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PRAISE FOR Saving June
‘With a powerful story, characters that truly come alive, and a romance worth swooning over, Saving June is a fresh, fun, and poignant book that I couldn’t tear myself away from.’ Kody Keplinger, author of The DUFF
‘Hannah Harrington weaves a fast-paced and heartfelt story about first loss and first loves. Readers will adore following a protagonist as real and raw as Harper Scott as she searches for closure after her sister’s tragic suicide in this tender, funny and moving debut. I couldn’t put it down!’
Courtney Summers, author of Cracked Up to Be and Some Girls Are
‘Saving June is an incredible debut. Like the best of songs, it brings tears to your eyes and makes you smile. Like the best road trip stories, it takes you on a vivid journey that you don’t want to end.’ Stephanie Kuehnert, author of Ballads of Suburbia
‘raw, powerful, and absolutely spot-on.’
YA Reads.com
‘definitely one of my top YA reads of the year’ thebookpushers.com
‘Jake would make a good book boyfriend.
He was so raw and real.’ The Book Scoop.com
‘Harper’s voice rings true, and readers looking for a mildly steamy romance … won’t be disappointed.’
Kirkus Reviews
If you love Saving June, find more edgy, brave, young adult fiction at www.miraink.co.uk.
And look out for Speechless, the fantastic new novel from Hannah Harrington coming soon.
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Saving June
Hannah Harrington
For Judith St. King,
my second mother.
acknowledgments
First I need to thank my agent and biggest advocate, Diana Fox, for having enough confidence in me and my writing for the both of us. I couldn’t ask for better. I’d also like to thank my wonderful editor, Natashya Wilson, for falling so in love with my story and wanting to share it with the world. And thank you to everyone else at Harlequin Teen for making that happen.
To my earliest supporters—Lisa Rowe, Joanne Ferlas, Bridget Clark, Nell Gram, Gabrielle Rajerison, Ann Finstad, Erin Whipple, Rebekah Ross, thank you for your general awesomeness and love. Kim Montelibano Heil, you helped give me the push do this. Anna Genoese, you are the coolest and smartest person I know, and I respect your opinion more than anything. Thanks for never telling me I suck, even when I do. Olivia Castellanos, this book would not exist without you, period. Thank you for being the first person to ever read it, thank you for being on the receiving end of so many emails and phone calls throughout this entire process, and thank you even more for never doubting this could happen. Your friendship means the world to me.
My fifth-grade teacher, Eric Schweinzger—thank you for sharing my essays out loud in class, giving me glowing praise on my silly short stories, and basically helping a kid who wasn’t that great at much feel like maybe she could be pretty good at this one thing, if nothing else.
Mom, thank you for raising me on such awesome music, and for everything else. And I do mean everything. Your support is beyond words, and I love you.
chapter one
According to the puppy-of-the-month calendar hanging next to the phone in the kitchen, my sister June died on a Thursday, exactly nine days before her high school graduation. May’s breed is the golden retriever—pictured is a whole litter of them, nestled side by side in a red wagon amid a blooming spring garden. The word Graduation!! is written in red inside the white square, complete with an extra exclamation point. If she’d waited less than two weeks, she would be June who died in June, but I guess she never took that into account.
The only reason I’m in the kitchen in the first place is because somehow, somewhere, someone got the idea in their head that the best way to comfort a mourning family is to present them with plated foods. Everyone has been dropping off stupid casseroles, which is totally useless, because nobody’s eating anything anyway. We already have a refrigerator stocked with not only casseroles, but lasa gnas, jams, homemade breads, cakes and more. Add to that the lemon meringue pie I’m holding and the Scott family could open up a restaurant out of our own kitchen. Or at the very least a well-stocked deli.
I slide the pie on top of a dish of apricot tart, then shut the refrigerator door and lean against it. One moment. All I want is one moment to myself.
“Harper?”
Not that that will be happening anytime soon.
It’s weird to see Tyler in a suit. It’s black, the lines of it clean and sharp, the knot of the silk tie pressed tight to his throat, uncomfortably formal.
“You look … nice,” he says, finally, after what has to be the most awkward silence in all of documented history.
Part of me wants to strangle him with his dumb tie, and at the same time, I feel a little sorry for him. Which is ridiculous, considering the circumstances, but even with a year in age and nearly a foot in height on me, he looks impossibly young. A little boy playing dress-up in Daddy’s clothes.
“Can I help you with something?” I say shortly. After a day of constant platitudes, a steady stream of thank-you-for-your-concern and we’re-doing-our-best and it-was-a-shock-to-us-too, my patience is shot. It definitely isn’t going to be extended to the guy who broke my sister’s heart a few months ago.
Tyler fidgets with his tie with both hands. I always did make him nervous. I guess it’s because when your girlfriend’s the homecoming queen, and your girlfriend’s sister is—well, me, it’s hard to find common ground.
“I wanted to give you this,” he says. He steps forward and presses something small and hard into my hand. “Do you know what it is?”
I glance down into my open palm. Of course I know: June’s promise ring. The familiar sapphire stone embedded in white gold gleams under the kitchen light.
The first time June showed it to me, around six months ago, she was at the stove, cooking something spicy smelling in a pan while I grabbed orange juice from the fridge. She was always doing that, cooking elaborate meals, even though I almost never saw her eat any of them.
She extended her hand in a showy gesture as she said, “It belonged to his grandmother. Isn’t it beautiful?” And when she just about swooned, it was all I could do not to roll my eyes so hard they fell out of my head.
“I think it’s stupid,” I told her. “You really want to spend the rest of your life with that jerk-off?”
“Tyler is not a jerk-off. He’s sweet. He wants us to move to California together after we graduate. Maybe rent an apartment by the beach.”
California. June was always talking about California and having a house by the ocean. I didn’t know why she was so obsessed with someplace she’d never even been.
“Seriously, you’re barely eighteen,” I reminded her. “Why would you even think about marriage?”
June gave me a look that made it clear the age difference between us might as well be ten years instead of less than two. “You’ll understand when you’re older,” she said. “When you fall in love.”
I rolled my eyes as I drank straight from the jug, then wiped