“Just drive,” I told the man behind the wheel. “Go anywhere as long as it’s not here.”
“Lucy!” I turned my gaze back to my sister as she rushed toward the cab. But the moment she saw the tears pouring down my face, she stopped. For a single second, our gazes connected, and she gave me one simple nod before the driver was pulling into traffic.
I dropped my head back against the headrest and closed my eyes as snot and tears rolled down my face. I probably looked like a hot mess, but I couldn’t bring myself to care.
Not two minutes later, my phone started going off. I didn’t need to look to know it was my mom or Aunt Emmie or Natalie. I didn’t want to talk to any of them, even if I could have put two coherent words together right then, which I doubted I could. The cab driver kept shooting me concerned looks in the rearview mirror but smartly stayed quiet.
My heart felt broken, maybe even more so than when Tessa had sent me those damn videos of her and Harris. I could understand neither Aunt Emmie nor Natalie understanding what I might want in a wedding dress, but to have my mom not know broke something inside of me that had been bent from the moment she screamed at me once she found out about the self-harming.
She hadn’t even asked me once what I wanted in a dress since the whole wedding planning had begun. Fuck, she hadn’t asked me anything, really. Just told me what my options were and basically said choose. At breakfast, that was what it felt like the dress shopping was going to be like. Three choices. Choose one.
If Mom knew me, if she had cared enough to ask what I wanted in the most important dress of my life, she would have been able to pick one I would have gladly chosen for myself. Only she hadn’t.
She hadn’t asked me anything since I’d let her down. She simply stopped trying.
Maybe she had even stopped loving me that day.
Chapter 4
Lucy
Whenever someone found out about my cutting, the first question they always asked was a simple but fully loaded one.
Why?
Why did you do it?
Why do you still have to fight with yourself to not do it?
Why did something painful feel so good?
The answer wasn’t easy to explain. Not to them. Hell, not to myself.
It all started by accident. I hurt my foot while out on the beach behind my parents’ house one day, and the whole time it had been healing, the pain had grounded me. With that irritating physical pain at the forefront of my mind, I had been able to turn off all the chaos that weighed on me nearly every second of the day. And I had slept. There had been no nightmares of my biological father stealing me away. No fear of what my life might have turned into if Lydia Daniels hadn’t died and I hadn’t met my oldest sister. The ache in my soul at having forced myself to forget about my friendship with Harris had eased for a few hours, and I had woken up each morning feeling rejuvenated. A new person.
A new me.
But no sooner did the cut heal than it all came crashing back down on top of me. That was when the cutting started. Little cuts to the bottoms of my feet so no one would see. And if by chance they did see the tiny scars, I could explain them by saying I’d gotten them from running on the beach barefoot. Soon, I’d been able to cope enough that my mom thought I didn’t have to see my therapist every week. They stopped talking about medicating me for depression and anxiety. I could hide behind my smile and focus on the small pains that gave me such a rush of relief, it was almost orgasmic at times.
But that was gone now. I didn’t have those bursts of relief to help me micromanage all the shit that went through my head. I didn’t have the little sting of pain to focus on, and even though I put on a brave front to all the people who loved me and only wanted the best for me, I struggled every damn day not to pick up a blade and watch the blood well up on my skin. It was suffocating at times, and there were times when I was almost dizzy from the effort of not doing just that.
Right now, I ached for the feel of something sharp slicing through my skin. I needed to be grounded. I needed to put everything that just happened while dress shopping with my family into perspective. Maybe if I just made a tiny little cut, if I felt just a little pain, I could figure out if I had overreacted to that stupid-ass dress my mom picked out.
Or if she really had forgotten every single thing she should have known about me.
“Here we are, miss.”
My head snapped up at the sound of the slightly accented voice coming from the front seat. I had been so lost in my own head I hadn’t realized I was still sitting in the back of the cab. I vaguely remembered the man saying he needed a destination after the meter had bypassed fifty dollars. I had mumbled an address, not even thinking about where I should go.
Not home. Definitely not back to Paul’s. Not to my dad’s, because I never wanted him to see me the way I was at that moment.
A glance out the window showed me that, even as upset as I had been, I’d been coherent enough to seek help for the overwhelming need to make myself bleed. Hastily, I swiped my credit card to pay for my ride, added a tip, then opened the door. As soon as my feet touched the pavement of the driveway, I started running.
Fresh tears poured down my face as the door opened before I reached it, and Drake stepped out of the house with his arms open wide. I threw myself against him, burying my face in his chest as the sobs shook my body all over again.
“It’s okay, Lu,” he soothed, stroking a hand over my crazy hair. “I got you.”
He pulled me into the house, practically carrying me to the kitchen where he sat me at the table and then crouched down in front of me. Through my tears, I could barely make out his face, but I could still see the concern darkening his blue-gray eyes. “Angel called me. If you hadn’t shown up, I was coming looking for you. But I’m glad you came, honey.”