Chapter One
Bella
The wind catches my dark locks while I stand on a single wobbling leg. In one clutched hand, I have my phone and purse... in the other: a possible disaster waiting to happen. My keys and Starbucks are in danger as I also grip an enormous glittering, pink box. The white bow atop blows in the cool night air. My right knee is trying to hoist the gift higher but failing miserably. I lean into the trunk of my old Pontiac Grand Am like it’s a dirty one night stand I’ll never remember.
This single disastrous moment feels like a summary of my entire year. Hell, maybe my entire life.
Then with a slow, focused breath, everything calms.
I’ve got it. I got it. It’s fine. I won’t drop my little sister’sridiculouslyheavy gift of books I snagged in the best bookstores in Chicago. I’m still the cool older sister who may or may not have ended her year-and-a-half relationship with her shitty ex-boyfriend, dropped out of U of C, and started secretly pole dancing to cover rent. Not that Ivy knows that. So yeah, I’m every thirteen-year-old girl’s aspiration in life.
I. Fucking. Got. This.
With the corner of my thumb, I click the little lock button on my key fob.
Except...
The panic alarm blares.
A flickering, golden light illuminates my parent’s blissfully quiet suburbia. The neighbor, Mrs. Donnelly, flips on her entry light like her hand has been on the switch since I pulled in.
“Shit. Shit. Shit.” The coffee is the first to make its escape from being seen with me. It goes down in a splatter of cold, caramelly frappe all over my leggings.
“Mother-fucking-over-priced-coffee-bean-addiction!”
The shiny box teeters against my hand and knee once more. On a fumbling lack of stability, I grind into the back of my Grand Am like it’s Pete Davidson’s notorious monster coc—
“Bella? Bella is that you? Why are you making so much noise? It’s ten o’clock at night, hunny.”
My phone and purse drop from my other hand. Partly because I’m a mess and partly because I’m a problem solver. Now that I can finally get an actual grip on the box of bargain books, I give my mom a tense smile. Then rather unattractively, I blow my hair from my face. A look of poise filters into place. My thumb clicks over the key fob, and silence falls. I slam the trunk closed and ignore the purse, phone, and spilled coffee—only kicking the little plastic cup slightly on my way to the front door.
“Mom!” I beam a smile. A real one. One I haven’t felt in a long, long time.
My boots squeak when I reach the red front door, and my mother’s blue eyes are filled with concern when she looks at me. Just like she has for the last eight years. Ever since I came back... Ever since he took me...
“Your purse, dear.” She pulls her white robe closed and I try to stop her when she rushes past me to grab my abandoned belongings in the driveway.
I’d be worried, too, but this isn’t Chicago. Nashville, Illinois is the polar opposite of my day-to-day city life. I’d be more likely to get attacked by a rogue deer than I am to get my purse stolen on a Saturday night in the midwestern suburbs. The handbag would still be there when dawn cracked over its spilled contents and the newly shattered glass that’s surely slashed down the front of my cell phone.
“What are you doing here?” she asks as she shuts the door softly behind her. Her small frame is just like Ivy’s. Ivy got the good genes. The petite, blonde hair, blue-eyed genes. While I took after my father. A fucking six-foot-five Viking of a man. “Why didn’t you call? Is something wrong? Did Jonathon... did he have another outburst? You know that’s not good for your heart, hunny.”
Her attention flits to the strawberry birthmark that splatters across my chest, but I ignore her worry as I have since the day I was born.
And yes. Jonathon did have anotheroutburst. Several over the last few months. The final one left both of my arms bruised and my lip swollen for weeks.
That was the last of Jonathon. Not because we had a bad breakup, but because men... they have to be careful when mistreating a woman who has friends like I do.
“I ended things.” Perfect phrasing. Ended. Things were definitely gruesomely ended for Jonathon.
I understand what abuse is. I saw him for what he was. I’m just an optimist. People like me always think things will get better. That it wasn’t that bad. We trudge on toward that golden horizon of a future.
Until we fucking snap.
“Aww, Bella Hunny. I’m so glad you’re here, no matter what the circumstances.” She pulls me in against her chest, the birthday box poking hard into my ribs as I shift around it to hug her.
“God, Mom. No. Gross. I’m not here because of him.” I blow my hair from my face once more, pulling back to show her my prize possession. Thirteen books. Each individually wrapped in magazine and newspaper clippings, whatever had the best aesthetically written words scribed over the pages to convey the surprise hidden book inside. I ripped apart multiple arrest sections to cover the crime and thriller books. I even shredded apart many bridal magazines for the romcom novels, which was in fact really good for my mental health, because let’s face it, I’d rather join a radical, crazed cult than enter into a legal, binding contract of marriage to any man.Ever. Let those bridal pages rip!
The inside of this sparkly, pink box really shows how much I want my baby sister to enjoy the pages she gets lost in when she reads.