I’m trembling so much my fingers have no strength left to hold on to Jennifer and I release her. She immediately stumbles forward into the front of the car. Regaining her balance, she spins around and shoves me so hard I fall to the ground and my head bangs against the wall.
“You psycho!” she shouts, her face bright red, tears streaming out of her eyes. “My mom and dad are so going to send you away.”
I stare at the space on the floor in front of her feet, hugging my teddy bear, motionless.
She lets out a frustrated grunt and then stomps her foot on the floor before running out of the garage.
Moments later, Amelia comes rushing in, shouting before she even reaches me. “You’re done here! Do you understand?”
“Yes.” I don’t have a single drop of emotion left and my voice sounds hollow.
“Yes, what?” She waits for me to answer her with her arms crossed.
I don’t reply because I don’t have to anymore. I’m finished with this home. There’s no erasing what just happened. I can’t change the past just as much as I can’t control my future.
She gets livid, her face tinting pink as she tries to contain her fury. She tells me I’m worthless. She tells me that no one will want me. She tells me I’m leaving. She tells me everything I already know.
“Are you even listening to me?!” she shouts and I shake my head. Fuming, she snatches the bear from my hands.
That snaps me out of my motionless trance. “Hey, that’s mine!” I cry, jumping to my feet and lunging for the bear. My shoulder bumps into her arm as she moves it out of my reach.
She moves back and tucks her arm behind her back. “Consider it a punishment for hurting my daughter.”
“Your daughter deserved it.” I panic. If she does anything to that bear I won’t be able to take it. I need that bear or else I can’t survive—don’t want to. Why did I survive?
“Well, when you’re ready to apologize to Jennifer, you can have it back.” She heads toward the door to the house where Jennifer is standing with a smile on her face, expecting an apology.
“Sorry,” I practically growl, wanting the damn bear back enough that I’ll do whatever she asks at the moment. “Please, don’t take it away.” Desperation burns in my voice. “It’s all I have left of my mom and dad—it’s all I have of them.” I’m begging, weak, pathetic. I hate it. I hate myself. But I need that bear.
Jennifer grins at me as she crosses her arms and leans against the doorway, her cheeks stained red from the drying tears. “Mom, I don’t think she’s really sorry.”
Amelia studies me for a moment. “I don’t think she is either.” She frowns disappointedly, like she’s finally seeing that she can’t fix me, then turns for the door with my bear in her hand. “You can have it back when I see a real apology come out of that mouth of yours. And you better make it quick because you won’t be here for very much longer.”
“I said I was sorry,” I yell out with my hands balled into fists at my side. “What the hell else do you want me to say?”
She doesn’t answer me and goes into the house with my bear. Jennifer smirks at me before turning for the house, shutting the lights off and then closing the door on her way inside.
Darkness smothers the garage and I’m suffocated by the dark. But it’s nothing I can’t handle. Seeing things is much harder than seeing nothing but the dark. I like the dark.
I slide down to the ground and lean back against the wall, hugging my knees to my chest as I let the darkness settle over me. A few tears slip out and drip down my cheeks and I let more stream out, telling myself it’s okay, because I’m in the dark, and nothing can be seen in the dark.
But after a while I can’t get the tears to stop as what Jennifer and the other kids said plays on repeat inside my head. I think about the last time I saw my parents lying in their coffins and how they got there. The blood. I’ll never forget the blood. On the floor. On me.
More tears spill out and soon my whole face is drenched with them. My heart thrashes against my chest and I tug at my hair as I scream through clenched teeth, kicking my feet against the floor. Invisible razors and needles stab underneath my skin. I can’t turn off the emotions. I can’t think straight. My lungs need air. I hurt. I ache. I can’t take it anymore. I need it out. I need to breathe.
I stumble to my feet and through the dark, until I find the door that leads to the driveway. I shove the door open, sprint outside into the sunlight and race past the cars parked in the driveway and toward the curb. I don’t slow down until I’m approaching the highway in front of the house where cars zip up and down the road. With no hesitation, I walk into the middle of the road and stand on the yellow dotted line with my arms held out to the side. Tears pool in my eyes as I blink against the sunlight, my pulse speeding up the longer I stay there and that rush of energy that has become the only familiar thing in my life takes over.
It feels like I’m flying, head-on into something other than being moved around, passed around, given away, tossed aside, forgotten. I have the unknown in front of me and I have no idea what’s going to happen. It feels so liberating. So I stay in place, even when I hear the roar of a car’s engine. I wait until I hear the sound of the tires. Until I see the car. Until it’s close enough that the driver honks their horn. Until I feel the swish of an adrenaline rush, drenching the sadness and panic out of my body and mind. Until my emotions subside and all I feel is exhilaration. Then I jump to the right where the road meets the grass as the car makes a swerve to the left to go around me. Brakes screech. A horn honks. Someone shouts.
I lie soundless in the grass, feeling twenty times better than I did in the garage. I feel content in a dark hole of numbness; a place where I can feel okay being the child that no one wants. The child that probably would have been better off dying with her parents, instead of being left alive and alone.
Chapter 1
Violet
(Freshman year of college)
I’ve got my fake smile plastered on my face and no one in the crowd of people surrounding me can tell if it’s real or not. None of them really give a shit either, just like I don’t. I’m only here, pretending to be a ray of sunshine, for three reasons: (1) I owe Preston, my last foster parent I had before I turned eighteen, big time, because he gave me a home when no one else would; and (2) because I need the money; and (3) I love the rush of knowing that at any moment I could get busted so much—so much that it’s become addicting, like an alcoholic craves booze.