Monday, June 3, 2013

The Avery Shaw Experiment by Kelly Oram Guest Post & Giveaway

The Avery Shaw Experiment by Kelly Oram 
Guest Post & Giveaway


Aspiring social scientists Avery Shaw and Grayson Kennedy were required to keep detailed journals of all their exploits during The Avery Shaw Experiment. Only the participants of the 2013 Utah State Science Fair were allowed access to these records, but we're in luck because the ever-sneaky, privacy-invading author Kelly Oram has managed to get her hands on those journals and has decided to share them with the world. Today's featured entry has been stolen from the pages of Avery's diary. Enjoy!

“I See London, I See France” (Avery)

Dear Diary,

Though I am clearly past the shock, denial and bargaining stages of grief, I have not attained guilt yet. If I had to describe myself as anything right now, I would say I’m simply empty. Sad, hurt and empty.

What happened between Aiden and myself was tragic, but, really, it was nobody’s fault. Aiden has as much right to his feelings as I do mine. He did what he did because it’s what he needed, not because of something I’d done. Even Grayson agrees that I did nothing wrong. He’s told me a hundred times already that I have nothing to feel guilty about.

Grayson’s right. I have nothing to feel guilty about. And I don’t. Feel guilty, that is. It’s been days and still the guilt won’t come. I’m not even sure what I’m supposed to feel guilty about. I just know it’s the next stage in the grieving process.

As part of the Avery Shaw Experiment, I have decided to try and let the stages of grief occur naturally. However, that doesn’t mean that I will sit around waiting for acceptance and a cured heart to find me. No one has ever achieved results by being stagnant.

I’ve decided that the best thing for me to do is that which true mourners do—try to move on with my life. I need to stop dwelling on the past. I need to accept that my relationship with Aiden will never go back to the way it was, and that my life has changed in a very permanent way. I will never be the same.

I figured step one of “moving on” was to purge my life of all things Aiden Kennedy. Tonight I had Grayson come over to my house and help me remove everything that reminded me of Aiden. My Theory was that if I see nothing that sparks a memory, then I would be able to think of Aiden less and it would be easier for me to forget him.

This experience was much harder and more painful than I thought it would be. I never could have done it without Grayson’s support and encouragement. Crying in front of him was embarrassing, but he didn’t seem to think any less of me for it. I’m grateful to have such an understanding partner.

After it was all over—Grayson had to pry the garbage bag full of memories from my hands and drive away with it, or all of that stuff would have ended up right back in its place—I expected to feel better. I expected some sort of closure or sense of relief. Instead I looked around at all the bare walls and dust outlines on the dresser and cried even harder.

The empty spots where the pictures and souvenirs once were now stand as reminders themselves—big empty voids just like the one in my heart that used to be filled with my best friend. Part of me is missing. It’s as if I am an amputee missing an arm or a leg.

The spot on my wall where I used to hang a poster of Albert Einstein that Aiden had given me after I’d dressed as the brilliant physicist for Halloween in middle school was the most obvious gaping hole. I took one look at that spot and broke down.


When I lost it, Grayson wrapped his arms around me and told me he knew how to fix the problem and then disappeared slamming my bedroom door shut behind him. After a minute, he came back and I watched, bewildered, as he pinned a pair of smiley face boxer shorts to my wall where Einstein used to watch over me.

I couldn’t help the way my horrified gaze dropped to Grayson’s pants. He burst into laughter, knowing what I’d been thinking, and insisted that the shorts now on my wall were his emergency pair—clean and washed—that he kept in his gym bag, and that this was most definitely an emergency.

I asked why he tacked his underwear up on my bedroom wall and he told me because now every time I looked at that spot I would think of him and laugh instead of thinking of Aiden and crying. He was right. I can’t help smiling at the ridiculous smiley faces. 

He also told me that they would help me have good dreams. When I asked why he said because I would dream about him being mostly naked instead of having nightmares of Aiden leaving me. I’d freaked out so badly that he’d had to prompt me to breathe again. I don’t know that I’ll have any dreams at night, but the daydreams are already ridiculous. I can’t stop picturing him in those shorts! I’m going to have to get something to replace them. Soon!
  

Be sure to catch all of the entries 
from the Avery Shaw Diaries!

June 3rd -- "I See London, I See France" (Avery) -- Colorimetry
June 4th -- "Purging" (Grayson) -- Reading Teen
June 5th -- "Too Hot To Handle" (Avery) -- I Am A Reader, Not A Writer
June 6th -- "Self Control, Or Lack Thereof" (Grayson) -- Book Passion For Life
June 7th -- "Most Definitely A Real Date" (Grayson) -- Confessions of a Bookaholic
June 8th -- "Post Shower Avery And Grayson Things" (Avery) -- A Life Bound By Books


Get the Book!!

“I’ve got news for you, Aves. When a guy says he wants to take you out in the name of science, he’s totally full of it. He really just wants to take you out.”  

“But you’ve taken me out like a million times for the experiment. You kissed me once in the name of science.”  

“Exactly.”  
 ~Kelly Oram, The Avery Shaw Experiment

The Avery Shaw Experiment
by Kelly Oram
ebook, 278 pages
Published May 4, 2013 by Bluefields

When Avery Shaw’s heart is shattered by her life-long best friend, she chooses to deal with it the only way she knows how—scientifically.

The state science fair is coming up and Avery decides to use her broken heart as the topic of her experiment. She’s going to find the cure. By forcing herself to experience the seven stages of grief through a series of social tests, she believes she will be able to get over Aiden Kennedy and make herself ready to love again. But she can’t do this experiment alone, and her partner (ex partner!) is the one who broke her heart.

Avery finds the solution to her troubles in the form of Aiden’s older brother Grayson. The gorgeous womanizer is about to be kicked off the school basketball team for failing physics. He’s in need of a good tutor and some serious extra credit. But when Avery recruits the lovable Grayson to be her “objective outside observer,” she gets a whole lot more than she bargained for, because Grayson has a theory of his own: Avery doesn’t need to grieve. She needs to live. And if there’s one thing Grayson Kennedy is good at, it’s living life to the fullest.

Kelly Oram 
Kelly Oram wrote her first novel at age fifteen–a fan fiction about her favorite music group, The Backstreet Boys, for which family and friends still tease her. She's obsessed with reading, talks way too much, and loves to eat frosting by the spoonful. She lives outside of Phoenix, Arizona with her husband and four children.



Giveaway
                 
Have a soft spot for Grayson? Good news, you have a chance to hear from him personally! Avery loved the diary Grayson made her so much that Grayson decided to make another one for one very lucky fan. Enter the giveaway below for a chance to win your very own personalized Secret Grayson Kennedy Love Diary, complete with a personal letter/journal entry from Grayson himself! The winner of the diary will also receive some Kelly Oram bookmarks and a signed Avery Shaw Experiment mini-poster. (roughly 8"x11") Five other lucky winners will also receive signed Avery Shaw Experiment mini-posters.

a Rafflecopter giveaway