Lush: A Novel
 Being thirteen is hard, but it gets harder when your father is a drunk. Samantha Gywnn feels exactly the same way. Because of her father's crazy acts, Samantha is on a quest to protect her four year old brother, Luke, from him. Her mother, a yoga "freak", thinks that she needs to go easy on the old man. Despite having three, trustworthy friends, Vanessa, Angie and Tracy, Sam hides the fact that her dad drinks. She feels that anyone who found out would loathe her. Sam used to have a good friend named Charlie Parker whom she had shared her secret with. But their friendship was broken when Samantha thought Charlie stole her bra and put it on show back in seventh grade. Samantha decides, to help her feel better, leave notes in the pages of a book to a stranger in the library, the only place where she can freely be herself. She assumes that the stranger is a girl in high school with the initials A.J.K and they continue to pass messages. While at the fountain in the library one day, Samantha is felt up by a high school boy named Drew Maddox. Drew sits at the jock table and stares at Samantha's chest whenever she walks by. After arriving home, Sam feels no urge to share this with her Nana, who is baking cookies. The next morning, Mr. Gwynn has an announcement. He had been promoted in his architect job to the Feingold Project. Samantha however, does not feel overjoyed. After breakfast, Nana, thinking that her job to make her son more steady again is done, leaves for her house. At school, an assembly is held. Intimate relationships or "Sex The Assembly" as Samantha and her friends call it. During lunch, Kyle Faulkner and Greg Vaughn tease Samantha by doing a fruit-as-boobs act. Right away, Vanessa, Angie and Tracy defend her. Saturday morning Mr. Gywnn decides to give yoga a shot, with his wife. Samantha, practically thinks it is a horrible idea. This time at school, the eighth-grade boys have developed a rating system. For most of it, number 1 is Molly Katz. Samantha is voted "Best Boobs". After eating lunch, she decides to tell her three friends about Drew. In the library, this time Drew kisses her on the lips. Because her mother isn't home and her father is "working" in his study, Samantha has to take care of Luke. Both are jumping on the couch, Luke with a glass of juice. In all the excitement, the two make a lot of noise causing Mr. Gywnn to come to them. Luke jumps too wildly and juice splashes all over the Feingold blueprints Mr. Gywnn spent time on. Angry, frustrated and out of control, Samantha watches her father smash a bottle on Luke's face. Luke has a fracture with stitches and bruises. Both of his eyes are dark red. Samantha's father is nowhere to be found, and nobody tries to reach him. Because of the incident, Charlie Parker's mother and father spend the next few days with the family until Luke gets better. While at her house, Charlie tries to get Samantha to understand that he was not the one who stole her bra. Samantha, of course, denies it. Drew asks Sam to a party at someone's house and she says yes. But to her friends, she also has to lie about not being able to come to their usual Saturday sleepover at Vanessa's house in order to go to it. At the party, Drew asks Samantha what she drinks. Not having to drink before, Samantha decides to drink anything but Jim Beam. After she is fully drunk, Sam wakes up in a room where she is surrounded by coats, her shirt taken off. In the middle of their "sex", Drew leaves after hearing that Samantha is only thirteen, basically a kid. Crying, Samantha walks out of the room - only to bump into Andy Shaver, the party host's brother. Andy persuades Samantha into looking at his room, where he pins her against the dresser and starts to forcefully mash with her. To make it worse, Kyle Faulkner and Danny Harmon (Angie's Crush) are there too, mashing with her. It continues until a friend of Marybeth (Angie's Sister) takes Samantha home. At home, Mrs. Gwynn doesn't ask Samantha about her night. Instead she tells her about how Mr. Gwynn didn't drink until the death of her father. Also about how after she got pregnant, they had to marry. This strikes Samantha in a totally wrong way. She thinks that her being born was a mistake but is quickly assured by her mother that that was not the situation at all. Finally after all that they have shared, A.J.K decides to meet Samantha in person. When they meet, Samantha is totally shocked because the stranger is not a girl, its a boy! The "creepy" library shelf cleaner boy named Alexander, though he prefers to be called Jesse. Jesse takes Samantha to her father's usual drinking bar. Approaching her father, Samantha slaps him across the face. In earth science, at school, Samantha also learns that Charlie did not steal her bra. It was actually a guy named Jacob Mann. While at their normal tree house place, Sam apologizes to her old friend and decides to tell him about the party she went to. The friendship between Samantha and her friends is falling apart. Now that they have learned where their friend really was and what she did. Angie, especially, is mad at Samantha. Sam, ashamed, tells Vanessa that she'll be at the sleepover on Saturday no matter what. Once at Vanessa's house, she cannot hold it any longer. Crying, Samantha spills every one of her secrets. Mr. Gywnn being an alcoholic. Luke's tragic incident. What really happened at the party. Thankfully, Vanessa, Angie and Tracy forgive her. Though Angie still has an edge to her voice. While having one of her normal midnight snacks it occurs to Samantha that she can smash all of the bottle her father hides around the house. Once she has done that, he will not be able to drink, for a while. After she has done that, Samantha sits and looks out the window where it is starting to snow. Maybe, she thinks, we'll build a snowman. Maybe mom will bring hot chocolate. Maybe dad will put Luke on his shoulders. Maybe, someone passing by will think that we are a normal family.