If I Fix You
Some things are easy to fix…but are some meant to stay broken?When sixteen-year-old Jill Whitaker's mom walks out—with a sticky note as a goodbye – only Jill knows the real reason she's gone. But how can she tell her father? Jill can hardly believe the truth herself. Suddenly, the girl who likes to fix things – cars, relationships, romances, people – is all broken up. It used to be that her best friend/secret crush, Sean Addison, could make her smile in seconds. But not anymore. They don't even talk.With nothing making sense, Jill tries to pick up the pieces of her life. When a new guy moves in next door – intense, seriously cute, but with scars that he thinks don't show – Jill finds herself trying to make things better for Daniel. But over one long, hot Arizona summer, she realises she can't fix anyone's life until she fixes her own. And she knows just where to start…
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Some things are easy to fix...but are some meant to stay broken?
When sixteen-year-old Jill Whitaker’s mom walks out—with a sticky note as a goodbye—only Jill knows the real reason she’s gone. But how can she tell her father? Jill can hardly believe the truth herself.
Suddenly, the girl who likes to fix things—cars, relationships, romances, people—is all broken up. It used to be, her best friend, tall, blond and hot flirt Sean Addison, could make her smile in seconds. But not anymore. They don’t even talk.
With nothing making sense, Jill tries to pick up the pieces of her life. But when a new guy moves in next door, intense, seriously cute, but with scars—on the inside and out—that he thinks don’t show, Jill finds herself trying to make things better for Daniel. But over one long, hot Arizona summer, she realizes she can’t fix anyone’s life until she fixes her own. And she knows just where to start...
ABIGAIL JOHNSON was born in Pennsylvania. When she was twelve, her family traded in snowstorms for year-round summers and moved to Arizona. Abigail chronicled the entire cross-country road trip in a purple spiral-bound notebook that she still has, and has been writing ever since. She became a tetraplegic after breaking her neck in a car accident when she was seventeen, but hasn’t let that stop her from bodysurfing in Mexico, writing and directing a high-school production of Cinderella, and publishing her first novel. Visit Abigail online at abigailjohnsonbooks.com and follow her on Twitter, @AbigailsWriting.
If I Fix You
Abigail Johnson
For my parents
Dad, I finally get to return the honor and dedicate a book to you. Mom, you taught me to love reading and gave me the world.
Contents
February
Mom left on a Tuesday. I remember because Tuesdays were taco night and Dad and I to this day don’t eat tacos. Also because that was the night I fell out of love with Sean Addison.
Winter was old and wheezing by late February. The lingering chill in the air still bit at my skin after sunset, making it hard to remember that in a few months it’d be hot enough for the soles of my sneakers to stick to the asphalt.
Tourists from back East flocked to Arizona during the winter months, so the snowbirds, as we called them, were still thick on the roads and in Dad’s auto shop. I’d personally changed enough oil that winter to fill a swimming pool, and that particular Tuesday was no different. I was drowning in motor oil. The plastic smell of it clung to my hair and coated my lungs when I inhaled. My red coveralls were smeared with the same greasy stains that turned my hands that ineffable shade of zombie gray.
But all of that was okay, because I could change oil in my sleep, which left me free to dream about the only thing I’d ever truly wanted: a 1967 Triumph Spitfire Mark III convertible with Sean Addison riding shotgun.
The sports car I’d wanted ever since I had helped my dad rebuild one when I was eight. It was creamy white with tan leather seats and the original chrome bumpers (which federal safety regulations didn’t allow on later models). The budding mechanic in me had swooned over the one-piece front end that tilted forward for unparalleled engine access, and the exhaust that sang like a siren to my ears. I’d been saving to buy my own for the past eight years.
The boy I’d wanted from the first day of kindergarten. He took in my coveralls—which I insisted on wearing everywhere back then—and instead of teasing me like the other kids, asked me if I could fix the tire on his fire engine. As we got older, I started liking him for more than his good taste in mechanics. Beyond the fact that his eyes were the exact shade of my favorite blue jeans, he could always tell when I needed to laugh after a night spent listening to my parents fighting. Sure, Sean was more likely to high-five me than kiss me these days, but I planned on fixing that.
“Jill?” Dad’s voice echoed around the garage bay and stalled my car-and-boy-fueled daydream.
“Under the white Civic.” I rolled out on my creeper, sat up and spun to face him in a way that still made me grin like a four-year-old. I didn’t even mind that the momentum made my dark blond braid slap me in the face.
Dad and I had been nearly the same height for the past year, but what he lacked in height he made up for in girth—and not an ounce of it fat. He could lift a midsize car with his bare hands. He used to joke that that was how he’d gotten Mom to marry him.
