Running to Stand StillBy Lauran Rosolino
Genre: NA Romance
Collin was who he was: simple and easy.
Me? I was jagged and complex. I wanted everything.
And despite how he made me feel—safe—it was clear to me that we’d never work out in the end.
That divide between us would always be there.
Because I’d never ask him to give up on the things he wanted.
And, while I sometimes wished I could be that person, I wasn’t.
Just seven more months. Then Jamie Benson can leave this goodbye town behind her and start her new life in Chicago. She can leave this place of broken glass and cracked sidewalks and rusted fences. This place that holds nothing good. She can leave the ghosts and spinning rooms and shattered promises in her rearview mirror and never look back.
But all the stories she’s been telling herself are threatened when, one night, while tending bar at her father’s hole-in-the-wall dive, she meets Collin—a boy who is good and honest and sincere in a world where everything is harsh and cold and detached. A boy who makes her feel safe. A boy worth staying for.
Will Jamie be able to untangle the truths from the lies? Or will the sins of the past swallow her whole?
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**Excerpt**
“What are you running away from?”
I felt a shudder work through her body.
“Everything,” she whispered.
She looked back at me, a hollowness in her eyes that wasn’t there before. “There’s this voice inside my head telling me to go. Telling me I can’t stay here,” she paused for a moment, “I’m trying to find my way out.”
“Out of where?”
She shrugged like she wasn’t sure, but she said, “This place where I’m constantly losing my footing. Where I’m constantly being pushed and pulled by all the chaos around me.”
There was something in the way she carried herself that hinted at something deeply buried beneath the surface, something more sinister and pervasive.
“I don’t want this to be who I am anymore.”
“You don’t have to leave town to do that,” I said.
“Yes, I do.” Her voice strained and broke. “There’s too much history here—I can’t even think straight. I need to get some distance. I need someplace new.”
She shook her head, “I’m not like you, Collin.” Her voice hit that edge again. “Who you are right now is exactly who you’re meant to be. I’m not like that. I need to figure out who I can be. Away from here.”
She stared at me, daring me to defy her.
“I know who you are,” I said.
“How? I don’t even know.”
“Just because you’re good at hiding yourself from everyone else doesn’t mean that I don’t see right through you.” I stood up. There was a foot of space between us. Now I was close enough to her to see her eyes widen in the dim light.
“Don’t get me wrong, you’re mysterious all right. To the point where it drives me fucking crazy because I just want to know what you’re thinking.”
Like right now, I thought, wishing I could read her mind.
She was looking at me like her salvation hinged upon what I would say next.
“You’re so strong. I knew that the second I saw you walking across the parking lot on New Years Eve.”
Her eyes widened, her lips parted.
“And yet, you’re so sensitive. You feel things so deeply that it scares you, so you try to control it and hide it. Which I don’t entirely understand because if you didn’t feel things, you’d be a fucking sociopath.” I threw my hands in the air as I gestured.
I tried to even my breathing before I continued. “I know that you’ve been hurt before. That someone has let you down. So you don’t trust easily. And yet, for some reason, you trust me.”
My heart was pounding. The blood rushing in my head made a buzzing noise in my ears.
“I think that,” I paused, “everything you do, you do to feel safe.”
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About The Author:
Author of The Charm Necklace and Running to Stand Still. Writer of stories about finding beauty in brokenness.
She is a storyteller. Adventuer. Partner. Coffee drinker. Magic believer. Rebel with a gypsy soul. Lover of the woods and books, the woods and walks.
Born and bred in Detroit, Lauren grew up reading Harry Potter, watching Gilmore Girls, listening (and dancing) to a lot of music, and wondering why people do what they do. She graduated from Wayne State University with a BA in Psychology. Lauren lives with her husband, dog, cat, and bunny in Charleston, South Carolina.
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**Giveaway**
Win 10 print copies and 20 digital copies of Running to Stand Still.
