Prologue
PROLOGUE
E ighteen years ago…
Her
“Girls are gross,” the strange boy shouts at me.
My head tilts to the side, examining the way the curly mop of his black hair makes him look wild.
Mommy would never accept me looking anything less than perfect inside the house, much less outside, where someone can see me. This boy’s mom must not love him.
Mommy says that parents who love their kids only want them at their best. It’s why she says she has to correct me. She wants me to be perfect for when her friends come over to visit, so I don’t embarrass her or interrupt when they have their private time. That’s when they discuss adult things.
I hate those visits, but she says they’re necessary. She says we have nice things because of her friends. I hate nice things. They ruin everything. She’s mean after they leave. If we didn’t need nice things, then she wouldn’t need her friends, and they wouldn’t make her mean.
“Hey! Are you stupid or something?” He asks.
“No, I was just busy in my head, and you interrupted me,” I snark back.
“What were you thinking about in your head?”
For someone who thinks girls are gross, he sure is talking to a girl a whole lot. I’m about to tell him that boys must be stupid if they do the opposite of what they say out loud, but it would be nice to have a friend.
We just moved here. It’s why I get to play outside without mommy watching. She’s making sure the movers don’t break anything.
“Do you want to be my friend?” I ask, ignoring his question.
I don’t share what goes on in my head with anyone. The one time I did that, I had to go talk to Dr. Laura. I roll my eyes at the thought of those stupid conversations and the dumb pictures she’d make me draw.
Tell one person that your imaginary friend told you to cut the boy who pulled your pigtails, and they make you talk about your feelings for hours.
“I just told you, girls are gross.” His green eyes peering into my hazel ones as if he can see me.
“Fine,” I huff, turning to head back to my house.
I take three steps before he shouts, “Wait.”
Spinning around, I pause to hear what he has to say.
He twines his fingers together, looking down at his blue and white sneakers, “Maybe if we make a pact that you’re a special girl, we can be friends then?”
It feels more like a question than a statement, but whatever. A girl needs friends.
“Okay, how do we do that?”
Scratching the back of his head, he says, “You have to take some of my blood so you’ll have some boy blood.”
He looks like he’s expecting me to bolt or something. Does he think I’m a chicken?
I return his stare, my shoulders back as I respond, “Let’s do it.”
Seven years ago…
Cade
They’re always fighting now.
I listen to the screaming match between my parents. It’s been like this every day for the last couple of weeks. The only safe place I have is with her — she’s the only one who makes the background noise silent.
Throwing myself on my disheveled hunter-green comforter, I laugh, reminiscing about the day I met her.
We made a blood vow to always be friends.
I don’t remember when it all changed—when I started paying attention to the way her tits looked as she inhaled and exhaled, or how her pretty blush-pink bow lips looked slurping on a popsicle.
“You fucking slept with her, Daniel! How the fuck could you sleep with your son’s best friend’s mother?” My mother shouts as glass crashes against a wall.
What? That can’t be true. My parents love each other. They were childhood sweethearts. Like I am with her.
She doesn’t know it yet, but she will.
I plan to tell her tonight at my graduation party.
“Susan, be reasonable. It was a mistake. You can’t throw away everything we have for the town whore. It meant nothing. She tricked me.”
“Right, she tripped you and your dick just slipped into her waiting pussy,” the vehemence in my mother’s voice sends a chill down my spine.
I know that tone. I know it far too well.
Jumping up from my bed, I race down the wooden steps to the family room. If I don’t stop this now, it will end in definite bloodshed, like it has before.
I’m nearly at the door when I hear screams turn to moans.
What the fuck?
Slowing my movements, I poke my head around the door to the room and see my dad has my mom in a chokehold, ripping at her dress.
“You’ll do what you’re fucking told and take this dick and whatever else I give you,” my dad grunts, and I watch in fascination at the way his hand grips her neck as he pumps in and out of her.
“Yes, what-ev-er yo-ou gi-ve me,” she says in rhythm to his onslaught.
I want to look away because it’s my parents, but this is nothing like any of the porn I’ve watched. My feet refuse to move, and I gawk as my dad chokes my mom until her moans become frantic and her nails scratch at his skin.
Is this part of it?
He doesn’t stop pounding into her, each thrust more violent than the last as his grip grows tighter and tighter. I can’t hear what he’s saying to her, but then her head goes limp at the same time he shouts, groaning out his finish.
“Dumb bitch… think you can leave me. It’s till death do us part, and I’ll see you even in the afterlife.”
I notice it too late.
It’s not until my dad raises the gun to his head and pulls the trigger that I realize my life as I’ve known it has been irrevocably changed.
“Hey, hey. I’m here now. Everything’s going to be okay.”
I don’t know how long I’ve been here screaming or when this woman arrived, but I rest my head in her lap as the tears pour down my face. I don’t know when the police arrived or when the lady from social services pulled me from her and sat me down to recount what happened.
What I do know is that day she and her whore of a mother moved here, my life was ruined, and I’ll never forgive her for that.