Free TROUBLE, A New Adult Romance Novel (The Rebel Series) by Elle Casey

but I’m definitely wiser.   I’m so wise now I feel like I’m a hundred years old.
    Quin ignores Teagan’s advice.   “She doesn’t need another minute.   She’s had tons of minutes.   Hours.   Days.   Weeks!   Listen up, Alissa.   You better unlock this door and come out here with your lady-balls on and talk to us.   You’re acting like a child and you’re about to give birth to one. Time to grow up and act like a fucking adult.”
    I wish the door opened out so I could smack her in the forehead with it.   “I am an adult, Quin, unlike some people around here who can’t speak a single sentence without swearing.”
    “Oh, for chrissake, would you get off your high horse already? Who gives a fuck about a few cuss words?   They don’t mean shit.   Just get out here and talk.   Stop playing the fucking martyr and trying to get everyone to join your stupid pity party.   No one’s interested anymore.”
    That last line is what does it.   I was strong and angry and full of righteous indignation until she said that.   Now all I want to do is find a razor or a bottle of pills.   She’s right.   No one is interested in me or my life or my problems.   Why am I even here?
    I stand up and take a step over to the mirror.   Staring at my reflection, I try to see what anyone else might see.   Ratty, thin brown hair that hasn’t been properly brushed or styled in weeks, with bangs that hang way too low on my face.   Sunken, dark blue eyes with matching smudges underneath.   Pale skin.   Fat, pale lips that used to be my pride and joy but now look chapped and too big for my face.   Arms puffy and blotchy.   Chewed off fingernails, no good for fighting anyone off.   And a great, big, giant watermelon belly.   My eyes scan the shelves, looking for pharmaceuticals.
    And then the baby moves.   I see it happening in the mirror.   My belly bulges out one way and then the next as she rolls around inside me.   My hand brushes over the front of me, my fingers bumping over my bellybutton.   Something, maybe a hand or a foot, pushes out directly under my palm.   I feel like she’s talking to me.   Telling me that she’s there.   Giving me a teeny, tiny high-five.
    Tears come, first just a trickle and then a waterfall.   I see a bottle of pills and swipe it off the shelf, sending it flying across the bathroom and into the shower stall.   I cannot believe I almost considered taking them and ending not just my life but hers.   What kind of monster am I?
    I collapse onto the floor, sobs overtaking me.   My life is over, but hers is just beginning. How am I ever going to be able to take care of her … to show her right from wrong … to teach her to be a confident girl who won’t get stuck in situations she can’t get herself out of, when I can’t even do that for myself?

CHAPTER NINE

    I DON’T KNOW HOW LONG it is that I’m in the bathroom losing my mind.   Maybe it’s ten minutes.   Maybe it’s two hours.   There’s no way for me to grasp the time since I have no window, no watch, and no phone.   Besides, my brain is elsewhere.   All I can do is think about my failures and the doom and gloom that is my future and the future of my baby.
    The door opens somehow and pushes against me. There’s scrambling sounds and then Teagan’s head comes around the corner.   “You need to get up so we can open the door all the way without hurting you.”
    I just push against it weakly, shaking my head.   I don’t have the strength to do anything else.
    Her head disappears and a few seconds later another one comes through the door.
    Blonde hair.
    Green eyes.
    Worry.
    “Liss … you need to move so I can come in.”
    I panic.   “Colin, God, go away!”   I wipe my face off, desperately hoping that I don’t have goop on my face that he can see.
    “Not a chance.   Open up or I’m going to have to take the door off the hinges.”
    Humiliation surges through me.   As if I’m not trouble