Sight Words: a small town romance (Sensations Collection Book 5) Read online

  www.lbdunbar.com

  Sight Words © 2015 Laura Dunbar

  L.B. Dunbar Writes, Ltd.

  www.lbdunbar.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owner.

  2018 Cover Design: Shannon Passmore/Shanoff Designs

  Original Editor: Jaimie Rivale

  Table of Contents

  Other books by L.B. Dunbar

  Dedication

  Lesson 1

  Lesson 2

  Lesson 3

  Lesson 4

  Lesson 5

  Lesson 6

  Lesson 7

  Lesson 8

  Lesson 9

  Lesson 10

  Lesson 11

  Lesson 12

  Lesson 13

  Lesson 14

  Lesson 15

  Lesson 16

  Lesson 17

  Lesson 18

  Lesson 19

  Lesson 20

  Lesson 21

  Lesson 22

  Lesson 23

  Lesson 24

  Lesson 25

  Lesson 26

  Lesson 27

  Lesson 28

  Lesson 29

  Lesson 30

  Lesson 31

  Lesson 32

  Lesson 33

  Lesson 34

  Lesson 35

  Lesson 36

  Lesson 37

  Lesson 38

  Lesson 39

  Lesson 40

  Lesson 41

  Lesson 42

  Lesson 43

  Lesson 44

  Lesson 45

  Lesson 46

  Lesson 47

  Lesson 48

  Lesson 49

  Lesson 50

  Lesson 51

  Lesson 52

  Lesson 53

  Lesson 54

  Lesson 55

  Lesson 56

  Lesson 57

  Lesson 58

  Lesson 59

  Lesson 60

  Lesson 61

  Lesson 62

  Lesson 63

  Lesson 64

  Lesson 65

  Lesson 66

  The Greatest Lesson

  More by L.B. Dunbar

  Keep in touch with L.B. Dunbar

  Little Nibble of The History in Us

  (L)ittle (B)lessings

  Playlist

  About the Author

  Other books by L.B. Dunbar

  Silver Fox Former Rock Stars

  After Care

  Midlife Crisis

  Restored Dreams

  Rom-com for the over 40

  The Sex Education of M.E.

  The Sensations Collection

  Sound Advice

  Taste Test

  Fragrance Free

  Touch Screen

  Sight Words

  Spin-off Standalone

  The History in Us

  The Legendary Rock Star Series

  The Legend of Arturo King

  The Story of Lansing Lotte

  The Quest of Perkins Vale

  The Truth of Tristan Lyons

  The Trials of Guinevere DeGrance

  Paradise Duet

  Abel

  Cain

  The Island Duet

  Redemption Island

  Return to the Island

  Modern Descendants – writing as elda lore

  Hades

  Solis

  Heph

  Dedication

  To my students: past, present and future.

  Always write from the heart, and the head.

  * * *

  When I told a certain someone the premise of this story, he laughed at it.

  “Why would you write that?” he asked. I immediately felt defensive.

  Leon, Israel, Magdalena, and Amaryllis Ramirez represent a very real population of students. My students. Their fictional stories might be a combination of reality that is twisted and turned to protect the identity of those who have lived these lives. It fits my re-telling that in no way trivializes their actual reality. There are young people who take on the responsibility of leading and protecting their families at too young an age. There are still girls who believe a man is their only means of survival and having a baby too young is their ultimate goal. There are plenty of students who cannot read and write, yet advance grades. Often this is not due to a mental disability, but to a language barrier that is not addressed and respected. And finally, there are students who die from gang warfare, either through intentional murder or mistakenly caught in the crossfire. No matter how you slice up and rework the stories, they are very real to some.

  I’d like to believe that as a teacher I have helped someone along the journey; be it a kind word or small smile of encouragement, supportive praise for hard work, or a listening ear when life seems too tough. I’d love to think I’ve impressed upon the young the importance of reading and writing as well as the joy of it, but I can’t say with one-hundred percent conviction that my enthusiastic enjoyment of both subjects rubbed off on all students. I can’t say that my firm belief that education leads to greater success was swallowed by every one of the students who passed through my classrooms. I can say the greatest words I ever heard were “I love Shakespeare,” and the saddest words I’ve ever read were those of lost parents, through divorce, incarceration, or death through suicide or natural causes. Children do not choose their parents. They did not select the life they are dealt, but they do have choices: to accept the challenge to change their fate, or succumb to it. The road less travelled is hard, but I believe those who take it find the rewards are many. At least for the real Ramirezes of the world, I hope it has resulted in a bounty of intelligence, family, and love.

  Lesson 1

  Tricia

  “We broke up,” I told my older sister, Pam.

  It was quite a simple sentence. Quite a simple concept.

  Break up. To separate. To break into pieces.

  I didn’t understand why Pam couldn’t get it. She had been the queen of heartbreak in high school. Running around with numerous boys to flirt and to…well, other things…and she should appreciate the fact that sometimes things do not last.

  “I don’t understand. What happened?” Pam asked.

  I didn’t want to sound like a silly teenager. I would never admit the truth, but what I wanted was a romance. While Pam was the wild one, running around with different boys every other weekend, I was the one who believed in long term commitment. I was the romantic one who believed in one true love. And Trent Walker was not it.

  He wasn’t romantic. He wasn’t even chivalrous or courteous. He was a boy in a twenty-five-year old man’s body and all he wanted to do were stereotypical male things. Hunt. Fish. Hang with the guys. He enjoyed girls in a practical sense. We had sex, but there was definitely something missing in that department, which caused all the trouble to end our relationship. And although I had only had two real boyfriends in my
life, and was no expert like Pam, I was sure there had to be something other than what I’d experienced with Trent, or else I just didn’t see what the big deal was.

  “We just didn’t…fit.” I decided that was the right term.

  Fit. To put together. To connect.

  I didn’t understand what Pam didn’t understand. She should know now. She had Jacob. They fit. They were perfect together. Jacob was a secret knight in shining armor who rescued Pam from this small town, even if they still lived in Elk Rapids. As a writer of horror novels, Jacob found inspiration in the hidden woods off Lake Michigan in northern Michigan. Pam had been his personal assistant in a sense, and after years of fighting their attraction, Jacob finally admitted his desire for Pam. Now they were having a baby and would be married shortly afterwards. It was all very romantic to me.

  I didn’t have unrealistic ideals about romance, though. I knew it wasn’t a vampire waiting a thousand years, or a billionaire studying a stumbling girl, or even a sexy businessman attracting his assistant. Those romances were for novels. What I would have liked was some consideration that I was a woman who had needs and thoughts and feelings. I wanted to do girl things occasionally, like see a chick flick, dance at a club, or drink wine over candlelight once in a while. Even once would have been nice.

  With Trent, those things weren’t an option unless I wanted to listen to him complain the whole time during, or shortly after, any special occasion I tried to plan. I recalled with misery our trip to Chicago a year ago this same season. He criticized the weather, the expense, and the attractions. Whatever way I wanted things, I would pay the price, and after two years it just wasn’t worth it anymore for me. Not to mention he had given me the perfect reason to get out of the relationship.

  “He seemed so perfect for you,” Pam interjected.

  Perfect. Obtaining in perfection.

  It didn’t seem possible that anyone would be perfect for me, and Trent was not even close to it. Here was another problem with him: the community was charmed by him, including my family. They thought he was a nice guy, which I had to admit was true to an extent. He was pleasant to others. He would go out of his way for his friends. He did what his own family asked of him. But he wasn’t always that way toward me.

  Another problem was that Trent saw me as more of a pal. He seemed to like hanging out with me. I enjoyed sports, had played them all my life. I had the physique to prove my athleticism, but I was still a girl. I wanted someone who would remember that about me.

  “You’ve been together for so long, though. How could you have stayed with him if it wasn’t going to work?”

  This is what Pam didn’t comprehend and I did. Prior to Jacob, Pam’s love life had been one-night-stands and brief summer flings. She didn’t understand the concept of committing to someone and sticking with that person through good and bad without predicting the outcome of the relationship. She didn’t have committed relationships, and if it hadn’t been for Jacob, I wasn’t sure Pam ever would have stuck with one man. But something must have clicked.

  Click. A snapping sound. Or to understand something, as in figuratively, to suddenly make sense.

  “After two years, I could see we weren’t going to get married. I’m almost twenty-five, and he already is, and there was no point to keep going if nothing further was going to happen in our relationship.”

  Pam just shook her head as if to submit to my reasoning, and I was grateful because I didn’t want to share the additional reason I left Trent. I promised him. Although I didn’t feel I owed him anything, I didn’t want to go back on my word. I was done with this conversation.

  It wasn’t like Pam and I were particularly close as sisters. She had always been a little bit of the odd-sheep in the family. Not a black sheep, but different. She was smart and beautiful in her own way, but just unique from the rest of us Carters. She wasn’t tall like our brothers, Tom and Jess. Although Pam’s hair was the same color and almost the same length as our brother Jess’, that was their only similarity. He was long and lean, while she was short and curvy. Compared to Pam, my five-seven height made me seem like an Amazon with thin features. In addition, Pam also was the one that seemed to be favored by our father. Although all we Carter children loved the man, he had a special relationship with his third child, Pam.

  I wasn’t resentful of that relationship. Our father was dead now. A sudden massive heart attack in the night, and my mother became a widow in her early fifties. It had been my father that insisted that I take a year off before college and live with Jess when his wife left him and their small daughter, Katie. Pam had one year left of regular college; Jess was completing his master’s degree. I had graduated from high school and was a young seventeen-year old. As Katie’s aunt, I played surrogate mother for almost a year. When our father died the following spring, I was away in Detroit, helping Jess. It was decided we would all come home to Elk Rapids.

  Home is where I had been ever since. I went to college locally and obtained my teaching degree. I wanted to teach middle school, which people couldn’t understand. Originally, I had taken a job as a first grade teacher, which I couldn’t understand. It was hard work to be with the little ones all day, and I found it difficult to wipe noses, teach counting, and read alphabet books with the students. When the position at the middle school arose, and I could become a sixth grade teacher instead, I took the job.

  When my brother got married, for the second time I might add, I realized that my relationship wasn’t going anywhere with Trent. It was time for another change in my life. We were beginning to fight constantly about the status of our relationship and the unplanned future. While Trent wanted things to remain the same, I thought it should move to the next level. In hindsight, I was glad it hadn’t, though. I felt that the lack of an engagement ring was a sign that marriage to Trent Walker was not a good idea.

  I had it all: new job, new single status. New living arrangement? The last one I hadn’t quite obtained yet. I loved my mother. Mary Carter was an easy roommate as far as mothers went, but I was just tired of being in my mother’s home. I could have blamed the falling apart of my relationship with Trent on the fact that I still lived at home. We hardly ever had privacy. But he still lived at home as well and didn’t seem in any real hurry to move out of his dad’s house; there was no Mrs. Walker. This last change was yet to come for me, but I was saving my money this year. I had finished my master’s degree online and through extension learning courses over the summer. Although I got a late start at attending college, I graduated on time by taking summer classes. At twenty-four, I moved up the pay scale slightly with the new degree and another year of experience as a public school teacher at the middle school.

  Which was where this conversation with Pam was taking place, as she was supposed to be helping me set up my new classroom for the school year. A new year for teachers didn’t begin in January, but in September, and all Pam had been doing was complaining of the heat and fanning herself with a manila file folder. At four months pregnant, Pam seemed to have popped in the last week and was growing daily. I wasn’t sure her smaller frame could handle a large baby, and Pam looked like a soccer ball was emerging from the front of her.

  “Well, I guess it’s time for a new stud, though I don’t know where you’re going to find one in this town. Or this job,” Pam said, dropping the manila folder onto the table with a slap.

  She was right. In a town of around one thousand residents, Elk Rapids was filled with more elderly people and retirees than young people. The surrounding area was full of families that filled the schools with children and made the district highly reputable. On that same note, though, the only men I met were typically married, as fathers of my students. I had only encountered two single fathers in the last three years, and one of them had been my own brother. The selection and opportunity wasn’t large, but finding a man was the last thing on my mind at the moment.

  “I think I’ll be okay alone for a while. It’s been a long time since it’s b
een only me,” I said, and I gave my sister a look, knowing that Pam would remember.

  I thought back to my college sweetheart, whom I also thought would be the love of my life. We had a passionate relationship my junior and senior year at the university. When he graduated a year before I completed my studies, he declared his undying love for me. Then he ran off with his younger sister’s best friend to marry her instead. I was devastated, but began dating Trent a few months later. He was supposed to be my rebound man, as Pam had called him at first. Two years later, the rebound was still happening. Until a week ago.

  Four solid years of failed relationships, and I meant what I said. I was looking forward to being alone, and doing things to please me, instead of pleasing others. Single white female seeks freedom.

  Lesson 2

  Leon

  I’m completely trapped, I thought to myself for the hundredth time as I bounced the basketball, did a fake to no one, and turned for the shot.

  Swoosh, went the synthetic rope net against the fiberglass backboard.

  I rebound my own ball and dribbled to the middle of the open court. I had to give the small town one credit: it had decent outdoor courts. Nice boards, smooth cement, solid hoops. Not like back home. Home.

  I couldn’t think of Chicago. I felt like I had entered an alternate universe being here in this backwoods lake town in northern Michigan. And not only was I in this small town without my home-boys, but I was stuck without my parents.

  You’re the man of this family for now, Leon. We expect you to act like it, my father had said to me as he boarded the bus to return to Mexico. Boarded might not have been the correct term. Forced. Coerced. Deported. Those were better terms for getting on that bus. My parents were illegal aliens. My father believed he could straighten it all out in Mexico and that they would be back soon.

  I knew the seriousness of the situation when my father called me by my given name, Leon. No one called me that. Once the Kings of Leon became a popular band, and my friends had too much tequila, I became King, singular, of Leon. Eventually it deferred to King.