Moonstruck (Liberty Grove University #3)

Chapter 1

chapter one

one day at a time

Was there such a thing as crying yourself to death?

I knew you could cry yourself to sleep, obviously.

And I was well versed in crying so much that it worked up an appetite.

But could you ever cry to the point where all the energy drained out of you, leaving you a frail, hollow version of the girl you knew, until there was nothing there but skin and bones?

Well, regardless if it was possible, I was sure I was on my way to finding out.

I somehow managed to push myself upright in bed, my limbs heavy and uncooperative, like they belonged to someone else.

No surprise really, given that all I’d done all day was lie here, eat nothing and count the marks on my bedroom ceiling.

I wasn’t sure how I hadn’t melted into the bedsheets.

I’d been hibernating in them for so long now that I got withdrawal symptoms every time I showered.

But the rain that tapped furiously against the window was oddly therapeutic and wasn't doing anything to convince me to crawl out of bed.

Instead, my fingers dug through soft cotton for the compact mirror Rory had left on my nightstand, and then I flipped it open and stared.

Christ.

My eyes were so swollen. So bloodshot that it looked like I’d been swimming in salt water for hours.

But the only thing I took notice of, the only thing I’d been looking at recently, was how my reflection didn’t even look like me any more.

It hit me like a punch in the chest every time I clocked it, how far I’d fallen from the girl who used to at least pretend to have it all together.

My hand trembled as I chucked the mirror down to the end of the bed, letting it bounce against the duvet and forgetting it existed.

My other hand groped blindly for the packet of wet wipes nestled between the covers, the one constant I seemed to always need these days.

Tissues were out of the question; they burnt too much.

I tore a wipe from the packet and dragged it across my skin.

The coolness stung at first, but I welcomed it.

It was grounding, in a way. Something real to focus on, something that wasn’t spinning out of control in my head.

My breaths came in short, ragged bursts despite the frantic mental reminders to inhale for ten, exhale for ten, and all that bollocks I’d Googled at three in the morning when I thought I might pass out from the panic.

None of it ever worked, not really. But I still tried.

But if I'm being honest with you… Who am I kidding? There are no secrets here. You’ve read the articles; you know more about my attack than I probably do.

And if you don't, the start and end of it is that the one man I'd trusted more than anything with my safety, the man assigned to watch over me and keep me safe while my following grew and my life became the opposite of private, burnt that trust with a quick grab of my thigh and a tug closer to him in the back of a blacked-out car.

And now you know that I can admit that no matter what I do or how many breathing exercises I buy into, I'm convinced that the crushing pain in my chest when I remember what happened will be with me for the rest of my life.

And nothing had ever scared me more.

I could only smile and nod to my friend so much when they told me I’d soon forget.

That I’d get better. That I was brave. There was only so much I could take without wanting to scream at them that they were wrong.

Because, deep down, I didn’t see myself as brave, or a fighter, or that I’d ever, ever get better.

In my head, I was a weak, pathetic shell of who I used to be, racked with guilt and second-guessing about whether I was overreacting.

Was I blowing this all out of proportion because I felt uncomfortable?

Was I remembering it right?

Was it my fault?

I sat up as that thought lit up my mind, the bed creaking the same notes as my back did.

No. Absolutely not.

I couldn’t wander down that path. Not again. Not if I actually wanted to be present for my classes tomorrow.

Liberty Grove had been more amenable than I’d thought they’d be when the news of the attack broke.

They let me skip the semester after Christmas and offered all the help they possibly could.

Only now that spring break was over, I knew I had to come back.

If I didn’t, not only would I be delaying my degree, but I’d probably stay locked in my room forever.

Although turning to a life of hibernation was never going to happen, especially when the other half of my life was too vital to abandon.

I’d managed to work out a deal with Louellen, my social media manager, pardoning me from all press events and stupid parties I’d been invited to since the attack.

I hadn’t missed much, only the Christmas events and eye-roll-inducing New Year’s Eve balls that drew the crowds.

Crowds I was in no way ready to deal with. Still wasn’t, to be honest.

But I couldn’t turn my back on it. That just simply wasn’t an option for me.

The glow of my phone lit up the room as I reached for a distraction. I lay on my side, the duvet pulled tightly around me, as if it could somehow hold me together. Like wrapping masking tape around a broken vase.

My thumb hovered over the Instagram icon before I tapped it, almost on autopilot.

The page loaded slowly, revealing my own face staring back at me.

It was sad that I didn’t recognise her. I couldn’t remember the last time my black bob was that glossy and trimmed.

I didn’t think I was capable of smirking like I was there, like I had years’ worth of confidence sitting behind my eyes.

Which I didn’t, by the way. The version of me you know, the girl with 400k and brand deals coming out of her arse, was make-believe. An alter ego, if you will. But I didn’t think anyone who wasn’t close to me really cared enough to see the cracks that were so blindingly obvious.

But to the world, she was perfect. And for me, she had to be.

I scrolled a bit more, stopping on a picture of me perched on the edge of a table at some fancy event. The caption blurred in my vision, and the more I stared, the more I spiralled about how utterly fucked-up my life was.

I'd had a lot of time to reflect on that recently.

I was pretending I loved being the internet’s IT girl for the sake of my family.

I was lying to my sister and my friends about how I was getting better.

I wasn’t pressing charges against the man who attacked me because I didn’t want to risk losing the platform I didn’t want.

But what made my stomach turn was the fact that my dreams, my big dreams, my only dreams, had been put on hold indefinitely. All because a man I trusted with my life thought he could touch me because he felt like it.

I turned off the screen, the sudden darkness swallowing me again as my eyes squeezed shut long enough for the memories to pass before I opened them and they drifted across the room to my easels.

Blank canvases stared back at me, accusing.

The paints sat untouched, the tubes all crumpled from their abandonment.

I used to lose hours there, my hands streaked with colour, the world disappearing as I created something just for me. But now, the very idea of picking up a brush made my stomach churn.

I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t be her. That girl who painted her feelings, who turned her pain into something beautiful, was slipping further and further away the more time that passed. And I wasn’t strong enough to grab her back. Not yet, anyway.

A shiver ran through me, though the room wasn’t cold.

Slowly, I pressed my face into the pillow, wishing I could sink into it and disappear.

I’d built a world out of filters and lies, and now it was crushing me.

And yet, I couldn’t stop. I had to keep going.

I had to keep her safe. My mum needed me to.

I closed my eyes, praying for that sleep I’d wanted, but all I saw was his face. Jamie's face. The smile, the soft tone of his voice, before it twisted into something darker, something that still made my skin crawl.

I pulled the duvet tighter, my chest tightening. And then, I cried myself to sleep, wondering how many more nights of this it would take me to figure out if this would be the thing that killed me.