Finding Forever (2 page)

Birthday bliss. Taylor Prince pinched her eyes shut and punched her hands skyward, soaking in her final hours of being fifteen. Dancing on her packed pool deck, feeling the music, she shook off all the dramas that came with being a world-famous movie star.

Yet she didn't party recklessly—the last thing she wanted was to unravel the interlaced princess side braid that snaked down the side of her neck. The crisscross weave had taken her over an hour of mirror-assisted trial and error to get just right. Like nearly every style Taylor tried, she wore the hairdo well. Very well.

But as Taylor had long ago learned, looking great was usually a lot easier to achieve than feeling great.

Taylor did her best to ignore the stresses that consumed most party hostesses:
Is everyone having fun? . . . Will the late-night taco truck come on time? . . . Is my makeup holding up in the humidity? . . . Are the old-fart neighbors down the canyon going to call the cops again? . . . Will Evan make a surprise appearance and give me a much needed birthday kiss?

Instead of worrying, she smiled, drew in a breath, and watched as the orange haze morphed into the kind of planetary purple that made So Cal sunsets the stuff of legend.

This is everything I dreamed of . . .

Being a celebrity meant saying yes to a lot of things she'd rather not do. But not on this Saturday night. Taylor had made it this far playing by the rules of the Hollywood fame game, and she believed she had finally earned the right to say:

No reporters.

No fans.

No agent.

No manager.

No publicist.

No party planner.

No bodyguards.

No directors.

No scripts.

No studio execs.

No cameras.

No Twitter.

No Snapchat.

No Instagram.

No worries.

No problems.

These were birthday desires that Taylor hoped would become a Sweet Sixteen dream.

“All rise.”

Brooklyn Brant, who was by at least two decades the youngest of the worshippers scattered around the mostly empty church, followed Father McGavin's command and stood at her pew. After a brief prayer, she made the sign of the cross in front of her chest, sat down, and folded her hands in her lap.

“Now, a reading,” the priest announced, “from the book of Job.”

Brooklyn pulled a black paperback Bible from the bench slot in front of her. When she was a little kid, Brooklyn's bright-blue eyes had been known to close in the resting position (aka a mid-sermon nap). Her long, straw-straight red hair used to veil her eyes, but such clandestine snoozing could no longer go unnoticed since she now wore her bangs cut short.

But tonight Brooklyn wasn't bored. She did, however, lack the one thing she very much needed: direction. She had come seeking, wanting an answer . . . a message . . . a sign. Anything would do. From God. Maybe even from her late father.

Most
normal
sixteen-year-olds in Twin Oaks spent their Saturday nights doing things like going to movies, attending house parties, blowing their allowances on useless junk at Wal-Mart, obsessively stalking boys on social media, or even going on actual IRL dates. Not Brooklyn. Lately she almost always spent her Saturday evenings alone in church, usually followed by a late night hunched over her laptop updating her celebrity news blog,
DeadlineDiaries.com
. Though it meant some lonely nights, Brooklyn felt a sense of pride in being anything but normal.