Read Cooper for Free Online

was a bit of a shock to hear it as she rarely got calls, except to confirm appointments or from the occasional reporter who wanted to interview her on behalf of one of her causes. But none of them would call this late at night. What was it, after ten? How long had she sat in that coffee shop mooning over Cooper Adams?
    She pulled her smart phone out and pressed the green answer button. With trepidation, she held the phone up to her ear.
    "Amy? It's Cooper. I hope it's not too late to call. I thought you might be concerned, so I wanted to let you know I'm okay."
    Cooper? He'd really called her back? She'd half expected never to hear from him again. She'd half convinced herself that needing to see his doctor had simply been an excuse to get away from her, without hurting her feelings.
    But here he was, calling her so soon.
    She cleared her throat and wiped at her still-wet cheeks, as if he could see her. "Oh, hi Cooper. Th…Thanks for calling. I appreciate it."
    "What's wrong?" his voice became instantly concerned. Had she sounded that bad?
    "N…Nothing. I'm okay. I fell on the stairs, that’s all." She tried to keep the lie as close to the truth as possible.
    Over the years, she'd become a pretty good lair. Most people who saw the bruises she couldn't disguise with makeup thought she really was as clumsy as she led them to believe. But on one trip to the ER when she was twelve, the medical staff had been too suspicious. That was when her father had her first committed. He'd claimed she'd tried to throw herself off the landing.
    "I need to see you. Can I see you?" His voice was urgent now. There was a note of longing that spoke to something deep inside her.
    "When?" she croaked, fighting back a fresh wave of tears.
    This man wasn't like her father. This man cared about her, even though they'd only spent a few short minutes together. How was that possible?
    Maybe it was a con. Maybe he was a gold-digger after her family's money. No one would be so nice to her unless they had an ulterior motive.
    She remembered the time when a boy at school had shown an interest in her. Paul, one of the Guild jocks that ran the school behind the teachers' backs, had suddenly started showing her a lot of interest. Not exactly kind, not exactly complimentary, but it was interest, and she'd had so little of that in her life that she'd drunk it up.
    Paul had asked her to meet him behind the bleachers between classes. Even though she was already way behind in her work because of her numerous stays in the sanatorium, she nevertheless agreed. Anything to have someone pay her a little attention for a little while and make her feel special.
    How old were they back then? She must have been fifteen, Paul was a year older. She'd thought she was in love, although there was a part of her that screamed the opposite was true.
    All her life she'd felt different from the people around her. Some of them, like her parents and schoolmates, made her feel different in a bad way. Others, like Maria and the rest of the staff, made her feel different in a neutral way, not good or bad. All she knew was that her differentness, her lack of ability to fit in where she was supposed to belong, made her see feel wrong. It made it easy to believe her parents and schoolmates were right about her.
    So that day she went behind the bleachers to meet Paul Harrison, even though it felt wrong to do so. Even though everything inside her screamed at her to stay away.
    But Paul seemed so worldly-wise, so much like her father; if he said it was okay to skip class to meet him, then it must be. Second-guessing herself was so ingrained by then that she couldn't tell which voice in her head to listen to.
    Amy had been terrified, walking into that off-limits area alone that day. And as soon as she saw Paul she knew she’d made a mistake. He beckoned her forward, threw her to the ground and torn off her panties. Had she even struggled to escape? She couldn’t remember. It was