Bliss knows all about bad choices but has yet to make them herself. With an innocent heart, she searches for freedom and finds it in the delinquent down the hall.
Dusty is a foul-mouthed troublemaker, tear-maker and heartbreaker. The boy with summer sky-blue eyes knows to stay away, but he can't resist the girl who made his house a home.
She's his reason, but he might not catch her when she falls.
She loves him. He loves her crazy.
This is what happens when a love made of secrets is kept with rules instead of promises.
Front windows cracked, we’re relaxed in the back of his parents’ old Audi and it feels good again.
“Caffeine isn’t good for you, you know,” Thomas says, glancing over.
The sun has set and the purple sky and the Yaquina lighthouse paint my temperamental troublemaker in soft hues. The scent and sounds of the sea drift in with the breeze, mixing with smoke from the blunt he’s relit and the low melodies of Citizen Cope singing about a girl that won’t give in and he’ll never let go of.
Taking another drink of the coffee he bought me, I shrug. I don’t know what he said to get the baristas to make a pumpkin spice latte in February, but cinnamon and caffeine fill me with warm relief.
Under his breath and around a hit, Thomas chuckles.
“It’s bad for your bones and skin,” he says, smirking as I tuck my toes under his leg. “And your heart. Uncontrolled beats are a prelude to heart attack, princess.”
I roll my eyes and laugh some, because I do feel them. I felt them earlier in his bed, and before that, when I was thinking of him. My unsteady heartbeats have nothing to do with coffee.
“Bring on the palpitations,” I say before taking another drink, letting Dusty lecture me about bad habits, as if I’m too young to understand irony.
“I’m serious,” he continues, smoking up and blowing out. “Your body will build a tolerance. When you feel it’s becoming bad for you, you’ll want more. You’ll need more. Caffeine’s a drug, Leigh.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. Maybe I’m still high.
“Oh yeah?” I ask. “Like pot?”
This boy blows a cloud of smoke up, and I watch it swirl-spread out across the car’s ceiling.
“Pot’s from the earth,” he says, puffing smoke rings while I wrap both hands around my cup, absorbing its warmth through my palms. I inhale the cream-sweet scent of cinnamon and nutmeg and ginger, and it may be full of stimulants, but I feel calm.
Thomas’ presence is the best Valentine’s Day gift. Candy is nice, and candy flavored blunt wraps were thoughtful, but this is what I wanted most. Just us.
“Pumpkins are from the earth,” I say. “And coffee beans.”
“You think there’s real pumpkin in that?” he asks. When I can’t do more than smile and stare at his lips, he sits up straighter.
“Caffeine’s an analeptic. It fucks with your impulse control and your insulin resistance.”
I laugh because, “What?”
He pulls a hit. “That shit will give you stress hormones, Bliss.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Baseball.”
We’re quiet for a second, looking at each other. His carefreeness is back, but his smile is understated.
“You sure you’re not worried it’ll stunt my growth?”
Between licking his bottom lip and bringing the blunt back up, Dusty glances at my chest without a stitch of modesty.
“You’re growing up fine, girl.”
My cheeks heat, and I hide my smile with another drink.
After I’ve finished my coffee, Thomas offers me the blunt. When I decline, my actual addiction leans into me, nudges his hood from my head, and exhales his smoke all over my neck.
The playful punk that was lecturing me is gone. This honest to a fault, recklessly unflinching, too-beautiful, fated youth is a person only I know. This is my person.
He tosses the blunt out the window while I drop my empty cup to the floorboard, and we shift together. We kiss open and deep, claiming and binding. We kiss the way I wanted to earlier, with eyes closed and hearts open, and I know the real drug is here. It’s between us and inside us.
It’s the way he opens my lips with his lips to kiss me deeper, and the way my pulse feels like his name is in my veins.
It’s the way I can’t stay hurt or mad or jealous, and the way he can’t stand for me to.
It’s the craving that never goes away, the need for more that grows as we feed it. It’s the tolerance he was talking about and knowing he’s right.
It’s this, our secret.
We’re the drug.
Mary Elizabeth is an up and coming author who finds words in chaos, writing stories about the skeletons hanging in your closets. Known as The Realist, she is one half of The Elizabeths—a duo brave enough to never hide the truth. Born and raised in Southern California, she’s a wife, mother of four beautiful children, and dog tamer to one enthusiastic Pit Bull and a prissy Chihuahua. She’s a hairstylist by day but contemporary fiction, new adult author by night. Mary can often be found finger twirling her hair and chewing on a stick of licorice while writing and rewriting a sentence over and over until it’s perfect. She discovered her talent for tale-telling accidentally, but literature is in her stranglehold. And she’s not letting go until every story is told.
To follow Mary’s upcoming solo and collaborative projects, she can be found at her website http://www.maryelizabethlit.com/.
Brought together by their love of storytelling, Mary and Sarah Elizabeth are a pair of dedicated writers with complementary strengths who’ve cultivated a literary style that captures a Realist’s brutality with a Poet’s grace, uncovering the self-seeking side of tenderness and the undisguised truth of honesty. Inspired by the lyrics of a song, Dusty was born between emails and long G-chats before a single chapter was ever typed. A short story turned into a monster, and more than four years and several edits later, the first half of their collaboration, Innocents, will be released on July 14, 2014. And its conclusion, Delinquents, is set to release on October 23, 2014.
If you’d like to contact The Elizabeths, they can be located on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/TheElizabethsDusty?ref=hl.
Listener, messenger, secret keeper, Elizabeth, and TrueLove, Sarah works two jobs by day so that she's able to really work by night. She's written since she was old enough to hold a marker, and her writing bridges the sacred and profane, from first love to forbidden, with a longing for truth and a passion for hearts. She is currently based in Kansas City where her army is comprised of one little buffalo. Her best friends are girls named Moses and Bunny. Her hero is a boy named Bishop, and the one she loves has ocean eyes. In addition to Dusty, Sarah also has a collaborative novella, Light and Wine, due to be released on June 8th, and her solo work will be featured in the anthology Branded, this August.
Brought together by their love of storytelling, Mary and Sarah Elizabeth are a pair of dedicated writers with complementary strengths who’ve cultivated a literary style that captures a Realist’s brutality with a Poet’s grace, uncovering the self-seeking side of tenderness and the undisguised truth of honesty. Inspired by the lyrics of a song, Dusty was born between emails and long G-chats before a single chapter was ever typed. A short story turned into a monster, and more than four years and several edits later, the first half of their collaboration, Innocents, will be released on July 14, 2014. And its conclusion, Delinquents, is set to release on October 23, 2014.
If you’d like to contact The Elizabeths, they can be located on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/TheElizabethsDusty?ref=hl.
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I read Dusty when it was a fanfic and then it was the best thing I have ever read. I have been waiting YEARS to finally get the story published and refreshed. It is the most amazing book I have ever read. This book does something to you emotionally and mentally. It's so real and honest it feels like you are catapulted into the story with Dusty and Bliss and the rest of the gang. You actually feel like you are there and living it. Your heart bleeds for these characters you have become to so close with. Mary and Sarah are literary geniuses and Dusty is the epitome of manipulation, lust,greed,addiction and so much more.
We meet Bliss when she is a little girl starting over at a new school and she is literally almost ran over by Becka, who later becomes her best friend. That is also when she meets 'him' Dusty. From the very moment Bliss meets Dusty they have this instant pull and over the years is becomes more present and starts to develop into something more than brother and sisterly love. But as Dusty grows into a young man we see the many struggles youth often go through. It was realistic, he made me think of my teen years and all the crazy shit I did. You can relate to the characters and what they go through. You are often yelling at them and pissed off. Many times I get so mad at Bliss, why do you take his shit? why don't you leave, and then I get mad when she doesn't want to come forth with the relationship and that makes Dusty spiral even deeper down the rabbit hole. But I understand, she is young, naive, in love and doesn't know better. She is full of guilt and shame and doesn't know what to do. And Dusty, that sexy delinquent is a pain in the ass most days. What he puts Bliss through breaks your heart. What he goes through breaks your heart. Knowing he is the way he is because of all he has went through is something no one should ever go through. He doesn't help matters and neither does Bliss. But these two are meant to be together. They love each other, they are just young and need to learn the right way to love and being a healthy relationship. By the end of this book I am getting more and more proud of Bliss and I just want everyone happy and healthy. This book is one of the most amazing, touching and real books I have ever read and I honestly think everyone will love it as much as I do. Cannot wait for October and Dusty #2!
Could not put it down once I started. Be prepared to laugh, cry and get frustrated. And be prepared to fall irrevocably in love with Dusty, Bliss and their story of love and heart break <3
"But it's too late to call him Filthy, because he's already Dusty."
"We don't pull wings off butterflies." ( I may or may not have this tattooed on my body ;-) it`s totally worth it!
"Tell me a secret." "I love you."
"You're my safe spot." "You have my heart. There's nothing else."
"She's my softer side, and I'm her motherfucking monster."
"I'm not afraid of your china-muffin. I'll touch it." ( bahahaha I love Becka! one of my most favorite characters in the book! )
We meet Bliss when she is a little girl starting over at a new school and she is literally almost ran over by Becka, who later becomes her best friend. That is also when she meets 'him' Dusty. From the very moment Bliss meets Dusty they have this instant pull and over the years is becomes more present and starts to develop into something more than brother and sisterly love. But as Dusty grows into a young man we see the many struggles youth often go through. It was realistic, he made me think of my teen years and all the crazy shit I did. You can relate to the characters and what they go through. You are often yelling at them and pissed off. Many times I get so mad at Bliss, why do you take his shit? why don't you leave, and then I get mad when she doesn't want to come forth with the relationship and that makes Dusty spiral even deeper down the rabbit hole. But I understand, she is young, naive, in love and doesn't know better. She is full of guilt and shame and doesn't know what to do. And Dusty, that sexy delinquent is a pain in the ass most days. What he puts Bliss through breaks your heart. What he goes through breaks your heart. Knowing he is the way he is because of all he has went through is something no one should ever go through. He doesn't help matters and neither does Bliss. But these two are meant to be together. They love each other, they are just young and need to learn the right way to love and being a healthy relationship. By the end of this book I am getting more and more proud of Bliss and I just want everyone happy and healthy. This book is one of the most amazing, touching and real books I have ever read and I honestly think everyone will love it as much as I do. Cannot wait for October and Dusty #2!
Could not put it down once I started. Be prepared to laugh, cry and get frustrated. And be prepared to fall irrevocably in love with Dusty, Bliss and their story of love and heart break <3
"But it's too late to call him Filthy, because he's already Dusty."
"We don't pull wings off butterflies." ( I may or may not have this tattooed on my body ;-) it`s totally worth it!
"Tell me a secret." "I love you."
"You're my safe spot." "You have my heart. There's nothing else."
"She's my softer side, and I'm her motherfucking monster."
"I'm not afraid of your china-muffin. I'll touch it." ( bahahaha I love Becka! one of my most favorite characters in the book! )