Somewhere Over the Freaking Rainbow (A Young Adult Paranormal Romance) (The Secrets of Somerled) by L.L. Muir Page A

Jamison was.
    He looked at the three items now taking up space on what might soon be called his ‘odd things’ shelf.
    That was so stupid. If he’d made a recording in the last couple of days he certainly wouldn’t have forgotten it. Would he?
    He got that fish-flapping-in-the-stomach feeling. Hadn’t he felt all day yesterday like he’d forgotten something? Had he forgotten a tape?
    Jamison moved to the wall behind his closed door, backed up against it, and slowly slid down to the floor.
    Breathe.
    He breathed.
    Think.
    He didn’t want to think. He’d rather throw up. If the message on the envelope wasn’t written in Texas, then whatever was on that tape might be as bad as what happened four years ago. Only something bad would have made him write that kind of note.
    Maybe he didn’t want to know.
    Maybe it wasn’t his handwriting.
    Maybe he should use that Bic one more time. If it was ruined, there’d be no going back. No knowing.
    Holy crap. It would drive him crazy.
    Breathe.
    He breathed.
    He’d toyed with the idea of asking his mom if he could see a therapist. Lots of people, normal people—well, normal-ish people—saw therapists. Now he wished he would have asked her. What he was really afraid of, was that he’d left it too late, that he’d pretended too much for too long, and now the transmission in his brain was slipping.
    It was a long time before he moved a muscle or a brain cell. When he stood, he tried not to think. He wasn’t going to make the choice; he’d just see what his body decided.
    He watched calmly as his hand took the mini-recorder off the shelf. His legs took him back to the garbage can and he wondered if he was going to trash the recorder, but his other hand scooped out the tape. His mouth blew black bits of ash out of the two little holes. His finger pushed a button and the machine opened. A thumb pushed the tape into the hole.
    He pushed rewind but the button popped back up. Maybe someone had already rewound it. It took a couple of minutes before he could push play, but his body had gotten him that far. He could at least do that much.
    “Okay, seriously. If I, Jamison Shaw, turn up dead or missing, or if the sheriff tells you I’ve been taken out of state for drug rehab, don’t believe it.”
    He pushed stop . He wasn’t dead or missing. Technically he could stop listening. His stomach churned, letting him know it voted to run away. But if he really wanted to put Texas behind him, running away wasn’t the way to do it.
    He crawled on his bed and scooted to the wall, then settled back against it. Again, he pressed play , but his thumb rested on the stop button in case his mom came in. His eerie voice was hushed, so he turned it up a little.
    “I don’t know what’s going to happen now, so I’m making this tape, just in case. I only hope the Somerleds don’t get a hold of it. And if you’re listening, you murderers, you stay away from my mom or so help me...
    “If you’re not a Somerled, then this is what has happened since I moved back to Flat Springs on Friday...
    Jamison listened. Of course the voice sounded like him, but it freaked him out the way it freaked out anyone who listened to themselves. But hearing it on a recording he didn’t remember making was jacked up. He was jacked up, and by the time he got to the end of the recording, he was pretty sure his whole life was permanently jacked up.
    His mom pounded on his door and he nearly shat his pants.
    “Jamie, honey?” She cracked the door open and lowered her voice. “I’m going to go down to the Recovery Center in about an hour. Do you want to come with me?”
    He was on auto-pilot
    “Y..yeah. I mean, no. I mean, if you can be nice, I’ll let you go without me. He’s going to be getting some test results back today, and if it’s bad news, um, he’ll be glad you’re there.”
    “What kind of test?” She finally looked at him. Her eyes were swollen, her mascara gone. Anything he said would turn the