You're Still the One by Janet Dailey, Elizabeth Bass, Cathy Lamb, Mary Carter Read Free Book Online

because of the cookies and cupcakes.
    I knew there were free lunches at school for poor kids, but that would have required my dad to fill out paperwork, and he had refused to do it, yelling, “I am not going to take charity, you stupid girl. We don’t need it—now shut up!”
    I was often hungry, but I didn’t want the other kids to know we were poor, either. He had rammed it into me that I was part of the problem of him not having money. He had rammed it into me that I was a burden, difficult, stupid, unwanted, and part of the conspiracy my mother had waged against him.
    My dad always laughed at how many apples I could eat, but his laughter ridiculed me. I didn’t find it funny. Being hungry is never funny. He told me my face looked like the core of an apple. Hello, apple-core face . I never forgot that. He also said to me, Your brain is about the size of apple seeds .
    I often went to sleep by myself in our trailer. My dad always said he was Going out for a short while, be back before a bullet could pierce that there tree . That meant he was going out drinking. He did that all the time. Money for beer, no money for food. The dark outside scared me, and I was usually freezing cold and hungry. I would grab my two blankets and settle in on the skinny bench in our trailer that served as my bed.
    The outside noises—the rustling of an animal under our trailer, probably a raccoon, terrified me. Sometimes I’d hear people yelling at each other in other trailers. Cars backfired. People came in and out at odd hours. I always pulled the brown-haired doll with the yellow dress my mother made me close to my chest and went to sleep.
    I moved back in with him when I was eleven, after my mom died, and he forgot my twelfth birthday. When I got home from school he was passed out on his bed, black hair back, scars prominent. I asked him where he got the scars one time and he shook me hard and told me never to ask again.
    I made a “cake” for myself by slicing up apples in the orchard and piling them together on a paper plate like a layer cake. I sang myself “Happy Birthday,” thought of my mother, and cried the whole way through eating my cake. I was so lonely I couldn’t keep the apples down that day.
    My dad sporadically remembered my other birthdays. One time he gave me a box of chocolates. He’d already eaten half of them.
    If my dad had any loud and obnoxious friends over, I used to go to the orchard and carve the skins off apples to see how long a train I could make. I would hide in the apple trees if he was in a bad mood—cursing, lashing out at me—or if I needed to cry for my mother. I would carve faces into the apples—or boats, or dogs and cats. Apples entertained me.
    I should have hated apples because of what they reminded me of, but I didn’t. They saved me. I ate them, I juggled them, and used them for throwing away my rage.
    I reached up a hand and brushed the leaves of an apple tree on my dad’s property. The apples were beautiful—red, golden, light green.
    I would miss them when I left.
     
     
    My letter would have arrived.
    She was a viper. She took advantage of her position. Seduction should not be a part of promotions.
    The you-know-what would be hitting the fan.
    It almost made me laugh.
     
     
    “No, I will not go out to dinner with you tonight.”
    Jace stood on my porch wearing a white shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots. He could not have looked hotter if he set himself on fire.
    “Why not, Allie?” He smiled. If it were possible, I would have melted into goo.
    “Because I don’t want to and I want to and I won’t go.” I slammed my teeth together. “That didn’t make sense.”
    “Not much. Come out to dinner with me tonight and we’ll talk about it.”
    “I’m your patient. Aren’t you supposed to keep a professional distance?”
    “You’re my ex-girlfriend, and that overrides the patient-doctor relationship. Besides, our relationship, professionally speaking, is over because