.

  She loves me.

  I'll break her.

  Tristan Westdyke seems to have it all—he's handsome, athletic, smart, and admired. What people don't see beyond the façade, though, is the pain and guilt eating away at his soul. Blaming himself for the loss of another person, Tristan trudges through life not allowing himself to feel.

  But when the beautiful and energetic Katelyn Sharp barrels into his life, Tristan is helpless to resist emotions long buried. A connection slowly grows between the two, yet secrets and deceit threaten to shatter the fragile trust and love they’ve found.

  Can two people who have been hurt and betrayed open their hearts up once more? Can both accept that all events leading to this may have happened For a Reason?

  For A Reason

  Copyright © 2015 by T.N. Cole

  ISBN: 978-0-9967093-0-9

  Cover by Najla Qamber Designs

  Editing by Jenny Sims of Editing4Indies

  Formatting by Stacey Blake of Champagne Formats

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, people is entirely coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademarked owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Synopsis

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  This one is for my Mommy. Thank you for always being there for me and for your never-ending love. I couldn’t have done this without you.

  Seventeen years old

  “TRISTAN, WAIT!” HE COULD hear her splashing through the puddles, struggling to catch up with him. “Tristan! Dammit! Stop!”

  He slowed to a jog, then stopped and slowly turned around. He clenched his jaw and looked at the ground. He couldn’t look her in the eye.

  “What the hell, Tristan? What’s going on? Are we really going to have this cliché confrontational scene in the rain?” He finally looked up to see that Mel had placed her hands on her hips, which told him how pissed she was getting. She was starting to subconsciously imitate her mother. But even while glaring daggers at him and drenched, she was still his beautiful best friend. Best friend. Why did she want to be more? Why couldn’t she just wait? He wasn’t ready. He was a broken shell of a human. She deserved more than this. More than him.

  He hated himself. But he had to do this.

  “You’ve been acting weird since—” she started to say. Since prom night, she was going to say.

  “Mel, I can’t—I just can’t.” Tristan pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. He needed her to understand. He was no good for her.

  She shoved at his chest, and his eyes flashed open as he staggered back in surprise. “Why? Why not?” She slammed her fists against his chest, falling against him. His arms automatically surrounded her, catching her. “We’ve been best friends for ten years, Tristan! Ten fucking years! And now you decide to be a coward? You decide to run from your feelings and push me away? Because of what? Is it because none of our other friends are in relationships? Or could it be the I’m-scared-of-commitment excuse? You’re full of shit!” She accentuated each of her questions by pounding her fist on his chest.

  She wasn’t done. She shoved away from him and angrily flicked her sopping wet hair back. “After all these years, who’s been here for you? When you needed advice on how to talk to a girl? When you needed someone to comfort you after your sister died? Every time you needed someone to talk to after your dad left? And when you didn’t want to sleep at your house so you wouldn’t have to hear your mother crying? Me! Always me. Goddammit, Tristan—I’ve always been here for you. We’re best friends.” Her voice broke on that last word. “For once, Tristan, just once, can’t you be there for me? Can’t I come first?”

  How could she imply that their friendship was one-sided? He’d been there for her, too. Her accusations caused something inside of him to snap. “I never asked you to put me first! You did that yourself, Mel! You think I don’t know? You think I don’t know that you’re fucking in love with me? I wish I didn’t! I wish I didn’t know that you’ve always felt more for me than I do for you. Do you know how hard it is to know that no matter how much you want to love someone, sometimes you can’t force yourself to feel the same way! And I’ve tried. Believe me, I’ve tried to make myself feel more for you, but you, more than anyone else, should know it doesn’t fucking work like that!”

  She looked as if he had slapped her. He would do anything to take back that moment because he never wanted to see that look again. He should have just kept his mouth shut. Guys should always let the girl win, he thought.

  With her eyes round and brimming with tears, she opened and shut her mouth a couple of times. No words came out. He’d messed up. He had never seen her speechless. “Look, Mel, I…”

  She backed up quickly, shaking her head and holding out her hands as if warding off an attacker. “You asshole,” she whispered. “I’m sorry that being my friend has been so hard for you. Of course, it hasn't been hard for me. Always hoping that one day the guy I'm in love with—who I love more than anyone else in the world—could love me back? I’m sorry for being such a burden on you.”

  “Mel…” Tristan stepped closer to her, but she shook her head, turned around, and ran back toward the house. He watched her run in the middle of the dark, flooded street, each step echoing the frantic pounding of his heart. The rain soaking through his clothes made him cold, but he knew that the chill that was seeping into him was more than just skin-deep.

  Vaguely, he heard the sound of a car racing through the water flooding the street. His head snapped up, but Mel didn’t seem to notice the car. The driver’s face was barely illuminated by a small light. It looked like a phone. The streets were dark, and it was nearly impossible to see anything through this storm. Before Tristan could fully comprehend what w
as happening, he was sprinting toward Mel.

  “Mel!” he yelled. It was pointless; he knew she couldn’t hear him over the sounds of the storm. He pumped his legs faster. “Melanie!” He tried again. This time, she stopped and turned toward him. Everything seemed to slow around him and the only thing he could focus on was the utterly destroyed look she had on her face. They locked eyes, and suddenly, he was a few feet away from her. He leaped toward her, then everything was illuminated in light. He felt a bone-cracking pain in his right side and the whole world spun. Screeching tires. Rain pouring down. A guy yelling. A whispered word. Coldness spreading. Then darkness.

  Five years later

  THEY SAY WHEN YOU die, your life flashes before your eyes.

  I had experienced it. I had seen every memory and thought I ever had zoom through my head. But, unfortunately, I didn’t die.

  No, I was the sad bastard who got a second chance at life. For what? So I could atone for the sin of killing my best friend? Maybe. These last few years had felt like hell on earth, but nothing would make up for the life that was lost that night. It should have been me.

  The driver had never been found afterward, and it had been deemed a hit and run. It wouldn’t have mattered if we had found the driver anyway—in the end, it would always be my fault.

  I’d had dreams about the accident every night for about a year. Sleeping pills didn’t help me. Instead, they trapped me in the dream until the medication wore off. I was forced to relive the same memory on a loop for hours, imprisoned in my head from the medicine. After months of that torture, I threw myself into anything to keep busy. I worked myself to exhaustion each day so that I would be too tired to dream. Sleep was my enemy.

  But, to be honest, being awake wasn’t much better. When I was conscious, Mel was always whispering in my mind.

  “Yo, T!” I spun around to see Jason jogging toward me. I threw on the fake smile I had perfected over the years.

  “Hey man, what’s up?” He reached me and we bro-shook.

  “You coming out tonight? We need you!” About twenty other guys and I played pick-up soccer games every week. Nothing serious, but a great way to waste time and tire myself out.

  I shook my head. “Nah, Jase, I have a midterm tomorrow.”

  “Bullshit. You study?”

  I chuckled. “Yeah, man. Not everyone is as brain-dead as you are.” Glancing at my watch, I realized I was running late to my tutoring job at the library. “Shit, I’m late. I’ll catch you later.”

  “Forget you, you’re always so busy. Bye, dude.”

  I clenched my jaw as I turned to stride to the library on the other side of campus. No one knew that I kept busy on purpose. I used my full agenda as a way to run from my past—the memories—and the pain that threatened to consume me. Nowadays, no one was close to me. I didn’t need anyone else I loved to die on my watch. A person could only handle so much sorrow before they became immune to it—which would make them inhuman. We lived because we didn’t want to die. If we didn’t fear death, then there was no reason to live.

  I shook the depressing thoughts out of my head as I entered the library. One of my many jobs was being a one-on-one tutor for calculus. Students could come to the library and sign up for a time, and I would meet them in the private room I had been assigned. We were about a month into the fall semester, so students utilized more tutors as midterms approached.

  I took the stairs to the fourth floor of the library. The light was streaming out the open door. Shit. I was late. I hated being late; the student sitting inside must have gotten someone to open the door already. I walked into the room to find a girl hunched over her phone, her brow furrowed, and her lips pursed. In anger? Distaste? Whatever expression she had did nothing to mar her attractiveness—an attractiveness I already knew I was going to have to ignore. I watched her for a second, while her guard was down. She had loosely curled dark brown hair and a face that seemed to be mostly free of makeup. I couldn’t tell with her head looking down, but I felt a strange sense of recognition while I studied her.

  I wanted to see her eyes to see if I actually knew her, so I cleared my throat. Her head snapped up, eyes widening in surprise. Sucker punch to the gut. Her eyes were dark brown, almost black. They reminded me so much of Mel’s, although the girl standing in front of me was striking in her own right. As she stood, she subconsciously tilted her head to the side, observing me just as I had observed her moments before. I couldn’t place where I recognized her from.

  “Are you—” We both started and stopped talking at the same time. I arched an eyebrow and motioned for her to continue her sentence first.

  The side of her mouth quirked up a bit. “Are you Tristan Westdyke?”

  I nodded. “I’m assuming you’re here for calculus tutoring?”

  “Yeah, hi. I’m Katelyn. Katelyn Sharp.” She reached her hand across the table and I stepped forward to shake it.

  Everything about her screamed rich, snobby girl. Her neatly manicured nails, her glossy hair, her designer jeans… But as we continued to silently size each other up, I could tell that she wasn’t the stuck-up princess I originally assumed that she would be.

  She’s not that pretty, Mel sneered. Mel might be physically gone, but she had taken up residence in my head. I was fully aware that having my dead best friend’s voice as my conscience was more than unhealthy, but she had to be with me. She’d promised me. Always.

  “So, you must get a lot of girls here, don’t you?” Katelyn finally broke the silence.

  “What?” I asked sharply. “What would make you think that?” I was slightly offended that she seemed to be judging me. However, I realized that I was doing the same to her.

  She shrugged. “You know, pretty boys like you could just be using this gig to meet girls.”

  I almost smiled. “I hardly think that guys are smart enough to know that they can meet girls like you here.”

  She straightened up, appearing insulted. “Girls like me?”

  I shook my head. I couldn’t tell her how beautiful she was. It wasn’t the attention demanding sexiness that girls tried so hard for, but more of the effortless, subtle beauty that made a guy do a double-take when they saw her. But I couldn’t tell her that. She might think I was hitting on her. I cleared my throat and said, “All right. Well, we only have an hour, so why don’t we get started?”

  She studied my face for a moment, and I felt my muscles tighten as I kept my mask in place. I met her curious gaze with my standard expressionless one. No one had ever tried so hard to read me. No one except her. Mel. She used to be able to know what I was feeling with just one look at my face. Then, the moment passed. She shrugged, sat down, and opened a notebook she already had on the table.

  I released a slow exhale through my nose and took the seat across from her.

  “I have this homework assignment due in two days, and I need help with this integral…”

  Forty-five minutes later, I had learned a few things about Katelyn. First, she was ridiculously smart. “Why the hell are you even here?” I glared at her as she faked a bow and took a seat after showing me how to work the problem on the whiteboard in the room. “You basically taught me that problem! You obviously don’t even need a tutor.”

  She sighed heavily. “I know, I know. But, I mean I’m new to the campus. So no friends and I’m bored. I thought I could remedy all those problems and get someone to do my homework for me if I signed up for one of these tutoring session thingys. How was I supposed to know that I would be better at calculus than the tutor?” She leaned back and nonchalantly examined her nails.

  This was the second thing I had learned about her. She got a kick out of teasing the shit out of me.

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, yeah, you’re proving a point, Sharp. Study session over. Get your stuff and let’s go. Someone else can probably put this room to good use after we leave since you clearly don’t need help. At least not in calculus.”

  She laughed. “Looks like someone’s
ego is all bruised,” she sang as she packed up her books and pencils to follow me out the door. Katelyn waited behind me expectantly as I signed out next to the door using my ID card.

  I raised my eyebrows at her and she shrugged, falling into step with me as we left the library. She told me that she was not only new to campus but to the area. I barely listened, just nodding in places she seemed to want my agreement—a trick I’d learned from my years of friendship with Mel the chatterbox.

  “So, what’s the plan now?” she chirped as soon as we walked through the student union.

  I paused, looking at her then down at my watch. “I’m meeting some guys at the gym in 30 minutes,” I said wearily. What I really wanted to do was sleep, but I didn’t want to risk having a nightmare. A guy afraid of sleep…I was pathetic. I heard Mel giggle in my head.

  “Hmm…” She looked off to the trees that were covering the campus in the yellow, orange, and red colors of fall. “The on-campus gym?” I nodded. “Great, thirty minutes it is then! I have to run to my apartment to grab some clothes but see you there!” She spun on her heel and speed-walked toward B lot, the parking lot closest to the library.

  Seriously? I wondered. Was she really going to meet us at the gym?

  I don’t think I like this girl much, Mel sniffed disdainfully.

  I headed to my apartment to change, and I was anxious to get to the gym and work out. I wasn’t sure why.

  SHE WASN’T REALLY GOING to be here, was she? I swiped my ID card at the gym entrance and headed to the locker room to put up my bag. Alex and Logan had texted me that they were already inside, so I made my way to the weight section.

  “Where’d she go? Damn, she’s flexible,” I heard Logan saying when I spotted them.

  “Dude, she’ll be back. She probably just went to get water.” Great. Our workout was going to be longer than usual if the guys were checking out a girl again.

  “Tristan!” Logan exclaimed, grinning ear-to-ear.

  I gave them both a head nod. “What’s up?”