Forbidden Boy

“I look like Miss Piggy,” Julia

“No you don’t. You look sporty. Well, except for the socks.” Chloe giggled. Humming “Hollaback Girl” quietly to herself, Julia

“Hmm. I wonder who it could possibly be?” Chloe queried in a singsong voice. She looked at the blinking display, then passed the phone to Jules before returning to the Us Weekly on the bed.

Julia

Hailey Abbott

can’t see you again” can’t he accept? How will I ever supergluemy heart back together if Remi won’t leave me alone with thepieces? A tiny nagging voice in the back of Julia

Julia

and three encores of “Irreplaceable”—later, refreshed and ready to take on the rest of her afternoon. She slipped on a pair of ski

Julia

The she grabbed her digital camera—complete with its new zoom lens, thanks to a summer of gainful employ-ment—and headed out of her bedroom.

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Forbidden Boy

As she walked past Chloe’s room, she heard her sister call, “Jules, is that you?”

Jules walked in and plopped herself facedown on Chloe’s bed, next to Chloe’s hefty stack of surgery guides and diagrams. No wonder she comes to my room to read Us Weekly , Julia

“So,” Chloe said authoritatively. “Does he always call you seventeen times a day?”

Julia

“He really likes you, Jules,” Chloe declared, her voice softer. “I mean, he really, really likes you.”

“I know,” Julia

“Then why are you sitting around the house moping with me all the time?” Chloe asked, a smile crossing her face. “Go out there and get that boy back. Before he actually starts believing that you want nothing to do with him.”

“But—” Julia

“But nothing. You deserve to be happy. So go. Go and be happy with your boyfriend.” Chloe smiled and swatted Julia

Moments later, Julia

Hailey Abbott

cat burglar. Just two months earlier, this kind of “casing the perimeter” would have meant that Jules was on the prowl with her super-spy hat on. Today it meant something entirely different to Julia

Even if she, Dad, and Chloe couldn’t hold on to their physical house, she was determined to create a photographic history of of it. She hadn’t decided whether she would frame each shot individually or piece them together in a mural. Dad had promised her free rein over the family room in their next house and, even though Chloe pointed out that it was slightly morbid, Julia

The new school year was rapidly approaching, and Julia

Forbidden Boy

adjust the light meter on her camera to catch some shadows poking up from the sea grass that surrounded the house, something occurred to her. Despite all the end-of-summer stress, at this exact moment, she was at peace.

The sun was at her back. Her nose was filled with the salty air of an August afternoon in Southern California, and she was looking at her crazy life through the lens of a camera.

Even with the crushing loss of her home looming before her, Julia

Julia

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Julia

As the sun slipped down behind the ocean, the sky did its slow-motion fade from brilliant navy blue to the cobalt-gray hybrid of a late summer night. Julia

Floating in the haze of her thoughts about her photography, the house, and the arrival of fall, Julia

property. Beyond the jurisdiction of the orange trespass-ing signs, Julia