An excerpt from a novel I (Hannah Hall) am currently authoring entitled Hating Strawberries.

Chapter 1
Caulirlyn
When I was fifteen years old, I fell in love. True love. Not the puppy love we are always giggling
about through elementary school, or the hormone driven lust we claim is love in middle school, but
true, undefiled, heart claiming love. The kind of love that has the power to change you completely from
the inside all the way out. Love that was all consuming, all knowing, and everlastingat fifteen years
old, this kind of love was so foreign, so incredibly new, and so ridiculously overwhelming. Many people
didnt believe me, as much as I tried to explain it; they couldnt see into my soul, but it didnt matter.
Nothing could separate me from this love; no ones opinions, ideas, criticism, or beliefs could defer me
from this life consuming passion, but that didnt mean they didnt make life harder.
My sophomore year of high school was filled with menacing and judgmental stares, whispered
rumors, and general assumptions about me that were far from the truth. Every day as I walked down
the halls of Altavista High School I heard the same whispers, Ya know, that Caulirlyn girl is so different
this year. I dont know whats gotten into her, or the occasional, I bet she really isnt anything like she
seems to be. You know new miss goody-two-shoes has a wild side, and it wont be long before she
cracks.
Sophomore year was probably the worst. The new me was new to everyone, and people werent
accepting the change well. You would think that there would be at least a semi-celebratory spirit when
a soul passes from darkness to light. That was not the case in the world of sixteen year olds. Rumors
spread about what I had done that summer, girls looked at me in disgust, and boys glared with lust. Not
because I was a particularly attractive girl either. I knew what was being said, and I knew it wasnt true.
A lesson for life: it only takes one true black mark on an otherwise blameless lamb for it to be believed
that the entire lamb must be soiled. I was that lamb.
It didnt do any good to deny what was being said. Too many people knew about the one dark spot,
so now all of the members of Altavista High Schools Hate Caulirlyn Lee Club were using it to their
advantage. It didnt matter that I wasnt that girl anymore. It didnt matter that what happened had
been over six months ago, and it didnt matter that not a single soul from my high school, except my
best friend Alexis, had even seen me over the summer. The rumors still must be true, and I, Caulirlyn
Lee, must be the greatest hypocrite to ever walk those halls.

School was horrible. Every day seemed like it lasted years, and I walked around with a counterfeit
smile on my face and sundry wounds on my heart because of how I had been so rejected. There was a
particular instance that just broke me to pieces and altered my high lifes path forever.
Alexis and I had gym class together and always went to the locker room together to change. After
gym class one day, a girl, Julie (a member of the HCLC, Hate Caulirlyn Lee Club), who had been busy for
the last several weeks spreading completely false rumors about me and a guy named Nick strode into
the locker room with some lame excuse about how the bathrooms outside the auditorium were closed
so she had to come to the gym (like that ever happened) to use the bathroom during her theater class.
When Julie walked in, my heart dropped to my stomach, and I thought I was going to pass out. I
hated confrontation, maybe more than I hated strawberries, and I supremely detested strawberries.
Needless to say, Julie wasnt there to pee, she came to do what she does best-spin a fairy tale of falsities
that she trained on whatever poor soul had the unfortunate pleasure of being a relatively acquiescing
target-which, surprise, surprise, was me. All of the girls in the class, including Alexis and myself, were
changing and freshening up (Alexis sometimes showered because she hated being sweaty, and honestly,
she sweat A LOT. However, I never saw the point in doing so) when Julie strut right up to Morgan Post
and asked her what the latest school buzz was. Now, Julie was one of those girls that NO one messed
around with, not even my popular, lacrosse star who-never-backed-away-from-a-challenge best friend
Alexis. So, obviously, when confronted by Julie, Morgan promptly stated that the latest news going
around school was that I had told Lindsey Frank that Alexiss parents had been going to marriage
counseling and were now getting a divorce.
Now, Alexis and I had been best friends since the fifth grade. We were like sisters, inseparable,
always together. We were voted Most Likely to be Best Friends at 80 for our eighth grade
superlatives, and we had no doubt that would be the truth, considering our plans to go to college
together. The words Morgan spoke were no surprise to me Id known Mr. and Mrs. Santiago for years,
longer than Id known my own stepmom. Alexiss dad was a largely known doctor in the area, and her
mother was a marketing agent for some of the biggest companies in town. Obviously, Alexiss parents
were well off on the outside, but if you explored the deeper realms of their relationship, you would
uncover damage done by years of selfishness, pride, and self-pity. It was honestly heartbreaking, but I
only knew so much about the situation because Alexis confided in me, and I would never, ever dream of
exposing something so personal...I would under no circumstance hurt her like that.
As the words poured from Morgans mouth, I just stood there, mouth gaping open (Im pretty
confident that my chin was touching the floor at that point), eyes bugged out, totally and completely

speechless. This was low, even for Julie. How could she mess with something she knew was so sacred,
so precious? I mean, my relationship with my very closest friend, my only ally? Really? I looked at Alexis,
hoping my eyes would convey the complete ludicrousy of the lie she was being fed, but she just stood
there, defeated. I knew that look on Alexis. It was the same look she gave Sam Reilly when she
confronted him in front of the band booster concession stand when she found out he kissed Lauren
Jenkins under the football bleachers while they were dating. I knew it meant I had no chance of
reasoning with her this was too sensitive a topic, a breach of confidentiality that she could not let
slide, even if it was untrue.
We havent talked since that day.
I dont know that Ive ever felt as low as I did the day I lost Alexis. Alexis Santiago and I had grown up
togetherlosing her was like losing a piece of myself. I can still remember hurrying to my locker at the
end of the day, praying she would be standing there, understanding in her eyes. I waited at my locker
for fifteen minutes, totally disregarding my now long gone bus, fusing together any possible reason why
Alexis may have been held up. Did she have a test last period? Did Mr. Greene stop her to ask her a
question regarding lacrosse? The more possibilities I forged together, the more minutes that ticked by,
and the more the realization sunk in that I had lost my best friend. I called my mom then and asked if
she would please come pick me up. When she inquired as to how Id missed the bus, my response was
merely that Id been held back to finish a quiz in eighth period. I despised lying to my mom, no matter
how insignificant the lie may seem, but I just wasnt ready to face the truth yet. I remember feeling
numb standing outside in the chilling, dreary rain waiting to catch a glimpse of my moms red minivan. I
cant explain the feeling you are overcome with when you lose someone who means so much to
youits like all of the memories the laughs, the tears, the giant ice cream Sundays (Alexis loved
strawberries, so she always ate them for me.), the three am boy talks, the shopping frenzies, and so
much more come flashing back, breaking you heart even more.
When mom finally picked me up that afternoon, I collapsed into her passenger seat. All she had to
say was, How was your day, honey? for me to completely loose it. Tears began to pour from my eyes
and slide down my cheeks, and soon my body was racking with uncontrollable sobs. My mom just
stared wide eyed at me at first, then she simply held my hand all the way home.
My mom was a woman of few wordsvery few words. Sometimes I think thats what happened with
her and dads marriagehe just couldnt take her lack of verbal petting per say, but that just wasnt
my moms style. She was a woman of action. I could tell how my mother was feeling simply by the way
she held my hand. If she was sad, she gripped firmly, but not aggressively, and if she was feeling tried

and defeated, she would barely hold my hand at all. Sometimes, when she was really mad, she would
clutch my hand so hard her fingers nail markers were there for days, and when she was happy, she
painted little circles in the back of my hand with her thumb.
To me, this language my mother spoke made absolutely perfect sense, but to many others, it
appeared that she put little effort into her relationships, which, sadly, cost her many of the closest
people in her life. My dad split when I was twelve, claiming he couldnt stand feeling unappreciated and
unloved anymore and that that feeling is what drove him to his affair with a bottle of Jack Daniel. Then,
my older brother, Tyler, who was on a full ride scholarship to Waynesburg University for track, called my
mom one night strung out on who knows what, and confessed that he was done playing her mind
games, whatever that means, and that he wouldnt be home for Thanksgiving or Christmas. This broke
my moms heart.
I know that it wasnt just my mothers lack of communication skills that drove these two precious
men out of her life. My mom was a deeply wounded soul, and her scars traced all the way back to a
childhood filled with cigarette burns, lesions from broken beer bottles, and severe emotional abuse.
Mom didnt talk about it much, but I remember one night just a few months after dad left when I was
woken up at three in the morning to the sound of my moms sobs. I crept into her room, slid under her
covers, and wrapped my arms around her. She never had seemed so fragile to me before, but at that
moment I realized how wounded my seemingly unbreakable mother was, and I wished more than
anything that I could pick up the broken pieces of her and simply glue them back together, but I knew
that only time, and maybe not even time itself, would heal her brokenness.
Thank goodness my momma has the good sense not to follow in her parents footsteps, and never
laid a hand or any other harmful object on Ty and me, but she has serious trust issues that remained
even after years of counselling, marriage, and motherhood. The scars on my mommas heart werent
going away anytime soon, and really, you just had to make a choice to stick through it and lover her
anyway, or to give up on such a precious soul My dad and brother chose the latter, but I didnt.
As mom and I drove home to our little two story town house on Broad Street, my heart ached for all
that I had stolen from me and for all that my mom had lost. The only thing that sustained me was my
lovethe never ending and perfect love that bound me together and kept me from crumbling into a
million unrepairable pieces.

Chapter 2
Liam
Sometimes I wonder how whoever is up there, the Supreme Being or whatnot, lives with himself, or
herself, I suppose. I dont really know much about the Big Guy, or Gal, Upstairs, and honestly, I rarely
consider him, or her, (maybe I should just consider it it) anything I should be concerned about.
However, today, as I stare out the passenger window of my dads pickup truck dressed in my one and
only black suit, crisp light blue dress shirt, a tie, and freshly cleaned black shoes, I cant shake my
thoughts about the Almighty. Ive been to Sunday school a time or two, quite frequently actually when I
was younger, but now, all the stories Ive heard time and time again about a merciful and loving God,
the one who saved Daniel from the lions and spared Noah and his family from the flood, just seem like
fairy tales twisted together to entertain little kids for a while, while their moms and dads played church.
Ive never considered myself very religious per say. Mom used to like to go to church to make
grandma and grandpa happy, and often times, she drug dad and I along with her. Once grandma and
grandpa died though, dad and my visits to church became less and less frequent. Mom still went pretty
diligently, and many times when I knocked on my parents bedroom door late at night to let them know
I was home from wherever I had been, Id find momma asleep, the light still on and her Bible laying open
across her chest. Sometimes, Id even catch mom down on her knees beside her bed, hands clutched
tightly together and tears slowly dripping from her eyes. This encounter always intrigued me. How
could a so-called conversation with an invisible being draw such an emotional response from my
mother?
My mother worried about me frequently while I was in high school, I know. It wasnt really that I was
a bad kid, I kept up excellent grades and my standardized test scores were quite commendable. I was
involved in Student Council and held the position of class vice president for three years. Not to mention,
I led my high schools basketball team to the state championship two years in a row as the starting point
guard and was recruited to play ball in college by multiple Division 1 schools, and ended up signing with
Clemson University on a full ride. My mom didnt worry about any of that-she knew I was a pretty level
headed kid, and I wouldnt let the attention or the politics of the game get to me. However, mom did
worry about the endless stream of girlfriends I brought home during my junior and senior years and the
late nights when I stayed over with Ethan. After those nights, I usually didnt wander back home until
late afternoon the next day, typically wearing sunglasses to keep my encounters with light minimal and
reeking of stale sweat and vodka.

I wasnt ever really interested with the whole party scene when I was younger; honestly, I always
considered the whole thing pretty dumb. I saw friends getting wasted every Friday night without fail
and couldnt help but think they were killing a lot of good brain cells, brain cells that we could use out on
the hardwood court where my team mates were concerned. Then, Aria Richard came into the equation.
I can still effortlessly remember every detail of the night I first really noticed her. Wed gone to school
together since first grade, and wed even had a few classes together along the way, but that night junior
year was the first time that I really saw Aria.
We were at fifth quarter at a local owned pizza place called Tribs after one of the bigger football
games of the season against one of our rival schools to celebrate the victory. There were at least fifty
teens from my high school squeezed in the restaurant ranging from freshman band groupies to senior
football players. I was sitting at a booth with Ethan, and a couple of our other close buddies, Owen and
V, were seated across from us.
The four of us had been tight since we started on our pee wee basketball team, the Little Lions,
together. Every birthday, middle school graduation, parent night, and significant event thus far in our
lives had been spent together. Looking at a picture of the four of us, however, you would wonder at the
incredible differences between us.
Vs real name was Vn, and he was born in Vietnam, but immigrated to the United States when he
was three because his grandfathers dying wish had been for his son to come to America and make
something of himself. So off they went. Vs dad ended up finding a decent job with the local Oil & Gas
company and, once he proved his intelligence and work ethic, has moved up to become one of the
companys top advisors.
Owen was your all American white boy. He lifted weights constantly to improve his bench record and
was unabashedly obsessed with his bleach blonde locks. It never ceased to annoy him that I, at 64 am
five inches taller than he is. Sometimes, Owen had to be taken with a grain of salt, but when push came
to shove, he always had our backs.
Ethan was the sensitive one of the bunch. His life had been pretty rough. He didnt even know his
dads name, and his mom was raising three other children, each from different men, in the same house
as him. Ethan was the oldest, so he had to be the most responsible. It really bugged me that people
took Ethans stand-offish nature as a testimony to the kind of person he was. Just because his father
had been African American didnt mean that because Ethan shared his skin color, he was just another
bad boy from the broncs. Ethans six foot frame and stalky stature could be very intimidating, but

whenever I was mad or confused, Ethan was the one I turned to. Over the years, as the four of us
changed, Ethan was the one I grow closest to, the one I knew I could trust to see me at my worst.
Honestly, I was the sissy, goody-two-shoes of the bunch. I was on track to be our class Valedictorian,
took the hardest schedules I could, and loved the pressure of pushing my mind. The other guys always
made fun of me for exercising my brain more than my foul shot, but it didnt bother me. They didnt
understand, and that was cool. The guys thought it was more important to focus on my basketball game
than on my grades, but school came easy to me. I rarely studied and always pulled out an A. I could
easily read a whole book in a night. It just wasnt challenged in my classes. Basketball, though,
challenged me. I was constantly pushing my body to the limit to make that basket, or steal that pass, or
set that pick. I loved the feeling of my muscles burning and my curly, sandy-blonde hair sticking to the
back of my neck after a high intensity game. That was something the guys understood.
We were all devouring a large supreme pizza and discussing the better plays of the game made by
Owen and Ethan, who were both football players, the quarter back and running back to be specific,
when Ellie Goodwin and Aria Richards sauntered over. Owen was dating Ellie, a soccer player who was
lean, built, and blondeOwens type to a tee. Ellie was Arias best friend at the time, so no one thought
anything of it when they made themselves comfortable at our table, Ellie on Owens lap and Aria on the
booth seat across from them, snuggled real close to me.
That instant, sitting there in Tribs, obnoxiously gobbling up pizza like only a seventeen year old boy
could, I looked at Aria Richards in a new light for the first time. She was slim, but not in the I cant eat
French fries because I have to be a stick kind of way, but instead in a supple, curvy, complimentary way
that, somehow, I had not noticed before. Her hair was dark brown with light blonde highlights that
looked thoroughly natural and perfectly complimented her bright blue eyes. After about sixty seconds
of my obtrusive gawking, I realized my error and looked away quickly, but not quickly enough to miss
the deep blush that penetrated Arias olive skin or how her long, dark lashes swept down slowly to hide
her embarrassment (Or was that amusement?) that I had been studying her features so intently.
Um, Liam? When did her voice become so silky?
Oh, uh, yeah? I stuttered, suddenly very aware of how much pizza I had just shoved into my mouth.
You have something, uh, on your chin. She informed me bashfully. Gosh, she was so dang cute
grinning like that.
Oh thanks! I exclaimed, probably a little too enthusiastically. I could not figure out what was
wrong with me! I had talked to Aria millions of times before. Id even hung out with her and Ellie with
Ethan, Owen, and V before, but I had never in all my life felt like she made me feel that night.

After swiping my sleeve across my chin a few times, hoping I resolved the incident, I asked her if I had
gotten it all. She just giggled and offered to get it for me. I did not disagree.
The instant her finger tips grazed my skin, shivers spread through me. A girl had never in my entire
life drawn this kind of reaction from me, especially from simply wiping pizza sauce and cheese off of my
chin, but Aria wasnt any girl. She was special, and I knew that instantly.
I know love at first sight is such a clich, but I swear, with Aria, at that moment, the first time I truly
saw her, I fell in love.