CHAPTER ONE
When life gives you lemons, cut them open and squeeze the juice into the eyes of your enemies.
Show no mercy.
Never accept the sour.
Keep pushing for the sweet.
Victory tastes sweetest when it comes from hard work, creative thinking, and a refusal to accept the crappy hand life has dealt you.
My mom used to say this to her synchronized swimming team. It was her go-to speech—she was ruthless, one of the many reasons I admired her—and it stuck. I tried to live by this rule. In my seventeen years of life, it helped me through a lot. For example, my parents' divorce three years ago. Okay, lemons, I see you, but I'm not going to cry—much. At least not in front of anyone. Second grade when Rich Travers tried to stab me with a pencil because I wouldn't give him my favorite book. Said book came in handy when I used it to slap his hand away. My 14thbirthday when no one showed up except my family because the kids at school thought I was weird and stuck-up for practicing violin so much. All good. I didn't need friends. I had music, and my cousins were my favorite people anyway.
My dad always said, "Freya, baby, you're a firework. You can do anything."
He's a big pop music fan.
I didn't know why, but I believed him. Maybe it was because I thought my dad hung the moon. Also, he'd never lied to me, so…
I never questioned my ability to do and be anything I wanted to be.
And yet, my parents' words of wisdom were tempered by my own life lessons and beliefs.
Like…
Lesson 1: Never get your hopes up.
Hello again, 14thbirthday party.
Lesson 2: Never expect anything of anyone, and you'll never be disappointed.
My first and only boyfriend, now ex, Wayne, taught me that one.
In a way, I was grateful to him.
Hoping for the best was all well and good, but I always tried to manage my expectations. It was necessary. I read somewhere that life could—and would—throw anything at you at any moment.
I just hadn't realized they meant it literally.
I was sitting outside at my usual table, minding my business, writing in the journal my dad got me last Christmas. My love for stationary was well-known. He said it was to keep track of all the adventures I'd be having, which had been his way of encouraging me to go out and have some. Thaddeus Kent was a lot of things but subtle he was not. Unlike basically every other summer of my uneventful life, this one was looking promising.
I added one more lesson to the others I'd already written.
Lesson 3: Storms will come no matter what. The future belongs to those who refuse to sink.
Nodding to myself, I pocketed my pen then flipped to the previous page. This one contained all the things I was looking forward to and hoping to accomplish in the coming months. It was a pretty expansive list, but…shoot for the moon, right?
Wasn't every day you got invited to tour as a guest musician for a famous band, and I was determined to make the most of it. My list was coming together slowly but surely.Slowlybecause there was a basketball court nearby, and the constant sound of dribbling, groans, and shouts was a soundtrack I could've lived without.Surelybecause I was me, and I wasn't about to be distracted.
By anything.
But especially not by a jock.
Never again.
Shaking myself out of it, I scanned my list.
Summer Goals
