Shifting Tides Read online

  Table of Contents

  Legal Page

  Title Page

  Book Description

  Dedication

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  New Excerpt

  About the Authors

  Publisher Page

  Shifting Tides

  ISBN # 978-1-78651-766-1

  ©Copyright Caitlin Ricci and A.M. Burns 2016

  Cover Art by Posh Gosh ©Copyright June 2016

  Edited by Stacey Birkel

  Finch Books

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Finch Books.

  Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Finch Books. Unauthorised or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.

  The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.

  Published in 2016 by Finch Books, Newland House, The Point, Weaver Road, Lincoln, LN6 3QN

  Finch Books is a subsidiary of Totally Entwined Group Limited.

  SHIFTING TIDES

  Caitlin Ricci and A.M. Burns

  Angela always knew there was something different about herself. When she realizes she’s really Adam, his whole life changes in ways he never expected.

  Adam comes out to his family during a vacation to Assateague Island. While he’s trying to explain to his parents that he’s not Angela anymore, they leave him there with the rest of his family. His aunt and uncle take him in to live with them and his cousin, Seth.

  Over the course of that summer, he also begins a relationship with his cousin’s best friend, Blaine, a boy he’s had a crush on for years. With the support of his extended family and Blaine, Adam embarks on the drastic changes he must undergo to be the person he always felt he was inside.

  Dedication

  This one is for everyone who feels different. You’re beautiful and special.

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

  Minion: Sergio Pablos

  Atlanta Braves: Liberty Media

  Dr. Phil: Phil McGraw

  Volkswagen Beetle: Volkswagen AG

  Playstation: Sony Interactive Entertainment

  Twilight Zone: Rod Sterling

  Pop-tart: Kellogg Company

  Coke: The Coca-Cola Company

  Sports Authority: Sports Authority, Inc.

  Nintendo: Nintendo Company, Ltd.

  Call of Duty: Activision

  Skyrim: Bethesda Softworks

  Guitar Hero: Activision

  Kleenex: Kimberly-Clark Worldwide, Inc.

  Chapter One

  When Angela Marglasey’s mom took her to the mall a month before her freshman year ended, she wasn’t excited. Angela liked clothes, to a point, but not shopping for them. She hadn’t in…at least four months. Maybe longer. So much was changing for her that it was hard to keep track of it all. The jewelry store that her mom pulled her into, which seemed to cater to mostly teen girls just didn’t feel right at all. She hadn’t worn earrings since the year before. The only piece she still wore almost daily was a blue topaz necklace her dad had given her on the first day of high school.

  She touched it to help herself calm down as her mom grabbed hair clips and headbands and put them into a bright pink basket hanging from her left hand. The shop was making her uncomfortable and she knew she didn’t belong there, surrounded by all the glitz and glam of such a girly place. It definitely wasn’t her style and she really didn’t even like the color pink to begin with. Even the basket her mom was using was embellished with shiny rhinestones on the handle and around the rim. It was just as hideous as anything else there and Angela couldn’t wait to leave both the store and the mall entirely.

  “This would look just so absolutely perfect on you!” her mom said as she held up a bright blue locket against Angela’s slim neck.

  It had feathers coming out of the bottom of it that would interfere with the collar of any shirt she wore and had to be at least three inches wide. It would have been so huge on her and terrible. She had no idea why her mom would even think that she would have wanted something that absolutely horrible-looking when she barely wore any jewelry to begin with. She couldn’t imagine ever liking a necklace like that, or ever being able to force herself to wear it, even if it was a gift from her mom. She knew her mom meant well, but sometimes—actually, a lot lately—it seemed like her mom just wasn’t in touch with who she was at all anymore.

  Angela put her hand over her mom’s and gently pushed the necklace away. “Mom, I’m not really sure about that one.” It was the kindest way she could think of to tell her mom that there was no way in hell that she’d ever be wearing something that looked anything like that.

  Her mom wasn’t listening at all, though. She brushed aside Angela’s words as if she hadn’t spoken at all. Angela thought it was rude of her mom, but part of her was also used to her mom ignoring her by now.

  “Nonsense, Angela, this will go great with that dress I bought you last week. When are you going to wear it? I can’t wait to see it on you. I bet you’ll look just like a princess.”

  The dress her mother was so in love with was a dress that Angela had yet to even take the tags off and really didn’t intend to wear anytime soon, if ever. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate it when her mom went out of her way to buy her things, but what she liked to wear and what her mom thought would look good on her were two completely different things. But she knew there would be no arguing with her mom after she’d decided the necklace was perfect with the dress. “Sometime soon probably.”

  That was the most she could promise her mom, and it was far easier to just give into what her mom wanted than to try to argue about one little necklace, especially in the middle of the mall where her friends probably shopped and people would be talking about it if she made a scene. She definitely didn’t need that kind of attention in such a small high school, not when she already felt kind of out of place on most days. It had gotten to the point lately that she felt more like a dress-up doll for her mother’s entertainment than a real flesh and blood teenager.

  It was getting old super fast, and even more so because what Angela wanted to wear wasn’t anything like what her mom wanted to dress her in. She didn’t want skirts or dresses, or the bright pink leggings that her mom thought looked so good on her. She wore sneakers and flip flops, not the low heels that her mom wanted her to wear. It was like what she wanted and what her mom did were on two different planets, and she was so tired of not getting her way lately when it came to what she wore. She was a teenager. Sh
e wasn’t five anymore. She could dress herself all on her own and Angela didn’t agree with her mom that she had to get dressed up just to go to school like it was somewhere special that she had to impress people at. She had a headache before her mom was even halfway through the store.

  She bought Angela so many sparkly things, most of them in pink or yellow, and Angela tried to pretend that she wanted even half of them. But by the time they left the store an hour after they’d entered, her face was hurting from trying to smile so much and it was all such a big fake. She’d never wear a single piece of jewelry or hair clip that her mom had bought her unless, for some reason, her mom insisted on it, which she sometimes did. Or she used the tried and true, long-time mom-approved method of guilting her into wearing something so hideous she wanted to change the second she left the house. But her mom had caught her sneaking clothes out of the house before and now Angela knew better than to try that. She’d been grounded for a week before.

  “Let’s get smoothies before our manicures,” her mom suggested excitedly as she looped her arm through Angela’s and tugged her along with her bag of new purchases bouncing against Angela’s hip between them.

  “I’m not that hungry,” Angela started to protest. She’d actually been feeling a little queasy all morning and being surrounded by sparkly things and glitter in the store really hadn’t helped much. Added to that were all the little girls who were squealing over the same kinds of things her mother had thought that she should be oh-so interested in.

  Those girls had been loud, annoying and so freaking giggly she had idly wondered if they weren’t some kind of weird new robots while her mom had wasted money buying her all those things she didn’t want. Her opinion hadn’t mattered in the least. It was a nightmare and the whole experience had just helped to reinforce how dressing up and ‘getting glamorous’, as her mom had put it often enough when she was growing up, just wasn’t for her anymore.

  Maybe getting to be fifteen meant that she wasn’t into girly stuff anymore at all, even though there was a big part of her brain which said that it was far more than her just turning fifteen and growing up some. She wasn’t sure what else it would have been, though. She lacked any kind of an explanation at all for the changes she’d been feeling within herself.

  Angela hadn’t changed her friends or anything like that and she still listened to most of her favorite songs. Even though she didn’t have any answers, the feelings she was experiencing were undeniable and they were leaving her more confused than ever. It was frustrating and distracting not to feel like herself most of the time and not to have any idea of why she was feeling like that, but knowing that she couldn’t go to her mom about any of it didn’t help her feel any better about it, either.

  Her mom wasn’t paying any attention to her and her somber mood as she dragged Angela over to the smoothie cart at the edge of the large and diverse foot court. Angela loved all the different foods she could get there. Everything from Thai and sushi to the best street tacos with the freshest cojita cheese that she’d ever had. But her mom wanted to have a smoothie so that was where they were. The badge on the lanky teen’s striped shirt said that his name was Adam, and for some reason Angela just stared at the name tag for a long time. She stared long enough that her mom had to shake her shoulder to get Angela to pay any attention to what she was saying. “Angela!”

  “Huh? What?” Why were so many people staring at her? Heat shot through her face as she turned away from her mom. She couldn’t believe that she’d blanked out so much that she hadn’t even heard her mom talking to her, which she’d clearly been doing for at least a few minutes, judging by her mom’s expression.

  Her mom looked annoyed, heading into full-on pissed-off mom mode, which Angela rarely saw, and for good reason too. That look meant trouble, and Angela did her best to stay as far away from trouble as possible.

  “I swear. Sometimes you just wander.” Her mom huffed loudly, clearly upset with her. Since she’d completely spaced out, Angela knew that she couldn’t really blame her mom for not being happy with her in that moment. “What do you want to drink?”

  “Uh…” Angela quickly scanned over the menu choices and dismissed most of them easily. She didn’t like strawberries or bananas when they were blended up, and she thought orange juice was kind of gross after twelve o’clock. There was a chocolate option, but she’d heard at school that the chocolate from this smoothie place was not that good. Something about it tasting super fake and cheap. “Mango?” she threw out with a shrug. She didn’t really want a smoothie anyway so it was the best of the options she had very little interest in. Maybe it would surprise her and taste more like a mango lassi than like canned mangoes and ice blended together. She just hoped that it didn’t have any orange juice in it.

  The teenage guy working at the cart, Adam, smiled at her. “Great choice. I’ll have those two smoothies right up.”

  Angela smiled back at him. He was probably closer to eighteen than her fifteen, and cute, too, with short red hair and bright brown eyes, but that wasn’t why she was suddenly feeling a bit lightheaded. It was his name. That simple little thing about him. And Angela couldn’t even explain why it mattered so much.

  Her mom paid for the smoothies then turned Angela away from the cart in a hurry. “He was actually pretty cute, for someone who works in the mall food court that is, of course,” she loudly whispered in Angela’s ear as she took her arm again. She acted as if she were afraid of Angela taking off on her if she didn’t hang on to her just as tightly as she possibly could all of the time.

  “Uh.” Angela thought so, but wasn’t going to let on that she’d paid much attention to what he’d looked like beyond noticing the basics like his hair and eye colors. He’d been taller than her too, but she was pretty short so that wasn’t that hard for someone to be.

  Apparently, her mom wasn’t done gushing about him yet, though. Angela hoped that she got over him quickly, because it wasn’t like it had really been that big of a deal. A few minutes after meeting him and now Angela couldn’t even really remember what he’d looked like. Only his name had stuck with her.

  “That Adam, though—he’s little old for you, I think, but you’re on the right track at least. It’s great to see you taking an interest in boys. Well, aside from that little crush you had on your cousin’s best friend. But that was years ago. And he lives too far away for you two to be anything more than friends anyway. Which is too bad really because I do like Blaine. He’s a real sweetheart whenever we get together. Polite and nice to everyone, just like a good boy should be.”

  Angela had managed to lose some of her blush in the previous minutes but now it was right back up on her cheeks again. “Blaine was…” Yeah, she wasn’t going to start thinking about him again. She’d been crushing on Blaine for a little while, more like a few years, but it was just a little crush and nothing more. It couldn’t be anything more because, like her mom had said, he lived too far away. Blaine was seriously cute and he had one of those movie-star smiles, but she was convinced that he was far out of her league and he lived about a half hour away and neither of them had a car…and it was all just one big no as far as they were concerned. There were just these things that kept them apart. Stuff Angela didn’t even know how to put words to. But she felt them deep in her gut and rumbling through her heart, even now as she and her mom stood there in the food court, waiting on their smoothies. Blaine would never be hers and that was okay with Angela because he was only a friend during the summer. He wasn’t even really her friend. He was her cousin’s best friend and they just hung out together during their family vacations, which Blaine always came along for.

  Angela didn’t really want a manicure and her feet were so ticklish that getting a pedicure was a pain, but her mom had guilt tripped her about them not spending much time together doing mother-daughter things only the day before, and Angela didn’t want to be mean to her mom. She figured she could get through the manicure and pedicure that her mom had booked for
them.

  When they got into the salon, they were handed cucumber water and Angela sipped it and listened to the soothing classical music around her. It couldn’t be that bad, she figured. A manicure might have actually been okay. Maybe she could just get some clear polish or something. She didn’t like bright colors and she especially didn’t want to go back to school with pink nails. Her friends would never let her live it down. She wasn’t a girly girl. She was a tomboy and she did not have pink nails.

  For once the pedicure felt nice and didn’t leave her giggling and almost kicking the person giving her a foot massage since her leg jerked whenever she got tickled. Her feet were left really soft and smooth and her toenails were all shaped and didn’t have big cracks in them for once. They were even clean. Angela definitely had hope for her manicure and getting to have exactly what she wanted there too, especially when her mom hadn’t said anything about her having a simple clear polish on her toenails.

  But her mom dashed any hope she had of that when the woman asked her what kind of polish she wanted for her nails. Angela said, “I’d like the clear polish again just like I had on my toe nails, please.”

  Her mom shook her head. “No, you’re getting the French tips.”

  Angela’s heart sank. She didn’t want a French manicure. She didn’t like how they looked and she’d had them before and they were impossible to keep nice. They barely lasted two days with her and then her mom would be mad at her for getting the polish chipped and ruining her manicure so quickly. “Mom, could I please have just the clear polish? I think it would look better on me.”

  “Really, Angela, if we were just going to get you clear polish then there would be no reason for us to even be here. Now, stop trying to waste my money and get the French tips. They’ll look gorgeous on you. I want you to start looking more like a girl. Someday you’ll actually start to care about that thing, but until then at least you’ll have the practice.”