Where It Began
Authors: Ann Redisch Stampler
Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Love & Romance, #Social Issues, #Adolescence, #Drugs; Alcohol; Substance Abuse, #Emotions & Feelings
This is what I remember:
How everything leading up to the party is nothing special.
Me and Billy in the front seat of Billy’s car.
Billy pulling onto the front lawn of the house on Songbird Lane. Heading toward the big front door that opens and then shuts out three and a half hours of my life.
My life, which, by the time I wake up on the ground clutching the car keys with my head bashed in, is pretty much over.
Only I don’t know that right away.
“A terrific read! Ann Redisch Stampler puts you in Gabby’s head and keeps you there until the gripping conclusion. A writer to watch!” —
ALEX FLINN
, #1
New York Times
bestselling author of
Beastly
Sometimes the end is just the beginning.
Gabby lived under the radar until her makeover. Way under. But when she started her senior year as a blonder, better-dressed version of herself, she struck gold: Billy Nash believed she was the f lawless girl she was pretending to be. The next eight months with Billy were bliss. . . . Until the night Gabby wakes up on the ground next to the remains of his BMW without a single memory of how she got there.
And Billy’s nowhere to be found.
All Gabby wants is to make everything perfect again. But getting her life back isn’t just difficult, it’s impossible. Because nothing is the same, and Gabby’s beginning to realize she’s missed more than a few danger signs along the way.
It’s time for Gabby to face the truth, even if it means everything changes.
Especially if it means everything changes.
Where It Began
marks Ann Redisch Stampler’s YA debut. She is the author of several picture books, including
The Rooster Prince of Breslov
. Her books have been an Aesop Accolade winner, Sydney Taylor Honor and Notable Books, a National Jewish Book Awards finalist and winner, and Bank Street Best Books of the Year. Ann lives in Los Angeles, California, with her husband, Rick.
Jacket designed by Jessica Handelman
Jacket photograph copyright © 2012 by Getty Images
Author photograph by Sonya Sones
Simon Pulse
SIMON & SCHUSTER, NEW YORK
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where it began
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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First Simon Pulse hardcover edition March 2012 Copyright © 2012 by Ann Redisch Stampler All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
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Designed by Mike Rosamilia The text of this book was set in Bembo. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Stampler, Ann Redisch. Where it began / by Ann Redisch Stampler. — 1st Simon Pulse hardcover ed.
p. cm.
Summary: After she is in a horrific car crash when drunk, Los Angeles high school student Gabriella Gardiner assumes she stole her rich boyfriend’s car and smashed it into a tree, but she cannot remember anything about the events of the evening.
ISBN 978-1-4424-2321-3 (hardcover)
[1. Traffic accidents—Fiction. 2. Alcoholism—Fiction. 3. Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. 4. Peer pressure—Fiction. 5. High schools—Fiction. 6. Schools—Fiction. 7. Los Angeles (Calif.)—Fiction.] I. Title. PZ7.S78614Wh 2012 [Fic]—dc22 2011011726
ISBN 978-1-4424-2323-7 (eBook)
For Rick and Laura and Michael,
again, still, always
where it began
THIS IS HOW IT STARTS: SOME HAPLESS GIRL IN A
skanky little tank top lying on her back in the wet grass somewhere in Hidden Hills. She is gazing at the stars through the leaves of a eucalyptus tree. The trunk of the eucalyptus tree is wrapped in Billy Nash’s blue BMW. Midnight-blue. The girl is trying to figure out what’s going on, beyond the more obvious facts: a mouth lined with a sick combination of beer and stale vodka, a crunched-up car with black smoke pouring out of it, a night sky filled with glassy constellations and a big white moon.