Head Over Feet In Love Book Tour & Giveway

Rebecca Slater is running away from a stay in a mental health facility, a

writing career that never got off the ground, and a dying best
friend. She has nowhere to go, but nothing can stop her—until she
crashes her car into a tree, possibly on purpose, but probably not.
Without a cell phone and in a strange town, Becca starts knocking on
doors, looking for someone to help her. The only person who answers
her call is Mike Riley.

When Becca thinks Mike is dead, she impulsively runs away again, this
time
to a place where she thinks no one will ever find her. She prepares
for a life without her true love, but committed to remaining mentally
healthy and strong, continuing her story that she now believes will
have an unhappy ending.

But will it?

I’m driving away. I’m driving away as fast and as far as I can. I’m never going
back. I’m going to drive until I get so far up north that no one will ever find me. I’m
going to—
Except that I’m not. I can’t leave home now. Not with my best friend in a coma, not
with my parents tripped out, not with all that’s going on. Not with bipolar disorder
and anxiety and everything else. I’m still driving away, mind you, but I’ll have to go
back. As soon as the rain lets up, I’ll turn around and head back to US-23. It’s
really pouring though, and I don’t like driving in the rain, so I might have to find a
hotel and stay the night. I’ll have to call my parents, except I don’t have a phone
anymore, and with Rick in the hospital, it all means—
It means that I have no way to call anyone when my car hits the tree.
Goddamn it! My air bag merrily pops out at me, and I start to cough as I inhale the
powder that comes out with it. Without thinking about whether or not I might be
hurt, I throw open the door and climb out of my Jeep.
As the rain soaks me, I look at my Jeep and let out a groan. Goddamn it. Steam
pours out of the engine, and the car wheezes. Shit. Don’t cars sometimes explode
in the movies when steam is rushing out of them? This could suck.
I grab my purse and Red Wings jersey out of the car, cautiously backing away. I
reach for my cell phone before remembering that it had been with Rick when his
canoe upended on the Huron River, and it changed everything. Shit.
Okay, Becca, don’t panic. Don’t panic. Think. Where are the nearest houses
where you can—
The car burps, and smoke puffs from under the hood. I swear the Jeep looks mad.
It belches again and then kinda rumbles at me. One headlight winks at me before
it goes out. The Jeep makes a noise I have never heard it make before.
Okay, now we panic.
I turn and run up the nearest driveway. I pound on the door, but no one answers.
“Help!” I call, before remembering the self-defense course my mom made me take
in seventh grade, which had taught me that people respond well to shouts of “fire,”
but not so well to shouts for “help.” “Fire!” I call helpfully.
“Well, screw you, too!” I say to the door before racing to the next house where
again I pound and pound.
Finally, a voice says, “What do you want?”
I squint in through the window to see a tiny elderly man. “The phone!” I yelp.
“What do you want?” he repeats, as if I haven’t spoken.
“The—this!” I mimic a phone by putting my thumb to my ear and my pinky to my
mouth. He still looks confused, so I start talking into my pinky like a fool. I
remember an improv teacher saying that you shouldn’t imitate a phone that way
lest people think you are talking into your finger like a dork, so I pretend that I
have an old timey Star Trek communicator and start talking in a Captain Kirkvoice.
The man shakes his head and says, “You don’t make any sense, girly. You go
away now.”
I wonder if I really don’t make any sense, or if he’s just offended by my James T.
Kirk impression. I walk off the porch and feel something hit my face. I look up and
realize it’s hailing. Oh, nice. I put the Wings jersey on, because surely this will stop
the ice from hitting me.
I race down the hill and up the block. It takes eons to reach the next driveway. I’m
out of breath, but I start to race up toward the house on the hill. I climb and climb
before I realize that I have, indeed, picked the steepest driveway. Because of
course I did.
Damn, this hill is steep. I wish I hadn’t decided to run away. I wish Ricky had eaten
better and hadn’t screwed up his heart. I wish I had my cell phone. I wish I could
call my parents. I wish. I know, I know, if wishes were horses … a saying I never
really quite understood, but whatever.
The house on the hill enters my line of vision and I stand, contemplating it. Big,
dark brick. Two stories, with black shutters on all eight windows. If I had gone into
architecture instead of law, I would know the style. As it is, my brain can only
conjure up images like the enormous land contract or mortgage on the house.
Hell, if that shit had cropped up on the Bar, maybe I would have passed it.
My thoughts of property law flutter away when I notice a curtain move in the big
bay window, as if someone inside has just peeked out. Oh yeah, baby—the doctor
is in.
I take a breath and run up to the door. One sign reads, “No Peddlers or Solicitors”,
because peddlers are really a thing these days. Another warns of “No
Trespassing! This means YOU.”
“Bite me,” I mutter, and punch the bell. Come on, my man! If you rustle that
curtain, you can open that door. “I need help! I crashed my Jeep down the hill
there. I need a phone.”
Bzzz, bzzz, bzzz. The hail picks up and blows onto the porch, pummeling me. The
more I get hit, the more I want to ram in through the bay window like the Kool-Aid
Man. The more I get hit, the more depressed I become.
Suddenly, I stop ringing the bell, knowing that I am being ignored. “Seriously?
Really?” I announce to the empty porch. I have become a walking first-world
problem, and I hate everything.
My very best friend is in a medically induced coma following two heart attacks and
a stroke. Two heart attacks and a stroke. I have to say it twice sometimes. Just
because I have to. My parents go to the hospital every day, sitting, waiting,
hoping. I have a year off from school, so I can write a book, but I can’t write a
word. And now my beloved Jeep is in a strange neighborhood, making noises like
the Candyman.

I sit on the porch swing. Pin pricks of ice, drops of cold rain, all at once. Passive-
aggressive suicidal. That’s what a shrink called me once. Drives recklessly, drinks

until black out, refuses to look both ways before crossing the road. Latent death
wish. Blah blah blah blah blah. Why, yes. I do feel all of this now, because
hashtag “first-world problems” I don’t have a phone.
The rain continues. It gets darker. I think about throwing out the pills, magically
fixing the Jeep, and driving into something. Driving into a freeway concrete barrier.
Driving into a river, like where my friend was when he had his two heart attacks
and his stroke. His two heart attacks and a stroke. I see Rick’s face above me. He
has no eyes. Jesus! I holler out so loudly that I wake myself up.
I look around, my heart pounding. Incredible. Freezing, wet, miserable–and I fall
asleep. I truly amaze myself at times. I shake my head, like that will clear things
up for me. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the curtain flicker again.
“Okay, asshole!” I call to it. “I’m cold, and I’m wet, and my car is dead! I need a
phone! I need a phone now!” Because surely, the addition of the word “now” will
get things on and popping. “Please?” I add.
Nothing. No flicker of movement. Nothing.
“Well, go to hell then!” I shout, and sit back down on the swing. What the hell is
wrong with this neighborhood? I grew up in the best place on earth, where people
at least it’s called. I sit with my knees to my chest, my head buried.
“Why are you here?”
I literally jump off the swing in utter terror. Naturally, I only land on my left foot, my
right foot catching on the swing. I do a quick dance before falling onto my butt.
I keep my head lowered, crying and wanting to blame someone else for this mess.
I start going through names in my head. I start with Melissa from first grade. She
was a know-it-all brat. I can’t imagine what she’s like now.
A hand appears before my face. I take it and allow the stranger, now known as
The Man Behind the Curtain, to pull me to my feet.
He repeats himself. “Why are you here? Did you come to get a report on me and
turn it into local folklore?”
At first, I think he’s kidding. I look at him for the first time, but I can’t see his face.
Dressed in a hooded rain coat and looking like Paddington the Bear and the
Gorton fish stick guy’s bastard child, his features are hidden from me.
“My car—” My voice breaks. I clear my throat. “My car crashed. I crashed it. I think
maybe on purpose.” I say this out loud for the first time, not knowing if it’s true.
Silence. Finally, he turns and walks back to the house, leaving me alone. Tears
slip down my cheeks. He’s going to leave me out here to freeze, I realize.
But then he turns. “Aren’t you coming in?”

 

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