Rebecca Berto is the author or the dark contemporary/literary novella, PRECISE and the upcoming new adult contemporary romance novel, DROWNING IN YOU. She is also a freelance editor.
She writes stories that are a bit sexy, and straddle the line between Literary and Tear Your Heart Out. She gets a thrill when her readers are emotional reading her stories, and gets even more of a kick when they tell her so. She’s strangely imaginative, spends too much time on her computer, and is certifiably crazy when she works on her fiction.
Rebecca Berto lives in Melbourne, Australia with her boyfriend and their doggy.
Now I have two excerpts I'm going to share with you book lovers. One is from the female protagonists point of view, the other from the male protagonists point of view. And then we have a giveaway! Yay!
Excerpt #1
From
a note tucked under her pillow:
I like Dexter Hollingworth.
Dexter Hollingworth “killed” my
parents.
1.
Killer Crush
Charlee
As per all the fourteen- to eighteen-year-olds at our school, I
started crushing on Dexter Hollingworth around the age of fifteen. There was
one girl who hated him, but she was into girls.
From
the football field sidelines to graduation day and beyond, my best friend Rosa
and I have wanted him. But guys like Dexter don’t notice girls like us who
spend most of our time talking about cool people like him.
At
twenty years old, I still “love” him.
I love
the way his body personifies what a male God should be without looking like
Fabio.
I love
the way his perfect tanned skin is inked and how he wears those aviator sunglasses
and how he’d use up his lunchtimes to teach the little kids in our school
guitar lessons.
But I hate the way I love him.
I hate
how Dexter was the one controlling the ski lifts at Mason’s Ski Resort the day
my mom was killed because it also put me here, in this position, praying to a
God I’ve never believed in to spare my dad’s life.
In this
hospital room, the air is as quiet as the still of night and my dad’s languid
breathing and drawn-out, heavy movements remind me that my perfect family life
was never meant to be forever.
If I’m
being honest, it seems like things are already over. Dad’s skin keeps a yellow
color—at best—from the IV drip. His meds help with the simple tasks his heart
and other organs can’t. My thoughts wander again. I don’t let myself consider
the alternative—that maybe it’s wishful thinking. I go with this:
“Dad,”
I say, jealous my little brother, Darcy is holding our dad’s hand—the hand he
can squeeze with. “Look at you.” I wink.
“Is she
okay, Dad?” Darcy asks, sounding as though he’s confused.
“Charlee?”
The confusion is contagious, but Dad’s patient zero—not Darcy.
There
are bars that raise and lower around Dad’s bed, and they’ve been raised forever.
Surely they must be there because they’re too hard to put down in their scratched,
old state. My dad doesn’t need silly bars around his bed! My dad owns Roycroft
Engines.
“I
think you’re squeezing Darcy’s hand too tight,” I say.
“Wha-at?”
Darcy says. He’s staring at me with squinted eyes, probably thinking what’s wrong with my sister? She’s supposed
to be the adult.
It
hurts smiling like this, the creases halfway up my cheeks. But maybe it’ll
work. “Isn’t that right, Dad?”
Dad’s
eyes are like I remember them now. There’s vibrancy in the rich brown color, like
my eyes. I bet he’s thinking is his daughter crazy? He tilts his head to the
side—
Injured people don’t understand things like this. Injured
people don’t get what’s unsaid. Dad’s not that injured.
—as it
clicks. Dad shakes out of Darcy’s grip and waggles his finger at him. “That
nurse…”
“Lisa
Hollingworth,” I say.
“Yes,
Lisa. That nurse Lisa said motor function is good. Squeezing someone’s hand
uses up a lot more strength than you think, son.”
Darcy’s
mouth flops open and stays that way. He checks out Dad, who’s nodding, and me—should
I nod?—so I nod also.
“Squeezing
your hand probably takes Dad twenty muscles and millions of brain cells just to
do something like that.”
“No way!”
Darcy grins and punches the air. “Dad, that’s cool.”
And
just like that, Darcy has that same face on as he had when Mom told him she had
to wait three hours in line to buy Desert Warcraft and yeah, she really, really
got it for him.
That
face is why I haven’t downed twenty sleeping pills yet. God knows these last
weeks have felt like months, which actually felt like years. That makes me the most
ancient twenty-year-old alive.
Why, Dexter? Why did it have to be you in that seat,
in that room, at that time?
Excerpt #2
Dexter
Mom’s still working at the hospital so my only choice is to walk.
Twenty seconds into my escape, the first raindrop splatters on my eyelid. I
shake it off and tip my head to the sky. Bloated, gray clouds hog the space
above. I can’t remember it being blue in so long. This Melbourne winter isn’t
much better than when I was a kid in Chicago. But we don’t even get snow here.
It’s just freezing.
Freezing.
The word escapes and I feel it. My bones are rattling. Looking down, I remember
I put on my holey jeans and my black shirt with the rolled sleeves at my
elbows. If I could do over my pitiful walk out of Dad’s and my argument, I
would have grabbed my hoodie.
And
that’s when everything gets fucked up. I give myself a handshake, tap my cheeks.
Nope, I’m hot still. Not cold at all. Which means…I don’t want it to be true
but—
I’m
holding my fingers in front of my face. I stop at the corner of our street, a
car vrooming past, another coming up, but I don’t hear them because it’s become
quiet in my world. I feel my fingers trembling before I see them quiver and
blur as my vision falters.
This is
karma, I bet. I’m having a hypo attack ‘cause I’m diabetic, by which I’m
essentially…what’s the word… What am I…?
My mind
is looping already. It’s bad, I know. I was so wrung up arguing with Dad I
didn’t notice it, but now I do. Trembling when his face came near had nothing
to do with being scared.
I need
sugar quick, like I do with every hypo. I pat my pockets down but I only feel
my leg through the material, because, of course, I hate carrying my candy on me
in case someone sees and asks what it is for.
Fuck my
diabetes. I’m my own worst enemy. My body can’t even sustain itself. My blood
sugar level is dropping, and it’s making my steps wobbly.
One of the
cars approaching slows. Noises come from chatter inside. I refuse to look and
give those shitheads the time of day since I know exactly what they’re looking
for. But when I hear a snicker I start. I swear I know that voice. If I had to
guess, I’d say it belongs to Robby. I haven’t seen him since before the Mason’s
ski accident mess when he used to talk and hang with me in the group.
Lucky I
decide to turn after all because an egg, followed by another, tumbles in the
air in a direct line for me. I duck and they sail just over my hairline.
When
another car slows, I’m ready to fucking lose it, even if it only backs up my
new reputation as a killer. But my words are stumbling, smooshed, and not
coming out of my mouth right thanks to my severely depleted blood-sugar level
and the fact that my body’s in survival mode.
Then out
of the window pops Darcy May’s head. I know that kid. He’s Charlee’s little
bro.
Just my
luck. That her mom was the only one to die at Mason’s. I’ve been wanting to kiss
this girl since before I got my first tattoo, or my eyebrow ring. Before seeing
her at the opposite end of the occasional party. All things considered, a rich,
beautiful, kind-looking girl like Charlee would never bring home a guy like me.
I’ve never spoken to her the way I want to. Why take the risk of getting
rejected by the only girl I’ve ever really wanted? And even if she did want me,
would she see me or me as the person
as what I’ve done to her parents?
I know Charlee’s
read the papers; she couldn’t have missed it.
Dexter Hollingworth was on shift as a
lift operator when the overhead wires snapped on one of the lifts at Mason’s
Ski Resort. No charges have been laid.
Charlee’s
Audi hatchback stops beside me. Darcy pops his head back in and chucks a thumb
at me then turns to whisper something to Charlee.
I take
these rare moments when I still see her around to imagine her letting her
blonde hair down and shaking it out across her face. About getting a hand into
that hair and holding her to my chest with the other. I want to know what she
smells like.
It’s as
close as I deserve to get.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.png)
.png)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.png)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.png)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.png)
Posts
