Novels by Cilla

Natalie’s POVI struggled to open my eyes, my vision still in so much blurriness mixed with white that it took me a while to understand that the beeping sound was from the monitors next to me ."Eddie?" My voice cracked as it came out, sounding small, like some stranger's.His head shot up in a flash, relief flickering into his tired eyes. "Nat! Oh, thank God." He leaned over and gripped my hand with both hands. "You scared the hell out of me." "Where am I? What...what happened?" I blinked, attempting to shake the fog of understanding from my head.Eddie seemed to close up. He drew a slow breath in, almost as if he was bracing himself with every breath to respond to me. "You were hit, Nat. In the mall parking lot. A drunk driver backed into you and left before anyone could stop him. It was a hit-and-run." The memories flashed through my mind in fragments- tires screeching, bright white headlights, hearing Eddie yell my name. My heart jumped as I felt myself instinctively touch my s

Natalie's PerspectivesThe similarity between my legs and gossip is that they spread real fast whenever Jake is concerned.In the beginning, they were quiet. They were in the back of lecture halls, lockers, or filler in the cafeteria, but they grew legs; they will follow you. Everyone knows that when you're the girl engaged to Jake Lawson, they stick to you like glue."She must have trapped him.""Probably faked the pregnancy.""He's too good for her, anyway.""She probably drugged him cause no way in hell she suddenly becomes attractive.""Even a homeless hobo won't have sex with her despite how drunk he was.""She is so ugly. Let's hope the father's gene's save the child.""She looks like something you should throw up on."All my life, I learned in keeping low, pretending as if I couldn't hear all of that. But then came days when claws sprouted out of those whispers, and no one would save me from pretending.Eddie noticed such every time."You are not going to hide in your room the

Natalie's POV“You are pregnant, Natalie.” Dr.Patel said.The word came to me like a fist."Pregnant."It was Dr. Patel's typical calm, practiced way that one must have to use at least a hundred times a day; but in my ears, it was thunder. I could not breathe, could not move.The sterile white walls seemed to lean a little closer, the scent of antiseptic turning sharp in my nose. Pregnant. The syllables echoed and drowned out everything else she said-hormones, options, steps forward. The pulse hammered so hard within me, it felt in my throat.Beside me, Eddie's hand tightened over mine. I turned, searching for a solid expression in his face. The shock was evident as his mouth was clamped tight, but his eyes stayed on me, steady, worried. A flicker of anger crossed his features, but not at me. Never at me."Come on," he said gently, though his voice trembled. His grip anchored me, tugged me up from the fog. "Let's get you home."I nodded vacantly. My body obeyed while my mind was still

Natalie's POVSunk in deep and heavy in the marrow of my being, the voices and chatter and sounds of that night reverberated through my memory. Anytime when I would close my eyes for too long, I would find myself back there—the shimmering Lawson estate, champagne flowed like water, every laugh piercing into my poor eardrums . I really didn't want to go. But the venomous poison seeping through every second of that week had Victoria's voice saying, “Don't you dare make me look bad, Natalie! Try to act like you belong, even though we both know you don't.” And where exactly was it I didn't belong? A power party: silk gowns and tailored suits all blurred together in suffocating perfume. I sipped on my spritzer and willed myself into the wallpaper. Invisible, as every other time. Until him. Jake Lawson.Everyone was a subject for entertainment, whether sober or drunk-a bright pyre was raised for fire and ruin-somehow gloriously intoxicated. And I was the subject for lady’s brutality. Jo

Natalie's POV Squeaky sneakers against an unyielding polished wooden floor repeatedly echoed through the university gymnasium. That thrumming beat felt especially potent today; it felt like a rhythm that told me I didn't belong. Every thump of basketball rushed through me and squeezed my grip even tighter on the tired notebook pressed against me like a shield.Not that anyone noticed me.No one ever did.Well, except for that time Jake Lawson decided I was funny to laugh at.He was always at the center of the maelstrom-certainly, he was tall, broad-shouldered, dark-haired, and that hair managed somehow to fall just so, even when sweat-drenched. But hazel eyes gleamed at me under fluorescent lights, and his smile. God, that smile could light an entire room if he wanted it to. And right now, all of Lawson University seemed to orbit around him.You could tell from the huddled bleachers, not for the game, but for him. Jake Lawson: the golden boy. Every shot he made sent the crowd roaring