Jennifer Brooks - Our New Normal

OUR NEW NORMAL

Copyright 2020 by Jennifer Brooks

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the author.

ISBN 9781098329129

Dedication

To Nickie and Andrew for keeping on me until I got this finished. I dont know if this ever wouldve seen the light of day without your encouragement.

To Alek for proofreading. I am grateful as always.

To Tracy and Kira for being my beta readers. Your enthusiasm for the story helped immensely.

To everyone who helped and encouraged me back in the day only for it to never come to fruition until nowespecially Joe, Dani, Rachel, and Joanna.

To the Beehive. Your memory lives on through all of us teens and young adults who sat at your tables and contemplated life, enjoyed time with friends and loved ones, and just plain enjoyed a good old cup of joe.

Foreword

Although I finished writing this book over a decade ago, I never took any measures to publish it despite having another published book series under my belt. One of the reasons that I never pursued it was due to my fear of persecution for its contents. Considering the negative comments Ive received over Chloes and Toris mere presence in Braving the Storma novel in which theyre only two adults in an entire cast of charactersit, unfortunately, seems that I wasnt too far off in my estimation. However, in this day and age, I think that its important to get as many LGBTQ+ stories out there as we can; we, as a community, have experienced quite a few advancements in the decade since I wrote this book, but we still have a long way to go.

My other series takes place in a dystopian version of the United States where Tori and Chloealong with most of the countryare forced to survive by escaping from the cities and living off the land. One may wonder, after reading this novel, how two fairly normal teenage girls end up being adults who thrive in the midst of a survival situation. If emergency preparedness seems like peculiar behavior, though, imagine being given a half-hour to vacate the only home youve ever known and forced to start your life over from scratch without any assistance or guidance.

Now imagine you had to do that when you were 17.

According to truecolorsfund.org and hrc.org LGBTQ youth statistics:

Half of the teens who come out to their parents receive negative responses.

Approximately 25% of LGBTQ youth are kicked out of their homes after coming out.

LGBTQ young people are 120% more likely to experience homelessness than their peers.

About 40% of the homeless youth in the United States are LGBTQ.

Approximately 42% of LGBTQ youth state that the community in which they live isnt accepting of LGBTQ people.

LGBTQ youth are twice as likely to say that they have been physically assaulted.

Tori, compared to other LGBTQ+ youths who endure assault, persecution, and death because of whom they love or how they identify, didnt suffer as much as some youths in similar situations. Others are kicked out of their homes in a moments notice with nothing but the clothes on their backsand some are fortunate to escape without their clothes covered in their own blood.

I considered modernizing this story since so much has changed for LGBTQ+ persons in the past decade, but I decided against it for one very important reason: one of the scenes in this story involves a petition being passed around a church to ban gay marriage.

This actually happened to me.

While such a petition would have little bearing in our country after July 9th, 2015the day that same-sex couples were afforded the same legal rights as straight couplesthe nation in 2007 was a different story. Only Massachusetts had approved same-sex marriage at the time, and none of us knew if or when any other states would follow suit. I certainly dont want to give the impression that all churches or that all religious people behave in this mannerI have met and observed many inclusive, compassionate people of all faiths who would never dream of such bigoted, harmful behaviorbut I can almost guarantee that my church wasnt the only one that passed around similar petitions. When you get to that part of the book, I hope that you can envision yourself in that church and think about what you would have done.

I didnt sign.

Chapter 1

Sabrina Trainor slid into the cold metal desk next to her best friend, Victoria Reynolds. Browsing a tabloid, Victoria lifted her eyes from the pages just enough to acknowledge Sabrinas presence. Sabrina flipped her medium-length, streaked blonde hair over her shoulder as her brown eyes drank in Toris outfit. Her low-rise jeans and form-fitting shirt accented her body perfectly. While Sabrina felt that her pleated skirt and slim-fitting, button-down shirt looked spectacular on her slender frame, she felt worthless next to Tori. Tori was the head cheerleader, the most popular girl in school, drop-dead gorgeous, dating the star quarterback, and her parents were rich; Sabrina might as well have been invisible whenever they were together. She pushed her jealousy aside, however, and instead smiled at her friend.

Tori! Hi! Sabrina greeted. How did your summer go?

Tori looked up from her magazine with a bored expression. Oh, it was the same as always: I spent most of the time poolside and the rest shopping. How about you? Before Sabrina could open her mouth to respond, though, Tori had already refocused on the tabloid, her mind drowning out the world around herincluding Sabrina.

Sabrina frowned, discouraged that Tori didnt even wait for a response before returning to her magazine. It was okay, I guess, Sabrina said, her voice raised in an attempt to get Toris attention. I worked at SuperMart full time, went swimming a few times, hung out with

Toris eyes darted to Sabrinas. Did you hear about Dustin Jackson and Amanda Brandt? I cant believe they broke up! They were Hollywoods dream couple! She stared at Sabrina, waiting impatiently for her reply.

Though Sabrina was annoyed by Toris interruption, she feigned interest. I know! I totally couldnt believe the celebrity news last night! I mean, who does Dustin think he is trying to force Mandy to have babies at such a young age? Do you know what thatll do to her figure? Shell never look right in a photo ever again!

Tori rolled her eyes. Rina, you know that everyone in Hollywood has fitness trainers; theyd get her back in shape in no time. Besides, magazines can airbrush out anything unbecoming. What right does Mandy have to dump him for wanting to stay with her for the rest of his life?

As Sabrina opened her mouth to respond, Toris boyfriend, Aaron, entered the room. Sabrinas mouth stayed agape, but the reason had changed. Aaron had always made her stomach flutter. He was perfect in nearly every way: his dusty blonde hair was always neat and styled, his tight shirts hugged his toned physique, and his touch was always gentle despite his hands being coarse with years of playing football and working every summer for his fathers landscaping business. Sabrina longed to run her fingers through his hair and kiss his plump lips. Before anyone noticed her longing gaze, however, she regained her composure and nodded casually.