1. Jasmine #2
Now her hair hangs in limp, tangled waves. Her skin’s gone papery, pulled too tight over her bones, and scabs litter her arms and legs. She clutches the blanket to her chest and flares her nostrils at me.
“I was going to let you know earlier but you came back late from work, but Bud wants to move in, so you have to move out.” My mom slurs, her words sticky in her mouth, like she can barely get them past her cracked lips.
I feel my lip curl in disgust as the trash bags drop to my side. " Bud? You’re throwing me out for Bud ?"
My mom’s eyes dart to the man behind her like she needs backup.
He just sits there, sprawled in the stained naked mattress like a king on a trash heap, scratching his chest with one hand, the other is bent behind his head.
He watches me like this is entertainment, like my life getting torn apart is the best thing he’s seen all week.
“Bud wants to move in, and he has a son,” she repeats, rolling her eyes as if I was too slow to understand her the first time she said it. “So you have to move out.”
My chest caves and burns at the same time, like my heart just cracked in two.
" Move out? " I choke on the words. “ I pay the bills! The electricity, the water, the Wi-Fi, the fucking rent! I keep this shithole running while you pump what little money we have straight into your bloodstream! How the hell are you going to be able to afford to live without me.”
She flinches, then sneers, clutching the blanket tighter as if it could shield her from the truth. “Bud works, and he said he could cover it.”
“Oh that’s great,” I laugh humorlessly. “Your drug dealing boyfriend can pay the rent! Fucking fantastic decision making skills, Patricia! What about me?”
Mom rolls her eyes, and sighs pinching her nose between her thumb and ring finger. “What about you, Jasmine?”
Tears sting the back of my eyes, and my throat tightens painfully. “I am your fucking daughter!”
Bud chuckles, low and raspy. "Feisty little thing, ain't she?"
My glare shoots to him like a blade. “Shut the fuck up before you catch something worse than a felony.”
His smirk only widens, but before I can say another word, Patricia slams her palm against the side table, rattling the empty pill bottles.
“Don’t you talk to him like that!” she shouts, nostrils flaring. “You are eighteen, and I don’t want you here anymore.”
“Mom-” I croak but she cuts me off.
““I’m not gonna let you take another man from me, Jasmine. I won't. "
I freeze. For a second, I swear the whole room goes quiet except for the sickening thud of my heart in my chest. “What?”
Her eyes glisten, wild and desperate. "You always do this! Always!” she screams, pushing up to her feet, the blanket falling away, revealing bruises blooming over her legs like rotten fruit. “Every time I find someone good, you ruin it. You poison it!"
“ Good? He’s a fucking dealer, Mom! He’s an abusive shit!” I shout back, my chest heaving, my vision swimming in red.
“You’re just jealous!” she screeches, her voice cracking under the weight of her rage and whatever high she’s barely clinging to. “You are such a selfish child. I am happy Jasmine. Do you not want your mother to be happy? I mean fuck! You have taken everything from me, at least give me this!”
That does it.
I lunge for the garbage bags, yanking them open, pulling my clothes out and throwing them across the room, my heart in my throat, my fury boiling over.
“You think this is better ?!” I scream, tossing my ruined journal at her feet. “You think this is a life? Waking up on some loser’s lap, your veins full of poison, your brain turned to mush?! You’re fucking pathetic!”
Her face twists into an ugly snarl. Before I can brace myself, she lunges at me, nails catching my cheek, scraping deep. The sting blooms hot across my skin.
Reflex takes over—I shove her back, harder than I meant to, and she stumbles, crashing into the armchair. Bud scrambles to catch her, spilling the ashtray from the folded table next to the bed.
“Get the hell out!” she screeches, her voice ragged and raw. “Get out of my house!”
I stand there, chest heaving, fists clenched so tight my nails bite into my palms.
“Gladly,” I rasp, my throat tight as hell, but my pride harder. I grab the nearest bag of my things, slinging it over my shoulder. My eyes burn, but I refuse to let them see me cry.
She slumps into Bud’s lap like it’s some twisted throne, glaring at me like I’m the villain in this story. Maybe I am. Nothing in my life feels like a happily ever after. I feel like I am only fit to destroy, might as well lean into it.
“Hope he keeps you warm at night,” I snap, my voice like ice. “Because he’ll never pay the fucking bills.”
And with that, I turn, stomping through the hallway and out the front door, slamming the door behind me so hard the frame shudders.
I haul the garbage bag higher on my shoulder, its plastic digging into my skin, my cheek still burning from where her nails carved a warning into me. My chest is tight, throat raw from holding back the scream crawling up my windpipe. I swallow it down, bitter and jagged as glass.
My legs move on autopilot, carrying me out of Mason Park without even thinking. Past the pit bull barking its head off. Past the porch with the haunted silverware wind chimes clattering in the muggy breeze. I don’t know where I’m going until my feet know for me.
Hot tears spill over my lashes, blurring my vision as I walk. My mind rushing with the spiral hate talk of how far I have fallen in life.
I used to have dreams.
Big ones. Stupid ones. Ones that used to keep me up at night in the best way. I wanted to be an author—wanted to write stories that made people feel less alone. Words that wrapped around someone’s ribs and held them tight like they mattered.
Now I’m eighteen with a garbage bag full of my life, walking the streets like a ghost, like every dream I ever had is just another thing my mother stuffed in a bag and threw to the curb.
My shoulders shake as a sob rips out of me, raw and ugly. I wipe at my face, but the tears keep coming, spilling down my cheeks in hot streaks.
God, what am I supposed to do now?
I drag myself up the walkway, my breath hitching as I reach Willow’s front door. My knuckles curl tight, and before I even think about it I am knocking on the door shakily.
“Tommy!” I choke out, my voice splintering as the harsh scratch of unshed tears building in the back of my throat. “It’s me Jasmine.”
I wait a minute before knocking again, my knuckles burning at how hard my fist is pounding into the door. “Tommy, open the door! Please! ”
No one answers, but I don’t stop. I slam my fists against the wood until my skin stings, until my bones rattle from the impact.
Tears blur my vision, drip hot off my chin, but I don’t care.
I can’t care. I need somewhere to be. Tommy once told me I could call him Dad.
Once told me I was like a daughter to him, and now when I need him, he’s not here.
“Tommy! Dad, please! ” I cry again, hitting the door harder. “I don’t have anywhere else to go!”
The silence is deafening, and the ball of dread in my chest grows like a budding hurricane, but I refuse to stop. I keep banging until the entire door frame shakes, until my shoulders ache, until the wild, desperate sob crawling out of my throat sounds more like an animal than a girl.
The porch light above me flickers, casting me in flashes of sickly yellow, and it feels like the whole universe is mocking me. I squeeze my eyes shut, slamming my fists against the door again and again, each hit dulling the pain in my chest for a second, but not enough.
“ Please! ” My voice breaks. Tears flood my cheeks as I drag in shallow, shaky breaths.
This was my last shot. My final hope.
This house, this man, this family that once felt like my second home.
I press my forehead to the door, my chest heaving, the tears falling freely now. “Please,” I whisper, hoarse and broken. “Don’t leave me too.”
I slide down to my knees on the porch, tears streaking my cheeks, my chest hollow and aching like there’s a hole carved clean through me.
“Willow?” a voice smooth with an accent that curls off his tongue like smoke. Italian, unmistakably, startles me, and I turn around to see a man.
He’s in a pressed black jacket, dark slacks, like he doesn’t belong on this side of town, and I know if you hear an Italian accent in this town, it could only mean danger. His gaze sweeps me slowly, like he’s checking a list in his mind and I tick too many boxes.
Willow.
The name scrapes across my raw throat.
For a heartbeat, I nearly corrected him. I nearly say, No. You’ve got the wrong girl.
But the slow click of his gun makes my mouth slam shut as flashes of Willow’s smiles invade my mind.
I dry swallow, what would a man like him want with a sweetheart like Willow, a girl who would never hurt a fly.
Maybe this is why she ran, maybe if I take the fall, Willow will come home.
I could be the one who saves her, for the first time I could pay her back for all the meals, sleepovers and safe spaces.
I can stop this man from chasing a girl with her whole life ahead of her, and he can take me instead, the girl with nothing.
No home. No future. No family.
A girl with a garbage bag stuffed full of broken dreams and no one left to care if she vanishes?
No one but Willow, and she has three crazy guys who will help her mourn me.
A dad who would memorialize me. I could take this bullet and be done with this failure of a life, come back rich, and pretty with the world at my feet.
I swallow sharply as I start to stand, my eyes trained on the shine of his penny loafers.
This is my one chance to do something good—my last, defiant act of grace.
A sacrifice that might, just maybe, buy me a sliver of redemption.
Maybe this is my only shot at heaven, my only escape from the hell I’ve been dragging behind me all these years.
My chest rises and falls, tight as a drum.
“Yes,” I say, forcing the word past the lump in my throat. “I’m Willow.”
His eyes narrow slightly, like he’s satisfied with the answer, like the final puzzle piece just fell into place.
Without warning, he moves.
His hand clamps around my arm, iron-strong. I jolt, panic crashing over me in a sick wave.
“What are you?—”
“Come quietly,” he murmurs, too calm, too certain. “Don’t make a scene.”
My heart jackknifes into my throat. No. No no no— I was supposed to die not be kidnapped, totally not the plan!
I thrash, but he tightens his grip like steel around bone. “Don’t fight,” he says lowly, dragging me off the porch toward a black car idling at the curb. “Trust me, it’s easier this way.”
“Let me go!” I scream, twisting hard, but my feet scrape uselessly against the concrete. I claw at his arm, desperation turning my veins to fire.
And then?—
A blur of motion.
A shadow peels out of the night, fast and vicious.
The man’s hold on me rips away as he’s slammed backward into the side of the car with a sickening crack.
I stumble, breathless, watching as my attacker crumples to the pavement, groaning.
My chest heaves. My vision spins.
I look up—and there he is.
A man stands between me and the stranger like a wall of fury. His broad shoulders block out the glare of the streetlamp, his fists clenched at his sides. His face is shadowed, as he hovers over the man.
“Touch her again,” the man growls, “and I’ll rip your fucking throat out.”