PART I
“Fucking retard!” Nick backs me up against the lockers at school where everyone can see and hear. “Who has problems reading at the age of sixteen, huh? Only you, dumb bitch, making the whole class look stupid like you. You piece of shit.”
I cower and shudder, the words echoing in my ears, robbing me of my confidence and self-esteem. It’s not happening now, it was more than three years ago, and yet…
And yet the memory thunders through me, knocks about in my head like a living thing trying to get free. Even though I haven’t heard Nick’s voice since then, since my parents decided to take me out of the school where this was happening and move away.
Chewing on my lip, drawing on the tiny shock of pain, I fight the memory, wrestle it down and lock it away.
I’m okay. I will be.
Not that I haven’t thought of ending it—ending the dark crowding inside me, the self-doubt, the feeling I’m worth nothing.
But I’ve made it so far. Alive. Heart still beating, a voice in my mind telling me Nick was wrong. I am worth something. After all, I’m here and I have my art: my beads and strings to make jewelry. To create beauty. If nothing else, I’ve got this.
And the sad days, the calm days, they sift through my fingers like cool beads. I string them up and hang them around my neck, count them, measure them. Weigh them.
I do this to remind myself I survived. Survived the mindless hatred and violence that shaped my nightmares. That the string of days that is my life lies in my hands, and that it’s up to me to be happy.
Somehow, one day, I will.
~ Amber
Chapter One
Amber
Returning to Madison, my hometown, feels as good as a car collision. Yeah, that good.
Being here makes me feel frightened, unimportant, worthless… and the scary part is that it’s a familiar feeling. The past three years I spent in Chicago I thought I made progress. That I became stronger, more confident. Free and happy.
Now that I’m back, if feels as if I have nothing to show for it. All gone down the drain. As if I never left, and my past is wrapping tentacles around me, leaching the life out of me.
Truth be told, right now I wish I’d never returned, and the reason for my bad decision—the one convinced me it’s be a fabulous idea—is currently making faces at me in the mirror, standing by my shoulder.
“Ev…” I sigh. “What are you doing?”
Evangeline sticks her tongue out at me and crosses her hazel eyes. “Trying to get you to quit scowling. Hey, I think it’s working!”
“Stop it.” My mouth twitches, my mind veering off its true, beaten path of regret and fear. She really does look ridiculous like that, her copper curls all over the place, forefingers pulling at the corners of her mouth. “Ev!”
She giggles and falls on my shoulder, completely spoiling my efforts at applying mascara to my lashes. Not like I want to, anyway. But apparently there’s going to be a party, and I’m hosting it.
Ev is moving out of the apartment she’s been sharing with her friend Kayla, and Kayla already agreed I could take Ev’s room. Now the two of them are throwing a sort of farewell party for Ev—who’s only moving to another neighborhood and not another continent—but hey, who needs an excuse, right? Getting drunk is a goal all on its own.
And I agreed to the party, but only because I don’t want my new roomie to think I’m stuck-up and weird. I’ve only just moved back to town, and the room is cheap and nice. I should at least give it a chance, right?
Right.
“You’ll see, it will be fun,” Ev says, smearing glossy lipstick on her lower lip with her fingertip.
Maybe for her it will be. I barely know Ev anymore. We went to school together and used to be besties, back before I ran away to Chicago to hide and lick my wounds.
“Since when did you turn into a party animal?” I mutter and then bite on the inside of my cheek to shut myself up before I say anything else I might regret.
“I didn’t.” She adjusts the cleavage, revealing a hint of blue lace. “It’s my farewell party.”
I stare at her.
She looks pretty as a picture in her short, flared lilac dress and ballerina shoes. She still limps a little from an accident she won’t talk to me about, more than half a year ago, and can’t wear heels yet.
“And Micah will be there,” I mutter.
She gives a smile so bright it hurts the eyes—but softens my heart. “Yeah.”
“You’re happy with him.” Not a question. She answers anyway, cheeks flushed and eyes bright.
“I am.”
“Good,” I say gruffly and adjust my pendant, one of the last ones I made before moving here, and then grab the eyeliner like a weapon. I shake it at her. “He’d better treat you right, or so help me God…”
She lays a hand on my shoulder and beams at me. “He does, Amber. You should never worry about Micah.”
But I do. I try to laugh it off, but I worry about men. I worry about people. I don’t understand them, don’t get what makes them tick, what makes them do the things they do. Good things, and bad things.
Mainly the bad things.
Ev shakes her head. She knows bits and pieces of what happened to me back when I was sixteen, but nobody knows the whole truth. Not even my father who yanked me out of school and moved me a hundred and forty miles away, give or take a few, to get a fresh start. He knew enough, though, to decide the move was necessary, and Ev does, too, so no need to scratch old scars and open wounds that I’d rather forget all about.
If only I could.
And what difference would it make? My past is in the past, although this town is drenched in it.