The Year I Became Isabella Anders (Sunnyvale, #1)

“So, you’re still obsessed with him, huh?” Kai asks, jostling me of my Kyler Lust Trance.

“What . . . no . . . I’m not . . .” My cheeks erupt in flames, but fortunately, it’s dark enough that there’s no way Kai can see my mortification.

“Relax, Isa.” He pats my uninjured knee, all buddy, buddy like. “It’s not really that big of a secret.”

I frown. “But it makes me sound pathetic. Obsessing over some guy for years, who I have no chance in hell of ever going out with.”

“Why don’t you have a chance?” he asks, genuinely baffled.

“Um, because I’m me.”

“Yeah, so? He asked you to his football game, didn’t he?”

“I guess he did.” I replay the two second conversation I had with Kyler in the kitchen, trying to remember if when he asked me, he was sending out date vibes. But I have zilch experience in the boyfriend department. “You think he was asking me out?”

“Probably.” Irritation creeps into his tone. “He’s shallow enough that he would.”

“Why would him asking me out make him shallow?” I ask, offended.

“Because he doesn’t know you, which means he was only asking you out based on the fact that he thinks you’re hot now.”

“That’s kind of harsh. Maybe he knows me and likes me.”

“How could he possibly know you?” Kai asks, flipping the blinker. “You two haven’t ever talked.”

“We hung out a couple of times when I taught him how to improve his free throw shots, and he used to stop Hannah from picking on me,” I tell Kai. “There was this one time when he even stopped his own friends from picking on me. A couple of his football buddies had me cornered, because Hannah basically had a choke collar on them. He came up and said something about them being late for practice so they’d have to leave.”

“He should have called them out on what they were doing, not just fed them a lame-ass excuse to make them stop without making himself look bad.” He makes another turn, this time down a street lined with single-story, seventies-style homes.

“You didn’t do that for me either.” I clench my hands into fists as they begin to tremble.

I hate memory lane. Let’s not go there ever again.

“Yeah, well I was a fucking asshole back then. Still am most of the time, but I don’t want to be when I’m around you.” He parks the car on a curb at the end of a very long line of vehicles. “My brother, on the other hand, walks around pretending he’s all high and mighty, when really, he’s a fucking arrogant prick who always puts himself first.” He slides the keys out of the ignition. “You may not want to believe this, but you’re too sweet and smart for Kyler. It’ll never work out.” He shoves open the door to get out. “He’d be better off with your sister. The two of them are pretty much the same, except your sister doesn’t give a shit that people think she’s a douche.”

With that, he climbs out of the car, leaving me to wonder if he’s right. Could Kyler really be the asshole Kai seems to think he is?

I shake my head. No, there’s no way. Not when he’s always been so nice to me. Plus, I know he doesn’t want to be the guy he is now; like he told me on the porch that day years ago, he wishes he could be different.

I don’t care what Kai says. I’m not giving up on my Kyler dream just yet. I want to see where it goes. If it’s an epic fail, then at least I’ll know, and then I can finally move on.





I’VE SEEN A ton of movies that featured high school parties. I figured the rowdy, loud music and tons of people crammed into a house were Hollywood’s played-up versions, but when I catch sight of the single-story home the party is taking place at, I start to think the movies nailed it dead on.

The small living room is jam-packed with a sweaty, unruly, stupidly silly drunk people. Music is booming and vibrates the floors. The smell of sweat, beer, and cigarette smoke laces the air, and I’m pretty sure I just stepped in a puddle that I think might be urine.

“Ew!” I shiver as I stare down at the yellow puddle on the linoleum floor.

I’m distracted just long enough by the grossness that when I look up, I’ve lost Kai in the crowd. I stand on my tiptoes, panicking as my gaze surfs the crowd. There’s just too many people to tell who’s who.

“I’m never going to find him.” Those old feelings of ridicule sneak up on me, and I hug my arms around myself, noting every glance in my direction.

They have to be staring at me. And you want to know why, Isabella? Because they know you don’t belong here.

“Hey, I know you, right?” Bradon, Kai’s friend, and the guy throwing this shindig, stumbles through the crowd and stops in front of me. He has overly long hair, his eyes are red, and his clothes smell like smoke with a kick. “You’re that chick from my school.”

I want to point out there’s a lot of chicks who go to our school, but I’m guessing I’ll probably just confuse him. “Yeah, sure.”