The end and the beginning become one in a heart-pounding coming-of-age mystery about the power of friendship, fate, and inexplicable second chances.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Lauren Thoman’s I’ll Stop The World, which is out April 1st.
Is it the right place at the wrong time? Or the wrong place at the right time?
Trapped in a dead-end town, Justin Warren has had his life defined by the suspicious deaths of his grandparents. The unsolved crime happened long before Justin was born, but the ripple effects are still felt after thirty-eight years. Justin always knew he wouldn’t have much of a future. He just never imagined that his life might take him backward.
In a cosmic twist of fate, Justin’s choices send him crashing into the path of determined optimist Rose Yin. Justin and Rose live in the same town and attend the same school, but have never met―because Rose lives in 1985. Justin won’t be born for another twenty years. And his grandparents are still alive―for now.
In a series of events that reverberate through multiple lifetimes, Justin and Rose have a week to get Justin unstuck in time and put each of them in control of their futures―by solving a murder that hasn’t even happened yet.
CW: I’LL STOP THE WORLD contains depictions of emotional abuse, alcoholism and excessive drinking, underage drinking, smoking, racism, discussions of homophobia, and violent bullying.
Chapter One
Justin
“Everyone shut up and pay attention,” Mr. Shaw growls as he passes by our row. He sounds menacing—dude looks like a grizzly and has a voice like an auger, so pretty much everything he does is menacing—but then he plops down at the end of a row and pulls out his phone, firing up a game of Candy Crush, so he clearly doesn’t actually care.
I roll my eyes as the cacophony around us dims just enough to sort of hear our student body president, Taylor Strickland, introduce our guest speaker from a podium on the stage.
“As you all know, Mayor Rothman won this award back when he was a senior at this very school,” she chirps into the microphone, tossing her blonde curls like she thinks she’s in a Target ad.
“Who cares,” Dave Derrin coughs loudly from the seat in front of me. I kick the back of his seat, not because I care, but just because it’s Dave and why not.
He spins around and waves his middle finger in my face; I, in turn, make a show of dropping my head onto Alyssa’s shoulder. I’m not tired, but that doesn’t seem like a good reason to pass up an opportunity to piss Dave off. Alyssa’s thick black curls tickle the side of my face, and I reach up to tuck a glossy coil behind her ear, holding eye contact with Dave the whole time.
He’s had a thing for Alyssa since sophomore year, and it kills him that she’d rather hang out with me than him.
Even if Alyssa and I are agonizingly platonic, it’s still more than they are.
That does it. Dave pantomimes gagging, sticking his finger down his throat, but then turns back around and slumps in his seat.
Point, me.
“Get off,” Alyssa mutters, shrugging my head from her shoulder and shaking her hair back into place as she continues adding detail to the page in her sketchbook where my profile is gradually being revealed in gray lines and smudged shadows. Her eyes flit to me, then back to her paper. She fills in the hair falling across my forehead with quick, light strokes.
I wish they meant more, these sketches she does. In a movie, it would mean something that the pages she holds are filled with images of me. My face in charcoals. My hands in pastels. My hunched shoulders; my ratty sneakers; my shaggy hair rendered in careful colored-pencil strokes depicting its current state of nightmarish orange-red, the faded remnants of a rainy-day experiment in Dollar Tree hair dye a few weeks ago.
But all it means—to her, anyway—is that she is an artist, and I am a willing subject, and she needs the practice.
One day, she’s going to be famous; I’m sure of it. And I will still be here. Alone.
Onstage, the mayor steps up to the microphone. “It’s good to be back here at Warren High, although it had a different name back when I walked these halls,” he says with a smile. “Looked different, too. Did you know the layout is reversed from what it used to be? In my day, this was the administrative wing, and the auditorium was on the other side of the school. But although much has changed over the years, there’s one thing that hasn’t, and that’s the high standards we set for our students. Which is why I’m so proud of each of the applicants for this year’s Buford County Citizenship Award. As you know, we receive applications from all over the county . . .”
He drones on, building up to the ultimate announcement of who’s won this year’s citizenship award, this giant scholarship the county gives out every year, always to the same type of kid: honor roll, student council, lots of extracurriculars, community service, blah blah blah. The type of kid who doesn’t really need a leg up, because they’ve already got so many, but they keep sprouting more anyway, like some sort of overachieving mutant spider.
I slouch in my seat, tuning him out.
“Why does the whole school have to be here for this?” I grumble, closing my eyes. “Why not just email them or something?”
“Shhh,” Alyssa hisses, one of the only kids around us taking Shaw’s shut up command seriously. “It’s a big deal,” she whispers, her voice barely louder than a breath. “Besides, it’s getting us out of Government.”
“But Government is where I nap.”
“You and most of Washington,” she says with zero humor. Alyssa is one of those people who registered to vote the second she turned eighteen, and not just because the school was giving out homework passes for anyone who could produce a valid voter registration. She literally has an election countdown in all her social media profiles that she updates every day.
She made me register, too, although honestly, I mostly did it for the homework pass. It’s not that I don’t care about my civic duty or whatever; it’s just that it feels a little like getting excited about a glass of water while the whole building burns.
Alyssa pokes me in the arm with the back of her charcoal pencil. “Sit up. You’re messing up my angle.”
I oblige, trying to find the same position I was in at the beginning of the assembly. Alyssa and I have been friends since her family first moved here freshman year and she was seated in front of me in every class. Our last names—Vizcaino and Warren, respectively—function as the alphabetical equivalent of an arranged marriage, constantly smashed up against one another on the attendance sheet through no action of our own.
As opposed to my relationship with Alyssa in real life, which is regrettably, tragically, platonic.
“But seriously, I don’t think it’s that big a deal,” I say, trying to hold as still as possible. “It’s just a stupid scholarship.” I’m not sure who I’m trying to convince more, me or her.
Alyssa smiles, but it’s an empty one. The kind you give a stranger who tells you to have a blessed day, or when you happen to run into your mailman at the grocery store. On the paper, Alyssa’s pencil traces the curve of my ear. “You don’t have to make me feel better, Justin. I’m okay.”
I turn to face her, trying to get a better look at her to gauge whether she’s telling the truth, but she frowns and pivots my head forward again with her hand, the tip of her pencil scratching my ear. “Stop moving so much.” Her touch sends a shiver down my spine that I hope she doesn’t notice.
“Next time, maybe you should pick a model who isn’t so ADHD.” “Next time, maybe my model should take his medication.”
“I’m out again.”
Alyssa sighs, but knows better than to say anything more. I try to make my one-month prescriptions last as long as possible, but they always run out eventually. I managed to stretch the last one for nearly three months, hoping Mom might have managed to save up the hundred bucks needed to refill it by then. I should’ve known better.
Mr. Jensen in the guidance office has been telling me for years that I could do better in school “if we could all just sit down and figure out the right accommodations,” but that would require a mom who can regularly afford the medication, or who would ever bother to show up to a parent-teacher conference.
Besides, it’s my senior year. Seems like a waste of time to change things up now. All I’ve got to do is make it through the next eight months without flunking out of school, and I’m golden—if by golden, I mean I will live at home and work at the Dollar Tree until I die, which I guess is a pretty narrow definition, but you know. It is what it is.
Onstage, Mayor Rothman introduces the entirely predictable winner of the citizenship award, who struts across the stage like a self-important turkey, beaming as he shakes the mayor’s hand. Keeping with tradition, he will now be insufferable for the rest of the school year.
Even though the Buford County Citizenship Award is a scholarship, they always present it in the fall, since they like having the winner do things like throw the first pitch at Little League games and flip on the lights for the town Christmas tree, and these things are kind of hard to do if the winner is away at college.
Two years ago, Alyssa’s brother, Devon, won. He’s now at MIT, and will probably go on to work at NASA or cure cancer or something. Alyssa wasn’t eligible to apply for this year’s award. You have to declare your intention to attend a four-year college to qualify for the scholarship, and Alyssa opted for a two-year art school in New York.
Her parents have not been thrilled. It was a whole Thing.
I, on the other hand, disappointed exactly no one by not applying for the award, because no one in my life is dumb enough to think I will ever win anything more significant than Employee of the Month at the Dollar Tree.
I mean, I haven’t won yet, but I feel like my time is coming. Pete Arnold can’t win every month, can he?
Also, I’m not going to college. When I told Mr. Jensen, he just shrugged and said, “I figured.”
I couldn’t decide whether that was unprofessional or just realistic. On the one hand, isn’t it supposed to be his job to encourage me to follow my dreams or whatever? But on the other, if he didn’t arrive at that conclusion, he’d be really bad at his job. After all, he’s supposed to get to know the kids at this school, and anyone who’s met me for more than three seconds can tell you I’m not college material.
So it’s a draw, is what I’m saying.
“You sure you’re okay?” I ask Alyssa, trying my best not to move, which only makes the task seem more daunting. From the waist up, I think I’m doing a decent enough job, but from the waist down, my leg jitters to a silent beat, determinedly signaling the H in ADHD to the rest of our row like a manic cheerleader. I catch dirty looks from the kids on either side of us. Stupid conjoined seats.
Alyssa shrugs. “Sure, whatever.” Which is Alyssa-speak for let’s not talk about it. “Are we going to the pep rally tomorrow?”
I recognize a pointed subject change when I hear one, but that doesn’t stop me from groaning. “It’s at Dave’s house. I don’t want to give up my Saturday night to go to Dave’s.”
It’s my own fault for speaking too loudly, but Dave swivels in his seat again and glares at me. “You’re not invited, Bore-en.”
I ignore Dave’s stupid play on my last name, Warren, which has been following me around with varying degrees of popularity since sixth grade, despite being painfully unclever.
“Everyone’s invited, Dave. It’s a school event.”
Town safety codes wisely prohibit the setting of giant fires on school grounds, but instead of doing the reasonable thing and, you know, not having a massive bonfire, the Buford County School Board has been skirting the code for decades by hosting the fall pep rally on private property instead of at the school.
I have a hard time believing that this isn’t also violating some sort of code, but it would appear that as long as it’s not technically on government property, no one cares. Plus, I guess the optics of having a massive inferno on the front lawn of a school that’s named after a couple who burned to death in that school—making me, their grandson, a morbidly twisted version of Buford County royalty—are not great.
Anyway, tomorrow night, Dave Derrin’s family is hosting the Warren Memorial High School pep rally on their massive estate just north of Stone River, as they have every fall since before I was born.
Coincidentally, tomorrow night, I plan to be violently ill for a period of time that may or may not precisely coincide with the duration of the bonfire. But Dave doesn’t have to know that.
“I probably should go,” I say, feigning thoughtfulness, “since the school’s named after me and all.”
“It’s not named after you, crotchstain. Just your dead grandparents. Besides, it’s not like there’s anything special about frying to a crisp. Anyone can do that.”
You’d think that insulting someone’s dead grandparents would be off-limits for most of civilized society, but that’s what makes Dave special.
You know. Like how an abnormally large hemorrhoid is special. “Ew,” says Alyssa, wrinkling her nose at Dave. “Did you really just say that?”
I can see the wheels in Dave’s head turning, trying to figure out a way to walk back the offensive comment enough to win Alyssa’s approval, but without having to apologize to me.
I put an arm around Alyssa’s shoulders, hoping she’ll wait until Dave isn’t looking to tell me to knock it off.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he mutters, narrowing his eyes at my arm like he’s trying to light it on fire.
“It’s okay, Dave,” I say magnanimously. “I forgive you. I know you really do want us at your party.” I emphasize the us.
I feel more than see Alyssa roll her eyes; she’s turned her attention back to her sketch, but her shoulders give a slight shake and her chin twitches, which translates roughly to Justin, you are so full of crap.
Fortunately, Dave does not speak fluent Alyssa, and therefore does not realize that she’s only barely tolerating me right now. Based on the look he shoots at me, if you could give a person gonorrhea through sheer force of will, I’d be covered in warts by now.
Or, you know, whatever the actual symptoms of gonorrhea are. I don’t know; I just imagine it’s gross.
As if on cue, the winner wraps up his speech onstage, and Taylor Strickland skips back to the microphone, dismissing us to class with a reminder that everyone’s invited! to the pep rally tomorrow night.
I grin at Dave as I rise to my feet, keeping one hand on the back of Alyssa’s chair. “So I guess we’ll see you there?” I say cheerily as she packs up her sketchbook.
“Whatever,” he grunts, shrugging on his backpack and shoving his way out of his row.
“Single file, Mr. Derrin,” Mr. Shaw calls after him, sounding bored.
Even though he wasn’t talking to her, Alyssa jumps up, following the person beside her out of our row and grabbing my wrist to make sure I’m doing the same.
The wrist-grabbing isn’t necessary; I’d follow her off a bridge. But I’m hardly going to complain about it.
Once we’re back in class, Alyssa pulls out her sketchbook again, swapping her charcoals for colored pencils, but has barely started shading in my eyes when Shaw lumbers into the room, dropping a thick stack of papers on his desk with a sound like a door slamming.
“Okay, rabble,” he rumbles as we all startle to alertness. He picks up the papers he just put down, clacking the edges against the desktop like an exclamation point. “One last thing before you scurry out of here for the weekend.” He begins to distribute them, dividing the stack into chunks that he drops on the front desk of every row.
As we send stapled packets from hand to hand like the well-oiled machine we are, Shaw explains, “As the mayor mentioned at the assembly, applications for the internship at city hall need to be turned in to the front office by next Wednesday. These internships will last through the end of the school year, and can earn you college credit. While the mayor will only be accepting a handful of interns, anyone who completes an application will get a homework pass.”
Shaw keeps talking, something about civic responsibility and the unfortunate work ethic of our generation, but I stop paying attention as I scan the application form, my eyes blurring on rows of questions I can’t answer.
What are your college plans?
Which accomplishment(s) are you proudest of during your time at Warren Memorial High School?
Describe a time you demonstrated leadership among your peers. Where do you see yourself in ten years?
What is your greatest wish for the future, and what are you doing now to make it a reality?
Alyssa is already hard at work filling out her form, pinning down her dreams and aspirations with her pen like she’s afraid they might fly away.
I stare at mine, trying to come up with an answer to even one question, but they’re all about achievements and ambitions, future plans and career goals.
This application wasn’t written for someone like me.
The bell rings, and the room fills with the sounds of sneakers hitting the floor, papers rustling into folders, backpacks zipping closed. Alyssa sighs and slides her application into her sketchbook, half of the page already dark with her handwriting.
As we all cluster at the front of the room to shuffle out the door, I glance around to make sure no one is looking, then drop my application in the trash.
