Written with Regret (The Regret Duet #1) - Aly Martinez

Jamie,

I wish I had told you to live in the seconds.

And I wish I’d been there more often to experience them with you.

But most of all, I wish I had one more second to laugh with you.

Fly high, Jamison.

Love, Sassy Sasquatch

“Squeeze together,” my sister ordered from a few yards away. She was holding the small disposable camera I’d gotten for my eighth birthday up to her eye.

It wasn’t exactly what I’d meant when I’d asked my parents for a camera. But that hadn’t stopped me from taking thirty-five sure-to-be-incredible pictures of my friends, my school, our iguana Herman, and even a few sneaky shots of third-grade heartthrob Brad Harris.

I’d always loved photography—or at least I’d loved what I could do with my mom’s old thirty-five mm. I didn’t know much about anything else. I’d been begging for a digital camera like the ones I’d seen at the electronics store, but it was never going to happen. My parents were old school to the core. If they hadn’t had it growing up, we weren’t getting it, either. And considering that our grandparents had been the original old-school parents, this meant no TV, no computers, and no cell phones. Short of a horse and buggy, we were as close to Amish as you could find in Watersedge, New Jersey—a sleepy suburb of New York City.

My father owned a bakery off Times Square, but according to him, the dangerous city was no place to raise a family. I didn’t figure that the dozens of young children we saw on the occasional Saturday picnic in Central Park would agree, but there had been no convincing my parents otherwise.

My dad put his arms around my mom and me and curled us into his sides. “I’m pretty sure this is as close as we can get without melding into one big Banks-family monster.”

I rolled my eyes as my dad lifted his hands like talons and roared.

I loved him, but he could be such a dork.

My mom giggled, the sound as gentle as snowflakes on a tin roof. “Just take the picture, honey. I’m sure it will be great.”

It wouldn’t be great. Not at the angle she was taking it. I’d probably be cut out of the frame completely, but then again, that was more than likely her plan. What were big sisters for if not to torment you?

Whatever. I didn’t particularly care if I was in the frame or not. The only reason I’d even agreed to a stupid picture in the middle of the mall food court was to finish my roll of film so I could get it developed. Film was a dying art—rightly so—and Sixty Minutes was one of the few places left in Watersedge that would develop it while you waited.

And, trust me, if you’d seen Brad Harris, you would understand why I was in a rush to get those pictures back.

“Say cheese!” Mom singsonged, no doubt through a breathtaking smile.

My mother was gorgeous in a way that made people stop and stare. Not in a sexy way. Not even in a traditional way. No, Keira Banks had a classic beauty that was all her own. Luckily, she’d passed on her red hair and green eyes to me and my sister. I hated my frizzy, orange curls most of the time, but she’d promised that one day they would turn into deep, rich waves of amber like hers. I wasn’t sure I believed her, but I held out hope nonetheless.

I scowled at the camera, ready to get the dang picture over with and head to Sixty Minutes.

“You call that a smile?” Dad said, tickling my side. “I’m going to need something bigger than that, buttercup.”

“Dad, stop,” I grumbled.

Those were the last words I ever said to my father.

He fell face first, a gaping hole in the back of his head, before the sound of gunfire met any of our ears.

Chaos exploded. A symphony of screams and cries echoed off the white tile floors as the constant boom of a firearm played the bassline.

People ran. Everywhere. In all directions. Scattering and blurring past me in streaks of denim and cotton. I started to move, maybe to follow them, but some primal instinct inside me screamed at me to get down. Panicked, I looked at my mother. She’d know what to do.

She was standing only a few feet away, and our eyes locked just in time for me to see her body jerk from the impact. First, her shoulders, one at a time. Then her