Prologue
Thea
Where is Aggie Now?
At seventeen, Agatha Levitz was sent on her second trip to rehab. Since then, no one has heard from her again.
Rumor has it she died from an overdose.
Was it another suicide, like her brother Evan Levitz, or… where is she now?
Martin Levitz, drummer and former member of the band Dreadful Souls…
I almost laugh at the poorly written article about Agatha Levitz, or as the world used to know her, Aggie. A child star dragged through the nine circles of hell since she was six years old.
Newsflash, people, she’s dead. I doubt they’ll accept the sad truth, not until they find the lifeless body of a teenager dumped in a lake.
“It’s been ten years. Let it go!” My voice echoes through my apartment.
Maybe I should be the one ignoring the clickbait and accept their curiosity. After all, it’s human nature to want to know what happens to the rich and famous. Celebrities are at the mercy of their public. Not all of them know what they’re signing up for until it’s too late. Their destiny belongs to the millions of fans.
In my opinion, Aggie was set for failure from the beginning. Her life was over the moment she set foot in a television studio, or maybe after she was conceived.
Was it destiny or fate?
It’s not uncommon to hear people describe an outcome of a tragedy as the result of destiny or fate. Those concepts are different, and yet, people think of them as synonymous. Herman Melville explored the concept of fate throughMoby Dick, as he believed life was controlled by it. There’re the Greeks who believed in the three Fates—Goddesses who controlled the world.
Clotho spun the thread of each individual’s life and determined the complexities and major features of that person’s future.
Lachesis measured the length of the life.
Atropos cut the thread, determining the individual’s moment of death.
My parents raised me to be part of a make-believe life.
We’re not talking about fairy tales, though. Although, several times I’d wished someone would’ve appeared and said you’re the long-lost daughter of the king and queen of a secret country. It never happened. My parents did the bare minimum to keep me alive, until they were able to exploit me.
They fed me, dressed me, and sent me to school because it was required. Neither one of them wanted to lose me to child services.
Do I believe in happy endings and destiny?
I want to believe that we can control our future.
Then again, I also want to believe that love is our destiny. It’s not only about romantic love, but familial, friendly, and agape—love for mankind. The biggest love we never search for is love for ourselves, though. Children like Aggie weren’t taught the basics of self-esteem.
How do I know?
She’s a textbook case of childhood abuse. I used her life in my dissertation. I spent months studying the correlation between her upbringing and the environment her parents created. Then there’s the biggest factor—her parents were alcoholics and drug addicts. That poor child didn’t stand a chance to become a successful adult.
No one can survive after everything she was put through and come out unscathed. I would know. I’m an expert. I lived through tragedy, created my own hell, and burned to a crisp.
There’s not one book that can tell me how someone who’s broken beyond recognition can find love.
But after all my sins, am I deserving of love?
ChapterOne
Matthew