The Fix Excerpt Tour

The Fix by Natasha Sinel

Publication Date: September 1st, 2015

Preorder: B&N, Amazon, IndieBound

One conversation is all it takes to break a world wide open. Seventeen-year-old Macy Lyons has been through something no one should ever have to experience. And she’s dealt with it entirely alone. On the outside, she’s got it pretty good. Her family’s well-off, she’s dating the cute boy next door, she has plenty of friends, and although she long ago wrote her mother off as a superficial gym rat, she’s thankful to have allies in her loving, laid-back dad and her younger brother.

But a conversation with a boy at a party one night shakes Macy out of the carefully maintained complacency that has defined her life so far. The boy is Sebastian Ruiz, a recovering addict who recognizes that Macy is hardened by dark secrets. And as Macy falls for Sebastian, she realizes that, while revealing her secret could ruin her seemingly perfect family, keeping silent might just destroy her.

The Fix follows two good-hearted teenagers coming to terms with the cards they were dealt. It’s also about the fixes we rely on to cope with our most shameful secrets and the hope and fear that come with meeting someone who challenges us to come clean.

Praise for THE FIX

"First shot out of the gate, Sinel bravely addresses tough topics, demonstrating that the weight of secrets can pull us under––and their release can save us from drowning." — Holly Schindler, author of A Blue So Dark and Feral

“A bewitching, beautiful, and brave debut. Readers will marvel at Macy's resilience. Natasha Sinel's writing devastates and uplifts, by turns. An important story of one girl's journey to rewrite the blueprint of her own life by facing the truth inside herself.” — Carrie Mesrobian, award-winning author of Sex & Violence and Perfectly Good White Boy

"In her YA debut, Natasha Sinel paints a riveting picture of a teenager haunted by her past and struggling with her present. Macy's world is richly drawn, heartbreakingly real, and difficult to put down. The Fix shines." — I.W. Gregorio, author of None of the Above

Sebastian still had the same features he had at nine years old—light brown skin, dark brown hair buzzed short, impossibly long eyelashes behind wire-rimmed glasses, and a long, straight nose. But now he was tall. Really tall.

Chris called out to Sebastian. “Hey, you showed! Nice.”

Sebastian pulled his earbuds out and stuffed them in his pocket.

“Hey,” he said, taking the porch steps two at a time.

A couple of the guys reached out to him for a dude handshake-bump thing. Rebecca got up and gave him a Euro double kiss—one on each cheek. Then he turned

to me.

“Hey, Macy,” he said, his voice quiet and deep.

“Hi.” I hoped he wasn’t expecting me to do the double-kiss thing. While Rebecca could pull something like that off, I definitely couldn’t.

After Chris handed him a beer from the cooler, Sebastian appeared to be listening to him and the other guys speculate about who else in the junior class might have had a threesome. I stayed on the porch swing with Rebecca. She analyzed major celebrities who’d gotten their start on Disney TV shows, and I tried not to be aware of Sebastian standing just a few feet away from me.

A little while later, Sebastian headed upstairs with everyone to get high. He looked at me like he was waiting for me to come too, but I didn’t.

The second time everyone went in, Sebastian stayed behind with me, and for a split second, I felt uneasy. If his dark eyes made me feel the way they did in a classroom full of people, what would happen when we were alone, the moths flitting in and out of the dim porch light our only witnesses? He perched on the railing in front of me and cracked another beer.

“That looks comfortable,” he said. He no longer had even a hint of an accent.

“Sure is,” I said, plumping up the flowered pillow behind my back.

He stood up to his full, lanky six-foot-many-inches.

“Room for me?” he asked as he walked toward me.

I nodded.

The old rusty chains creaked as he sat next to me. We pushed our feet against the peeling gray porch floor, swaying back and forth. I wondered if Sebastian could feel the wisps of hair that had escaped from my yellow bandana and were dancing in the spring breeze toward his face.

I stared at his giant sneakers—orange, unlaced high-tops. Graffiti covered the sides of the soles. There were pictures of eyes—some with huge teardrops—lips, trees, a bird.

“That’s cool,” I said, pointing at one of the eyes on his left shoe. He held it up so I could see better.

“That’s my ‘eye of the world’ eye,” he said. “It watches over everything.” He pointed two fingers at his eyes and then at mine, back and forth—the I’ve got my eye on you gesture. Then, with exaggerated seriousness, he locked his gaze on mine. My pulse raced.

We both laughed uncomfortably.

We looked at the street and continued swinging back and forth, back and forth. My heart finally slowed to its normal rhythm.

“I got you with that one, right?” he said. “I’m kind of a ladies’ man.”

I raised my eyebrows at him.

“I’m serious! Check this out!” He held up his thin but solid arm, pushed the sleeve of his T-shirt to his shoulder, and pretended to flex his bicep; he frowned when nothing happened.

“Ha, ha,” I said.

“I don’t have a BMW, or any car, actually, but I do have a sweet BMX.” He paused. “If you’re nice, I’ll take you for a ride—you can sit on the handlebars while I pedal. You’re impressed, right?”

“I didn’t know you were trying to impress me.” I smiled, vaguely aware that the classroom eye contact had moved to flirting and my boyfriend was just inside the house.

 “Well, you know,” he said. “It’s always worth a try.”

And then his face got serious. “I’m sorry I stared at you the other day. In the hallway.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, never mind,” he said. “I thought you caught me looking.”

I wanted to say, “Don’t we catch each other looking all the time lately?” But of course, I didn’t. Instead I said, “When?”

“You were outside the art room. I’d never seen you there before. You were looking at your phone and you had this sad expression for a second. I felt like I was looking in your window with the shades up or something.”

His honesty was both scary and refreshing. I remembered that day. Sometimes when I felt like being alone, I hung out near the art room. I liked the smell of the paint and clay.

“So, what was up? What made you so sad?” he asked.

“It was no big deal, really. I applied for a summer internship, so that was just the inevitable ‘thanks but no thanks’ e-mail.”

I cleared my throat, wishing the sound could be like an eraser. I hadn’t told anyone that I’d written to a small architecture firm in town about the possibility of working there in August. Not even Rebecca or Chris.

“Doesn’t sound like no big deal,” he said.

“I thought it might help with college applications, but whatever, I’ll find something else.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“Berkeley,” I said.

“In California?”

I nodded.

“Why so far?” he asked.

Natasha Sinel is a writer of young adult fiction. She graduated from Yale University with a BA in English and from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business with an MBA. Before beginning her career as an author, she was director of business development at Showtime Networks. Born and raised in Washington, DC, she now lives in northern Westchester, New York, with her husband and three sons.

Don't forget to check out the first excerpt and the next one! Happy reading my lovelies :)