November 9: A Novel
Read November 9: A Novel Online
Authors: Colleen Hoover
Tags: #Romance, #Contemporary, #New Adult & College
9
Also by Colleen Hoover
Slammed
Point of Retreat
This Girl
Hopeless
Losing Hope
Finding Cinderella
Maybe Someday
Ugly Love
Maybe Not
Confess
First published in the USA by Atria, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2015
This edition first published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2015
A CBS COMPANY
Copyright © Colleen Hoover, 2015
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.
The right of Colleen Hoover to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
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Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4711-5462-1
eBook ISBN: 978-1-4711-5463-8
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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To Levi—
You have great taste in music and your hugs are awkward.
Never change.
First November
9
th
I am translucent, aquatic.
Drifting, aimless.
She is an anchor, sinking in my sea.
—B
ENTON
J
AMES
K
ESSLER
I wonder what kind of sound it would make if I were to smash this glass against the side of his head.
It’s a thick glass. His head is hard. The potential for a nice big THUD is there.
I wonder if he would bleed. There are napkins on the table, but not the good kind that could soak up a lot of blood.
“So, yeah. I’m a little shocked, but it’s happening,” he says.
His voice causes my grip to tighten around the glass in hopes that it stays in my hand and doesn’t actually end up against the side of his skull.
“Fallon?” He clears his throat and tries to soften his words, but they still come at me like knives. “Are you going to say anything?”
I stab the hollow part of an ice cube with my straw, imagining that it’s his head.
“What am I supposed to say?” I mumble, resembling a bratty child, rather than the eighteen-year-old adult that I am. “Do you want me to
congratulate
you?”
My back meets the booth behind me and I fold my arms across my chest. I look at him and wonder if the regret I see in his eyes is a result of disappointing me or if he’s simply acting again. It’s only been five minutes since he sat down, and he’s already turned his side of the booth into his stage. And once again, I’m forced to be his audience.
His fingers drum the sides of his coffee cup as he watches me silently for several beats.
Taptaptap.
Taptaptap.
Taptaptap.
He thinks I’ll eventually give in and tell him what he wants to hear, but he hasn’t been around me enough in the last two years to know that I’m not that girl anymore.
When I refuse to acknowledge his performance, he eventually sighs and drops his elbows to the table. “Well, I thought you’d be happy for me.”
I force a quick shake of my head. “
Happy
for you?”
He can’t be serious.
He shrugs, and a smug smile takes over his already irritating expression. “I didn’t know I had it in me to become a father again.”
A loud burst of disbelieving laughter escapes my mouth. “Releasing sperm into the vagina of a twenty-four-year-old does not a father make,” I say, somewhat bitterly.
His smug smile disappears, and he leans back and cocks his head to the side. The head-cock was always his go-to move when he wasn’t sure how to react onscreen.
“Just look like you’re contemplating something deep and it’ll pass for almost any emotion. Sad, introspective, apologetic, sympathetic.”
He must not recall that he was my acting coach for most of my life, and this look was one of the first he taught me.
“You don’t think I have the right to call myself a father?” He sounds offended by my response. “What does that make me to you, then?”
I treat his question as rhetorical and stab at another piece of ice. I skillfully slip it up my straw and then slide the piece of ice into my mouth. I bite into it with a loud, uncaring crunch. Surely he doesn’t expect me to answer that question. He hasn’t been a “father” since the night my acting career came to a standstill when I was just sixteen. And if I’m being honest with myself, I’m not even sure he was much of a father
before
that night, either. We were more like acting coach and student.
One of his hands finds its way through the expensive implanted follicles of hair that line his forehead. “Why are you doing this?” He’s becoming increasingly annoyed with my attitude by the second. “Are you still pissed that I didn’t show up for your graduation? I already told you, I had a scheduling conflict.”
“No,” I reply evenly. “I didn’t
invite
you to my graduation.”
He pulls back, looking at me incredulously. “Why not?”
“I only had four tickets.”
“And?”
he says. “I’m your
father
. Why the hell wouldn’t you invite me to your high school graduation?”
“You wouldn’t have come.”
“You don’t know that,” he fires back.
“You
didn’t
come.”
He rolls his eyes. “Well of course I didn’t, Fallon. I wasn’t
invited
.”
I sigh heavily. “You’re impossible. Now I understand why Mom left you.”
He gives his head a slight shake. “Your mother left me because I slept with her best friend. My personality had nothing to do with it.”
I don’t even know what to say to that. The man has absolutely zero remorse. I both hate and envy it. In a way, I wish I were more like him and less like my mother. He’s oblivious to his many flaws, whereas mine are the focal point of my life. My flaws are what wake me up in the morning and what keep me awake every night.
“Who had the salmon?” the waiter asks. Impeccable timing.
I lift my hand, and he sets my plate in front of me. I don’t even have an appetite anymore, so I scoot the rice around with my fork.
“Hey, wait a second.” I look up at the waiter, but he isn’t addressing his comment at me. He’s staring intently at my father. “Are you . . .”
Oh, God. Here we go.
The waiter slaps his hand on the table and I flinch. “You
are!
You’re Donovan O’Neil! You played Max Epcott!”
My father shrugs modestly, but I know there isn’t a modest thing about this man. Even though he hasn’t played the role of Max Epcott since the show went off the air ten years ago, he still acts like it’s the biggest thing on television. And people who recognize him are the reason he still responds this way. They act like they’ve never seen an actor in real life before. This is L.A., for Christ’s sake! Everyone here is an actor!
My stabbing mood continues as I spear at my salmon with my fork, but then the waiter interrupts to ask if I’ll take a picture of the two of them.
Sigh.
I begrudgingly slide out of the booth. He tries to hand me his phone for the picture, but I hold up my hand in protest and proceed to walk around him.
“I need to use the restroom,” I mutter, walking away from the booth. “Just take a selfie with him. He loves selfies.”
I rush toward the restroom to find a moment of reprieve from my father. I don’t know why I asked him to meet me today. It could be because I’m moving and I won’t see him for God knows how long, but that’s not even a good enough excuse to put myself through this.
I swing open the door to the first stall. I lock it behind me and pull a protective seat cover out of the dispenser and place it over the toilet seat.
I read a study on bacteria in public restrooms once. The first stall in every bathroom studied was found to have the least amount of bacteria. People assume the first stall is the most utilized, so most people skip over it. Not me. It’s the only one I’ll use. I haven’t always been a germaphobe, but spending two months in the hospital when I was sixteen left me a bit obsessive-compulsive when it comes to hygiene.
Once I’m finished using the restroom, I take at least a full minute to wash my hands. I stare down at them the entire time, refusing to look in the mirror. Avoiding my reflection becomes easier by the day, but I still catch a glimpse of myself while reaching for a paper towel. No matter how many times I’ve looked in a mirror, I still haven’t grown used to what I see.
I bring my left hand up and touch the scars that run across the left side of my face, over my jaw and down my neck. They disappear beneath the collar of my shirt, but underneath my clothing, the scars run down the entire left side of my torso, stopping just below my waistline. I run my fingers over the areas of skin that now resemble puckered leather. Scars that constantly remind me that the fire was real and not just a nightmare I can force myself awake from with a pinch on the arm.
I was bandaged up for months after the fire, unable to touch most of my body. Now that the burns are healed and I’m left with the scars, I catch myself touching them obsessively. The scars feel like stretched velvet, and it would be normal to be as revolted by their feel as I am by their appearance. But instead, I actually like the way they feel. I’m always absentmindedly running my fingers up and down my neck or arm, reading the braille on my skin, until I realize what I’m doing and stop. I shouldn’t like any aspect of the one thing that ripped my life out from under me, even if it is simply the way it feels beneath my fingertips.