Copyright © 2020 by MJ Fields 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 book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the authors’ imaginations. Any resemblance to actual persons, things, living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental. Cover design by Jersey Girl Designs Edited by C&D Editing Proofread by Julie Deaton Photographer: Miguel Anxo Model: Sergio Carvaja Contents Synopsis Prologue Seashore Academy Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Also by MJ Fields About the Author Thank you Synopsis Patrick Steel They call him Tricks. To me, he was the first man I ever felt I could trust. He annihilated all the stereotypes about men rooted in me, even when he so easily fit the mold. He wasn’t my type, not at all. I hated men … In my last life, anyway. Savvy Sutton I call her Savanah. It isn’t her name, but it made total sense. She didn’t know who she was, yet she held on to the lies she so desperately wanted to believe in, to save a part of herself. She tried to fight her attraction for me, and I made damn sure that didn’t happen. Then … she tricked me. Sometimes, the greatest love stories grow from lies. Prologue “I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.” ~ Audre Lorde Savvy Sitting in the principal’s office, located inside the high school wing of Seashore Academy, I already feel like I’m trapped within the strong hold of societal norms. Within only moments, I will be sucked into the system known and accepted by those programmed by a patriarchal society and main stream media, to believe is the only way to become a valued member of the human race. The walls are figuratively closing in on me as my mother’s partner, Liberty Smith, demands that they waive the rules of admissions by giving me every standardized test in his arsenal that would deem me worthy of this place. Tests that she and my mother have slammed as blatant misrepresentations of intelligence, created by mediocre minds, not geniuses or intellects. I’ve been taught my entire life that schools like this were created to aid in not only the dumbing down of society but to crush our individual ability to find our true passion, our purpose. Institutions that feed young minds only the things in which “the man” wants us to learn as they spoon feed information to spit out when it’s requested of those taking it in on demand. I was taught that institutionalized learning was the “Roundup” in the garden of growth; the poisoning of free thinkers by the upper five percent, through a robotic style of teaching and learning experiences. In what should have been my freshman year, we had lived in the same place for enough time that I became curious about institutionalized learning. So curious that I told my mom and Liberty that I wanted to experience it firsthand. “Free minds don’t have to be taught to learn. You’re learning in spite of a classroom, not because of one,” my mother had said, as if those words were magic, or a secret that only a girl as unique as me, one without rules, one forever free, could understand. At the time, those magic words, that secret that was supposed to make me feel like something special, did the opposite. I didn’t feel nearly as free as I looked out the window, as the girls and boys walking by our rented trailer, to and from the bus stop, appeared. It felt a lot like bullshit. Also bullshit was that Mom and Liberty stopped wanting to travel. Then they stopped wanting to go for hikes. Then they stopped wanting to check out the community garden that I had started in our little mobile home park. A garden we had planted for us and our new “friends.” Then the garden died, and— “Savvy, could you give us a minute?” Liberty’s voice pulls me back to the here and now, and I look up from the gold-framed nameplate. “That won’t be necessary, Ms. Smith,” Whitaker, the principal, says, still standing, because he hasn’t sat down once since Liberty bullied her way into his office. “Savvy,” she says sternly, a once foreign tone that I’m now getting used to. I stand and walk out of the office, not saying a word. And I don’t stop beyond Whitaker’s heavy office door, needing to get the hell out of this place. I continue, pushing past doors until I’m out of the office. Then, down the empty halls never traveled until today, I find the exit, as if being led to it. Heart beating faster, a thin sheen of perspiration dampening my palms, I use them to push open the intimidating front double doors, inhaling the fresh air as deeply as I can. The autumn wind blows, almost as if knowing I need more than the breath I desperately took. I continue down the stone stairs as another gust of wind blows leaves in an angry swirl of oranges and reds, fighting the inevitability—that they will soon turn a brittle brown, and then to dust. It’s not long, definitely not long enough, when Liberty finds me out by the light blue and white, 2013, last edition Volkswagen Bus that Mom bought instead of rings for their commitment ceremony months ago, years after they became a couple. It seems like another lifetime passing … again. Seashore Academy Junior Year Chapter 1 “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” ~ Marie Curie Savvy Staying
