Strike that, Ruth Sullivan thought, she never really knew what was going on around her. Most of her life had been one big blurry mess. And the times before that she could barely remember anymore.
Ruth knew that the first ten years of her life had been pretty good. Even despite her mother’s affair that had produced her younger sister, Naomi. Her parents’ marriage had recovered, and they had been a pretty normal family.
Until the fire.
The fire that had ruined her family and her life.
When they’d woken that night to find the house full of smoke, she had been in a complete panic. If it hadn’t been for Naomi, she and Seth would have died just like David and Eli had.
So many days Ruth wished she had.
Surely death at ten would have been better than living twenty-two years stuck in hell.
She hated her life.
What did it consist of? OxyContin and sex with random guys. That was it.
It wasn't her fault she had gotten hooked on painkillers as a pre-teen. It was the fall.
As she and Naomi and Seth scrambled down the tree outside their bedroom window, in her panic she had lost her footing and fallen. The fall had shattered her pelvis and broken both her legs. She had been in the hospital for weeks, endured years of painful surgeries, and what had she gotten out of it? One leg that was shorter than the other and an addiction to pain pills that she couldn’t shake no matter how hard she tried.
And shehadtried.
She had tried with every fiber of her being, but she just couldn’t overcome her addiction.
Sheneededthe pills. Without them she had nothing. Nothing but a huge heaping pile of guilt that she couldn’t deal with.
Guilt.
Her mortal enemy.
She was the oldest, the big sister, she was meant to take care of her younger siblings, and instead that night she had frozen.
Eight-year-old Naomi had been the one to get her and Seth out, she’d been the one who wanted to go back for David and Eli when all Ruth could do was lie on the ground, broken and screaming in pain.
That would have been bad enough if things had ended there.
But they hadn’t.
Ruth knew what had happened to her sister in her grandparents’ house.
She’d found out by accident. One night, unable to sleep, having been forced off her pain pills by her parents, in collusion with her doctor, and suffering insomnia, anxiety, and muscle aches she had gone to see if Naomi was still awake. Nightmares meant her little sister hadn’t slept much either.
Only Naomi hadn’t been alone in her room.
Their grandfather had been in there too.
On the bed with her.
Ruth had known what that meant.
She’d known what was happening to her sister and she had never said a word to anyone about it. Instead, she’d slipped back to her room and found a drug dealer at her school who could supply her with oxy so she never had to go without it again.
The drug was her lifeline.
It didn’t just bring her relief from her physical pain, but from her mental anguish as well. It relaxed her, encased her in a warm and fuzzy feeling of euphoria where guilt couldn’t touch her.
Ruth loved that feeling.