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

I take a few measured breaths then flop onto my bed and hug Mr. Scribbles, a teddy bear my dad won for me at a carnival when I was about five. It was during the one and only birthday he and I spent together. The day had been absolutely magical, full of spun sugar, bright lights, and the chiming of games. I felt like I was floating on clouds until we got back to the house, and my mom yelled at him for over an hour because he missed one of Hannah’s beauty pageants. The only way she let him off the hook was when he promised that he would, “never do such a selfish thing again.” That was around the same time he stopped making eye contact with me.

I set the bear down and roll over on my stomach, battling back the tears as I work on my comic book drawing. It’s one of my personal favorites, mostly because it stars my alter ego, who’s much more ballsy than me. I have a sidekick, too, a woman who I sometimes like to pretend is my mom. She treats me fantastically and always tells me, Great job! every time I kick ass. I actually draw the woman a lot; she’s been stuck in my head for as long as I can remember. Sometimes she even makes appearances in my daydreams, where she takes me to movies, out shopping, and sometimes we just spend the entire day riding the Ferris wheel. She never gets angry with me or makes me feel small and insignificant. She even tells me she loves me.

I wipe a few stray tears from my cheeks and close my sketchbook. I’ve trained myself pretty well not to get too emotional over the stuff they say to me—especially my mom—but I’m not a super robot immune to such human emotion. I’m a seventeen-year-old girl who knows she’s not the best daughter, who, yeah, tests her parents’ patience a lot, and probably spends way too much time drawing comics and watching cartoons. But I still want to, just once, hear them say I love you.

My dad said it a couple of times when I was younger, but it’s been a while. And I’m almost sure my mom has at some point, but it’s been so long I can’t remember. I’ve started to fear maybe there’s something wrong with me that makes me so unlovable.

“It’s not you. It’s them,” I try to convince myself as I curl into a ball with the teddy bear.

But as I lie by myself in my room, something I do almost every day, I have to wonder if I’m wrong.

Maybe there really is something wrong with me.





MY DAD WAS right. My Grandma Stephy does want me to go overseas with her.

“Are you sure you don’t mind if I go with you?” I ask her the next morning before I head to school.

“Why the hell would I?” she asks, being her blunt, doesn’t-give-a-shit self. “Besides, if you go, then I’ll have someone young and fun to hang out with other than those old biddies.”

“Wait? Old biddies? Who are we going with?” I dig through my dresser, looking for a clean t-shirt, but can’t find one, so I end up rummaging one out of the hamper.

“The rest of the Sunnyvale Bay Community.”

“So a bunch of old people?” My mood deflates. But then I remind myself it doesn’t really matter who I’ll be going with. Anything is better than being home.

“Hey, I’m not old!” she argues. “Not even close.”

“Sorry.” I grab my sneakers from the closet. “I didn’t mean you. I know you’re not old.”

“Good girl,” she says. “Now, make sure to pack light. I don’t want to be hauling around a bunch of clothes, shoes, and shit we don’t need. Makes the suitcases too heavy and hurts my back.”

“All right, I will. And thanks again for letting me go with you.”

“I’m glad you’re going, Isa. We’re going to have a lot of fun.”

After I say goodbye, I hang up, change my shirt, and put on my sneakers. Then I run a brush through my tangled hair, pick up my bag, and head for the door to go to school, wondering what I’ve gotten myself into. Going on a trip overseas sounds like a blast, and I can handle going with Grandma Stephy. But going with an entire a group of senior citizens . . . I wonder if I’ll be the only teenager there.

Oh, well. Doesn’t really matter. I don’t exactly have a choice. So, I might as well make the best of the situation. And hey, maybe the break from my family will be a good opportunity to do some soul searching without the worry of being scrutinized.



Over the next few days, I finish final exams during the day while packing my bags at night. I spend a whole five minutes saying goodbye to the few friends I have, but I’m not super close with anyone, and the see-ya-laters are a depressing reminder of just how much of a loner I am.

My parents go back to barely speaking to me, although my sister’s been overly chatty. She even convinced her Cheer Posse to do a cheer for me while I was walking across the gym, and then they laughed at me. I still don’t really understand why they were laughing. They were the ones who looked like morons bouncing around with pom-poms and chanting a cheer, where they rhymed dork with joke and spelled my name with a z.

By the time I’m actually loading up my stuff to go to my grandma’s, I’m stoked to be getting away for a while, even if it’s on a three-month trip with people five times my age.

“Do you have everything you need?” my dad asks me as he loads the last of my suitcases into the back of our SUV.

I nod, staring at the front window of the house, where my mother is watching me with her arms crossed. “I should probably go say goodbye to her, right?”