Chapter 1
Kinley
Then
“You need to slow down on the whiskey, Kinley, or you’re going to be sick,” my best friend Jax warned, standing beside me out in the woods.
I was trying to enjoy the end of the year party. This was where everyone from several schools always gathered in our small town of Fort Worth, Texas.
“Jax, it’s the last day of our freshman year of high school! We’re officially Sophomores and made it yet another year at good ol’ Adams High. Why can’t you just live a little and enjoy it?”
“We both know you’re not hammering down that bottle because it’s the beginning of summer break, Kinley.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not talking about this.”
“I know. You never want to talk about your mom.”
“That’s because there’s nothing to talk about.”
“She wants to see you. That’s not nothing.”
“I have nothing to say to her.”
“You haven’t seen or spoken to her since you moved here with your aunt when we were in sixth grade.”
I was originally from Ohio before my aunt moved us here, wanting us to start over. Her words, not mine. There was no starting over for me, not with what my mother had put me through since I was born. Back in Ohio, I had no one until my aunt got involved. Here, I only had her and Jax.
“You mean when she lost custody of me, and I had to go live with my aunt or just be another abandoned kid thrown into the system?”
He sighed deeply, knowing I was right.
Jax wasn’t going to win this argument. My mother could try to reach me until she was blue in the face, but I wasn’t going to give her the time of day. In my eyes, she was as good as dead like my sperm donor of a father was.
I'd never met him. He skipped out on us after she’d told him she was pregnant with me. At least that was what she always said when I’d ask her about him. Although, I didn’t ask often. Especially as I got older and realized what my mother was.
“Listen,” Jax coaxed. “I’m not trying to tell you what to do.”
“Really? Because it sure as shit feels like you are. You have no idea what she put me through.”
“I know enough.”
“You know nothing.”
He tried to grab the bottle out of my hand, but I chugged down another swig instead.
“I don’t like seeing you like this, Kinley.”
“Fine.” I shrugged. “Then don’t watch.”
Before he could reply, I stomped away from him. I was angry that he was bringing her up when all I was trying to do was forget about the fact that she thought I’d want to speak to her, let alone see her. She meant nothing to me, and I was mostly pissed she was making Jax and me fight. Other than my aunt, he was the only person in my life I could count on.
I’d met him the first day of sixth grade which was also my first day at a new school, and I swear he could smell my fear. It was a reccurring joke between us. I was super shy back then, not used to having friends. When it came time to pick a partner in science class, I looked around the room in a panic, not knowing anyone.
Until a boy with kind eyes was hovering above my desk, asking me if I wanted to be his partner for the rest of the school year. There was something about him that just made me smile, and at that point in my life, I couldn’t remember the last time I had.
However, rumors of our friendship were what school gossip was made of. Everyone thought we were hooking up behind closed doors, but it wasn’t true. We weren’t. It wasn’t like that between us. We were just best friends. Jax was on the football team, and he’d been playing as the quarterback since he was six-years-old. My best friend was incredibly handsome and had absolutely no problem scoring with girls, on and off the field.
While I remained single, never having a boyfriend.
I didn’t feel like I needed one. I had Jax, and that was good enough for me. He lived near my house, and since my aunt was constantly working in the ER as a registered nurse, Jax and I spent a lot of time together.
We slept in each other’s beds more times than I could remember, which was probably why gossip ran rampant down our hallways. It wasn’t a big deal. I was used to people talking about me once they knew I lived with my aunt and my mother wasn’t in the picture.
Nobody knew why, though, and it only piqued their interest in wanting to continue to gossip about me. My aunt bought us a cute house in a nice neighborhood that reminded me of the movie Pleasantville. I learned pretty early on that everyone knew one another in this town. Complete opposite from the hustle and bustle of Cleveland where everyone kept to themselves.