A Beautiful Fate

  A Beautiful Fate

  Book I of The Beautiful Fate Series

  A novel

  by

  Cat Mann

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright© 2012 by Cat Mann

  http://authorcatmannblog.blogspot.com/

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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

  Special thanks to Derek Mann, Mrs. Esther Kaplan, Greco, KB Weakly, Mom, Dad, Rachel Harmon, and The Lovely Leanne Kuchar.

  Cover designed by Derek Murphy of Creativindie Covers

  To my loving husband and children, thank you for handing me my dream life on a silver platter. Without you, my happiness would not be possible.

  Table Of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  1-Ava

  2- Room 1202

  3-Rory

  4-Ari

  5-Little Talks

  6-It’s Over

  7-The Alexanders

  8-Playing Games

  9-Mia

  10-Taking Flight

  11-Favorite Song

  12-Warning

  13-Merry Happy Love

  14- No. Game

  15-Murderer

  16- I lied.

  17-Hate

  18- I Miss You

  19-Visitors

  20- Home

  21-Intense

  22- Amazing, Breathtaking, Awe-inspiring

  23-Rituals

  24-Nerves

  25-August Fourth

  26-Hopeless

  27-XO

  About The Author

  I believe in everything until it’s disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it’s in your mind. Who’s to say that dreams and nightmares aren’t as real as the here and now?

  -John Lennon

  Chapter 1

  Ava

  They were screaming for me again. My knuckles were bone white as I gripped a pair of cold steel scissors in my hand. People, all strangers, screamed at me from beyond their closed doors, demanding death; begging for the coup de gràce.

  A shrill scream escaped my lips as I jumped from my sleep and yanked my ear buds out with much more force than necessary. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club was chanting about opening my eyelids and letting my demons run. If only they knew. My iPhone dropped with a thunk on to the guest bedroom floor at Grandmother’s home.

  Damn it! I have to stop falling asleep with my ear buds in.

  My music had insinuated itself into my dreams again, causing more nightmares than normal. Sweat was beading on my forehead and my hands were shaky.

  It was just a stupid dream. Remember to breathe. Repeating my mantra, I grabbed my phone from the floor to check the time. Six in the morning, I had officially had only four hours of sleep.

  As quietly as I could, I moved down the hall towards the guest bathroom and switched the faucet on. The knob squeaked in protest from disuse. I splashed my face with cold water and looked up into the mirror at my reflection. I rolled my eyes at myself, at the dark puffy circles that shadowed my green eyes.

  Once, years ago when I was small, my mom told me that I have my father’s eyes...and that was the only time she ever mentioned him. I cherish that small connection, eye color, that links me to a person I have never known. I pulled my hair into a ponytail, ignoring the tangles that dream-inspired tossing and turning had caused, brushed my teeth, and slipped on my running shoes. I moved soundlessly down the hallway and then down the stairwell and out the back door. I was anxious to run, anxious to push away my unknown fears.

  Stepping out into a sunny, California morning, I was instantly greeted by the sound of roaring waves as they crashed on to shore. I stretched and began my run down the sandy beach. The shoreline was relatively quiet and free from beachgoers as I shoved my ear buds in and turned The Arcade Fire up to max sound.

  My plans were to run a full six miles to ease my growing anxiety. The pounding of my feet on the sand and my quick panting breaths were therapy for me. I began to welcome the rising heat and the way my hair stuck to my skin as my sweat washed over me. I weaved down the beach dodging waves as they threatened to wet my feet and as the miles passed by, my angst ebbed and my senses finally numbed.

  At The Pier, I turned and started my journey back to Margaux’s home. The beach began to crowd with men and women in swimsuits, spreading out their towels, talking on their cell phones and hollering at small children to stay close by. I breathed them in, the hefty aroma of coconut scented suntan lotion.

  I ran, two at a time, back up my grandmother’s deck steps. I slid open her glass back door and walked through her home and back up her steps towards the bathroom for a much-needed shower. I turned the cold water on full force, gasping and squeezing my eyes shut at the shock. The water was both wonderful and painful. I forced myself under the showerhead, scrubbed my skin, washed and rewashed my hair until I finally felt clean enough to start my day.

  My grandmother is a sucker for the finer things in life. Her towels are super soft and thick. I wrapped one around my body and then grabbed a second for my hair. I stood in front of my luggage that was on top of the bed and stared down at what I had hastily packed the day before. My mother had followed in my grandmother’s footsteps and I, having followed my mother’s example, am a chump for fashion. I pulled a summer dress from my bag, shook out the creases and slipped it on. It was too hot to wear anything else but loose flowing fabric and strappy sandals.

  Dressed, I made my descent, once again, to the kitchen and made a pot of coffee. I sat at the counter, anxious, and waiting, for what I didn’t know.

  “Ava Darling.” My grandmother purred from behind me, causing goose bumps to creep up the back of my neck. She startled me from my thoughts and I jumped, spilling my last sip of black coffee across her counter top.

  “Morning, Margaux.” I mumbled as I ripped a paper towel sheet from the roll and used it to soak up my spill.

  “Where have you been? I looked for you all over the house and you were nowhere to be found.”

  Her concern was fake, I knew, but I engaged her in the conversation anyway.

  “I run, Margaux. Every day.”

  “Of course,” she purred again and gave me an ultra-fake, dazzling, white smile.

  ****

  My name is Ava Baio. I am seventeen years old. Until very recently, I lived in an old, two-story brownstone in Chicago with my mother, Lucy and before Chicago, I grew up in Montréal in Quebec, Canada.

  Other than the one-time random comment from my mom about my eyes, I can only assume that I got my looks from my dad. I don’t know what he looked like, he died the same day I was born. But I do know I look nothing like my beautiful mother had. Her eyes were big and brown; mine are shocking green. She had pale, clear skin, but I am a soft, creamy tan even without being in the sun. (I have three freckles – one is right above my lip; a second one, very tiny, is on one of my middle toes...and the third is well hidden. It will never be seen by anyone. Ever.) My mom was tall and graceful; I am neither noticeably tall nor overly short. My mother’s hair was of a light honey color and totally straight. Mine is
wavy and dark brown; I wear it down to my waist.

  Baio, my mom’s maiden name, came from her adoptive parents, Margaux and Perry Baio. Margaux is a well-known fashion designer and I have never seen her in anything other than stiletto heels and an “uptown” dress. In my seventeen years as her grandchild she has managed to stay exactly the same – timeless, classically beautiful and, in my opinion, the meanest grandmother on the face of the earth. She always looks at me with contempt and her comments about my hair, nails, or intellect are always condescending and filled with disdain. She hates me and that’s fine because I hate her, too. In fact, I love to hate her – it is a rather entertaining hobby of mine. Unfortunately for me, as of last week, Margaux is now my legal guardian.

  Margaux’s stores, baio designs, can be found wherever serious money is spent. She was a nurse before she pursued her dreams of design, and from what my mother once told me, Margaux was very dedicated to her patients. I don’t know what made her change, but to me she seems to be dedicated only to herself. How she pulls herself away from the mirror in the morning, I will never know. The only plus side I can think of to being related to her is the fact that she sends me, without fail, the sample clothes from her new lines each season.

  Margaux’s husband, Perry, my grandfather, was her complete opposite. I’ll never understand how he could stand to have been married to such a witch. He was a rock. There hasn’t been a day that has gone by since my grandfather’s death that I have not thought about him. His death haunts me. And now, my mother is gone too and I am left alone with my may-as-well-be-the-devil-grandmother, Margaux. I know if Perry were still alive, he would have fought for me. He would have let me finish my last year of high school back in Chicago. Back with my best friend, Mia and my boyfriend, Michael. But instead, Margaux pulled me away from everything I know and loved and now is shipping me off, after the weekend, to a boarding school in southern California. I hate her now more than ever.

  Never have I ever been accused of being a people person, warm and approachable. I have a rather large space bubble and feel uncomfortable when people hug me or try to hold my hand. I am private. I don’t speak about myself much. I have been accused of being a brat, born with a silver spoon in my mouth, and while I have been raised as a fortunate child, my mother made me work for everything I wanted. She and I spent our Saturday mornings helping at a soup kitchen and we worked closely with families at a woman’s crisis center back home in Chicago. Although I am uncomfortable around people, I still have a large and compassionate heart. I just prefer having a few close friends rather than having a lot of strangers I pretend to call friends.

  Relentless nightmares haunt me and they help add to a feeling that I have had for my whole life, a feeling of being very different from most people. Okay, I know many people have self-image problems. But I have truly always felt as though I am being avoided, as if people can sense that there is something not good in me. My logic tells me this is not true, of course. I am quiet at times and I keep mostly to myself, but there is no evil in my heart, just sometimes a darkness.

  I do not speak of my dreams to anyone, nor of the sense of waiting and anxiety that constantly assail me. My mind churns on and on. It never stops. I mull over the same thoughts again and again, like a dog working over a shank bone. The brain activity irritates and then angers me. I cannot remember having a peaceful brain.

  Eventually the three-ring circus of thoughts fills my head and there is nowhere to store the overflow. I get irritated and then I get angry. My mom was a pediatrician and once took me to one of her therapist friends, who said (big surprise) that I am anxious. She suggested a medication to slow things down, but I said no, no pills for this girl, unless I am actually sick. Then she suggested I take up running. She said that she has another patient with anxiety who refuses to medicate but found that he could control his panic by running. Well hell, I can run. I can run fast. So now, I do, and for the most part, it works.

  ****

  Margaux walked around the kitchen counter and faced me. She was wearing shiny red shoes and a black dress; she looked lovely, as always.

  “I am going in to the office. I trust that you will be able to occupy your time in a respectable manner until I return. I have made reservations for this evening at eight for Providence. I will have my assistant pull back a dress from the new fall line for you to wear.”

  “Sure,” was all I could manage to say to her. I stood up to head back to the guest bedroom and she gave me a cold, tight lipped smile. As I passed by Margaux, I noticed that she had a ghastly burn on the top of her hand. Her skin was broken, red and raw looking. I was alarmed by the injury but quickly shook the feeling off, not really caring what had happened to her. I silently hoped that it hurt.

  Locking myself away in Margaux’s chic guest bedroom, I turned my favorite Radiohead album up loud and worked hard on pushing back the tears that threatened to spill out. I concentrated on the frilly, white lace that outlined the bedspread and the pale pink flowered wallpaper that lined the walls. I reminded myself to breath and worked hard on the task of letting oxygen fill my lungs and then allowing it to leave again.

  The nightmares from my mother’s death have troubled my sleep seven times now. I pulled out an already worn piece of paper from my overnight bag and I added to it a seventh tally mark.

  I sat there alone until Margaux returned from work. She rapped on the guest bedroom door. I got up and my joints were stiff and popped from sitting still for too long. Margaux handed me a baio dress that she had designed for her fall line and a pair of dangerously high and pointy shoes. I took the clothes and met her downstairs an hour later.

  At Providence, Margaux was greeted by the staff with warm hellos and we were seated immediately at a private booth near the back of the restaurant. Our table was covered with a nice, white linen cloth and wine glasses for four. The host took the additional glasses away and wished us a nice evening. Our waiter approached moments later and before I could glance at my menu, Margaux ordered.

  “My granddaughter and I will each be having the River King Salmon. I will take a glass of your finest Sauvignon Blanc and Ava will have a glass of water, please – no ice.”

  Handing my menu off to the waiter, I huffed and stared down at my linen napkin. How could a woman who has spent so little personal time with me know so much about me? I don’t use ice. Typically, ice is made from tap water, which is unfiltered; eventually ice melts in my drink and causes impurities to mix with my filtered water. I realize that this statement makes me sound nuts and annoying and we can go back to the silver spoon concept, but I can’t really help it; I am obsessive.

  As we waited for our meal, several people came up to the table to say hello to Margaux and she politely introduced me to each of them as her “favorite granddaughter,” which made me want to gag – I am Margaux’s only granddaughter.

  I paid very little attention to her admirers until a man approached us and Margaux seemed genuinely happy to see him.

  “Margaux!” he beamed.

  “Ah, Jason.” She smiled back. “It’s been too long.”

  “Indeed it has.” The man clasped Margaux’s hand in his. They spoke briefly and then he looked over to me, squinted his eyes and cocked his head to the side in thought.

  Margaux was pleased to see this man until he said, “this must be Adrian Moirai’s daughter.” Margaux’s face turned beet red and a big vein throbbed at the temple of her forehead.

  “This,” my grandmother said sweetly, “is my granddaughter, Ava Zae Baio.” She put a little too much emphasis on the Baio and I knew immediately that this Adrian Moirai person was my father. I had never known the name of my father. In fact, when my mother died, I had been directed to her bank so that her assets could be signed into my name. As it turns out, my father had left a sizeable amount of money to me as well as my mother and even then, the documents had been whited out where ever his name appeared.

  I tried to play off that I hadn’t been listening to Margau
x’s conversation, but in the back of my head I said the name over and over again...this was a name I wanted not to forget, ever.

  Our waiter arrived soon after with our meal and Margaux’s friend made his way back to his table on the other side of the restaurant.

  Margaux and I ate in an uncomfortable silence and after dinner, she turned to me.

  “Ava, I have taken the liberty of purchasing a car for you to use while you stay here in California. That way you won’t have to ask me to arrange transportation for you. I have also set you up with a spending account. You will have a weekly allowance of three hundred dollars for gas, food and whatever it is that you do; if that amount doesn’t work for you, please contact my assistant so we can adjust it accordingly.”

  “I’m pretty sure I will okay with that,” I said as diplomatically as I could, knowing that I would just be donating the money to charity anyway. “And, um, thanks, for the car. That was very nice of you.”

  “The car is more of a convenience to me, Ava. I am busy; I don’t have time to raise a seventeen year old girl. Let’s get through this year and then we will be free to go our ways.” She continued down her list. “You will need to check in with the Dana Point Institute tomorrow. The drive from here is about an hour, so I suggest you leave fairly early in the morning. You’ll check in at admissions. Your belongings have already arrived to your dorm room. I expect you to catch up on classwork quickly, you’ve only missed a week of the school year so it shouldn’t be a problem for you. I will be checking on your progress with the dean; if you get anything less than an A on any form of schoolwork, Ava, then there will be hell to pay.”

  I looked down at my knotted fingers.

  “Well?” She snapped.

  “Yes. I understand.” My voice was small. I felt pathetic.

  Margaux waved for the check, passed the waiter a black credit card and once he returned, we left. We rode together in the back of her car while her driver moved smoothly though the heavy L.A. traffic. I wondered idly if she ever drove herself anywhere - not likely.