written by, Melissa Bender: wattpad

, by Unknown

Trying Again, was my nanowrimo book. 1 month. 50,000 word. I can gladly say, I completed this within the time frame and had written 75,013 words in the 30 days I had to write this. I decided to continue on with Trying Again, after some readers begged me not to stop there.. and I finished with 97,642 words. Yay me!

It's currently at 3.4 million reads on wattpad, and my most popular story.

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Meeting in high school, you'd think Gabriella and Tommy would be happily married. Blissfully happy with their two children Ben and Kate. Everyone on the outside thought they were perfect, but if only they knew..

What happens behind closed doors?

They fight. They yell and scream. There's insults, and accusations of cheating thrown around. Separate rooms and ignoring each other. It's constant bickering. They've grown apart and realised that true love doesn't always keep people together.

He's cold and arrogant, and she's a hot blooded Italian.

Fed up with it all, divorce is mentioned and someone moves out.. Or that was the plan until a surprise holiday is sprung on them and they have to keep their act up for a little while longer.. Until they realise that they're not faking it at all.

That they've started to fall in love all over again..

11 years ago.

“Do you see him?” my best friend Cathy whispered, giving me a slight nudge in the side of the ribs with her finger as she poked it into me.

I tried not to look over my shoulder as she already was openly googling him with her big brown eyes. This girl didn't care, she was peering through her thick black frames and twisting her dirty brown hair around a finger as she just blatantly stared at the group of boys behind us.

Even if curiosity was filling my needs with temptation. I couldn't look. “Stop staring!” I hissed back at her, trying to keep my voice low and unnoticeable.

With an eye roll, she shook her head at me and dropped her finger. “Gabby, he’s staring right at you. How can I not look back?”

Taking a bite of my red apple, I shrugged and then gave her a slight smirk. “How do you know he’s not actually watching you? You could be watching each other.”

Pausing, she slumped her back against the white plastic chair and nodded. “True, but I doubt it. He hasn’t taken his eyes off you since we came outside. He’s into you, has been since you arrived at this school.”

“Doubt it. He’s probably looking at me and thinking I’m some kind of loser, or a freak,” I muttered, hating that I had to come to a new school in the middle of the year. It was bad enough that I didn’t speak fluent English very well, but just coming to a new school was the icing on the cake.

My parents didn’t think their little girl would be teased at all. Yes, I was.

Cathy diverted her eyes, and stared me down. Her hands on my jean clad thighs and staring seriously. “I promise on my hamsters life, Tommy is ignoring his friends and watching you.”

Tommy was watching me. Just great. The boy I had been crushing on for weeks obviously knew, and was going to play some sort of prank on me. “I don’t think he’s into me at all. Maybe he just wants to tease me or something.”

Dating was a big no-no in my family, my parents were full blooded Italian and expected to me to find a nice Italian boy with ambition so we could make little Italian babies. He’d go off to work, and I would stay home to raise our children just like all the women in our family. That was in around twenty or so years, because at 16 I was forbidden to date anybody. Even looking at a boy would earn a scowl from my mamma.

Noticing Cathy’s eyes beginning to grow wider as I tossed my apple in the trashcan near us, I frowned. “What?”

It wasn’t until she done a fake cough, did I grow suspicious. “He’s coming over! He’s coming over! Holy crap! Tommy is walking directly towards us!” she sounded more like a man with a cold rather than a girl whispering.

My cheeks were already flaming, unable to hide my face with my long dark brown hair, I kept my eyes to the ground, more precisely on my navy vans that I was wearing. I needed a distraction. There was no way I wanted, or even could speak to a boy. I was shy, and awkward. Completely anti-social and unco.

I could tell he was right behind me as Cathy suddenly jumped up, gathering her hot pink school bag and rushing off while mumbling something about going to the library and researching for Mr McKenna’s history class. Right, not obvious at all.

Tommy Arnett. Tall, dark brown hair and piercing blue eyes was standing directly in front of me. “She’s not subtitle at all. I think everyone outside heard her.” His voice, soft like velvet and sending a river of hormones flooding through my veins.

Yes, I was smitten alright.

“Mm, I know,” I mumbled with a stupid nervous laugh. Could he go away now? I was going to start stuttering or say something dumb that didn't make sense.

“Uh, I don’t know what to say to you,” he said, a lot more nervous than I thought he would ever be. Sitting in the same seat Cathy was in moments ago, he ran his tanned fingers through his locks and ruffled up his hair slightly. Still, managing to look completely cute in process. “I want to ask you something, but you can totally say no, even though I want you to say yes.”

My heart was beating so hard, plummeting hard into my chest with every quick breath I took. “What is it?”

Here it came, the prank or joke he was going to make. His friends were probably watching us right now, and I bet they all had smirks on their faces. Some probably clutching their stomachs and laughing silently as they watched Tommy Arnett talk to me.

I heard him take a small breath, and then he spoke the words I never thought would come out of his mouth. “I wanted to know if you’d go out with me. You know, be my girlfriend?”

Almost hyperventilating as I looked up, he was staring directly at me. There was no smirk, nor a hint of humour. He was waiting, patiently for my answer and all I could do was nod yes, I would be. My nod wasn't received to him in how I expected it to be, and then I knew I would have to say the word. I mustered up all the courage I had and answered. “Ok.”

His eyes widened, making his blue eyes seem bigger and for a moment, I thought some cruel sick joke was being played, but I was wrong. So wrong. He instead, blew out a hard breath and broke his mouth out into a wide, bright grin. “You’re really pretty.”

I felt the heat flushing to surface against my cheeks. “No. I mean, you don’t have to say that.” God, I was a mumbling fool.

“But it’s true. I've liked you in forever, my mates tease me about it,” he admitted, looking embarrassed at his confession.

A soft laugh escaped, and I glanced towards his friends. Who, weren't laughing but instead staring in disbelief at us. Looking back towards Tommy, I smiled shyly at him. “I've liked you too, but my parent’s,” here comes the truth. “They won’t let me date anyone, I'm not allowed to.”

“I know,” he grinned, seeming pleased. “I don’t care though. They’ll like me.”

“You don’t?” I don’t know why, but it pleased me that he wasn't running off at my embarrassing confession. “How can you be so sure?”

He stretched his arms up above his head, revealing a slight hair line above his black shorts and I quickly glanced away before he noticed. His arms lowered again, and he shrugged. “Because, I like you and that’s all that matters.”

All the girls at our school dated, and I had tried telling my mamma that so many times, she would refuse to hear it though. ‘Gabriella, you need to study. There is plenty of times for boys.’ My papa would have a heart attack if he knew that I had been growing interested in boys. Well, one boy. Even my sisters liked to put their two sense in, they thought since they had to wait until their 18th birthday to begin relationships, then so should I. It wasn't fair since they were much older than me.

Unfortunately, I hadn't expected to fall head over toes for Tommy, otherwise I would have been happy to wait until then.

As the end of lunch music began to ring, Tommy stood up and reached for my bag. “You don’t have to carry that,” I assured him, but I did like it.

“But isn’t that what boyfriends do?” he asked, giving me his famous grin that made all the girls swoon and grow weak at the knees.

With a shrug, I went to take my bag from his hand but he moved it from my reach. “You really want to be my boyfriend? I mean, there’s plenty other girls here who think you’re gorgeous.”

“You think I’m gorgeous?” he asked, with a teasing smile. As he slung my black bag strap over his right shoulder and began to walk by my side.

Holy crap, how could I have blurted that out? Kicking the cement, I looked straight ahead. “I guess if I'm your girlfriend, then I am allowed to think that, right?”

He chuckled, and soon I felt his hand nearing mine. Fingers slowly sliding in between mine until he curled them. Completely holding my hand. “You are, and I am allowed to think you’re the prettiest girl I've ever seen. Because you are.”

My heart was still pounding, harder with each step we took towards the large brick building. Everyone who was in front of us, staring openly at us. We were walking, and making it known that we was together. The schools new couple. I hadn't done this before, and neither had he. It eased my mind knowing he wasn't dating a different girl each week.

Cathy was beaming as she walked towards us, her eyes wide and head jerking towards our interlaced hands. “No freaking way!” she exclaimed. “Is this for real?”

Please shut up. I thought to myself.

Tommy laughed, “Yes, why do you seem surprised?”

Cathy didn't hesitate to answer. “Because she’s been in love with you since forever, and didn't believe me when I said you liked her back!”

“I'm going to gag you,” I warned, giving her a death glare.

“Was I that obvious?” Tommy asked, ignoring my embarrassment.

Cathy nodded, rolling her eyes. “Well duh! You were always watching her, and I noticed every single time. Well, most the time.”

“Really?” He asked, amused. “Well then, I guess I have been caught out. I thought I was being secretive about it.”

I couldn't believe this was actually happening. He wasn't standing here and talking to my best friend about liking me. No, this had to be some illusion, a dream. It wasn't though, Tommy was really standing here, talking with Cathy as she teased him. She was far from anxious around boys like I were. She could chat to them easily, and about anything pretty much. This girl had no filter. She was the complete opposite of me though, probably why I loved her like a sister. She brought out the best in me.

We walked all the way to my classroom, I had English and waited patiently for Tommy to hand my bag over. My legs felt like jelly and insides giddy. “I need to go inside,” I said, stating the obvious.

“I have this class too,” he looked back at me.

My brows raised. “You do? I thought you were in-”

He cut me off. “I swapped. I uh, was failing French anyway.”

Laughing, I nodded in agreement. “Yeah I think a lot of people fail that class, I wouldn't even attempt to try that.”

We walked into class, my bag firmly in my grasp and walking towards my seat near the far left. I couldn't miss the hurtful whispers from the more popular girls as they pulled a face when they noticed Tommy and I walking together. This is why I was afraid he was only playing a mean joke on me. He was obviously the more popular, and I was just. Me.

Tommy seemed to notice and shrugged, leaning over and whispering against my ear. “Ignore them, they’re jealous of you.”

“Something to be jealous of?” I whispered, grinning back at him.

He nodded, looking serious now. “Yes.”

English, just my luck was a double lesson of writing. Nothing I hated more than sitting and writing out pages and pages of theory. Dropping my left hand down as I stretched my right hand out, wiggling my fingers to get some normal sensation back. Glancing over, I looked at Tommy who was writing with a deep concentration. He looked so focused. Embarrassed when he caught my gaze, I just smiled shyly and turned quickly.

As I began to start writing with my right hand, I felt a set of fingers brush against my skin. Not a hard touch, just a small simple and innocent touch that ignited so many feelings inside my body.

Expecting him to let my fingers go, he didn't. Holding them with his own for the entire lesson. I smiled on the inside until our class ended. It was so innocent, and sweet.

When the class ended, we kept holding hands the entire time until we were in the hallway, people beginning to make their way home. “Best English lesson ever,” he said, looking me dead in the eyes.

I definitely had to agree with him, and it was only just the beginning.

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, by Unknown