Prologue
FYFE
Eleven years ago
Ardnoch, Scotland
It wasn’t unusual for me to wake up and find my mum passed out on the kitchen floor. Well … it didn’t happen all the time because she was hardly ever home, but when she was, it usually ended up with her passed out.
I took her in for a second. Face down, limbs sprawled, taking up all the space in our tiny kitchen. Her nose was pressed against the peeling linoleum and loud snores escaped her mouth as it opened and closed in sleep.
Years ago, Mum had been pretty. I’d seen photos.
But for as long as I could remember, her skin was dry, wrinkled before her time, and a dull gray.
Her hair had also thinned. Brown like mine, but greasy and limply draped across her sharp cheekbone.
That’s what more than your fair share of alcohol did.
And drugs. Whatever she could get her hands on.
Her slight frame took up so much space in the kitchen because it was a tiny room and she was tall. Her thin top had risen, flashing her bra. Her skirt or jeans or whatever she’d been wearing was gone. She was in nothing but a pair of ratty knickers, and she only had on one of a pair of cheap heels.
Sometimes I felt so fucking weary and old, right down to my bones.
I lifted my glasses off my nose to rub the sleep out of my eyes.
When I pushed the frames back into place, I glanced at the clock.
If Mum didn’t give me any trouble, I could get her sorted before I had to leave for school.
I couldn’t miss school. Not for her, not for anyone.
I’d realized a long time ago that I was going to use my brains and education to get me the fuck out of Ardnoch. To get me away from … this.
It was hard to call which way this would go. Sometimes Mum fought like a tiger when you tried to rouse her. In rare moments, she was quiet and pitiful.
Hoping for the latter, I moved into the room and got my arms underneath her. This year I’d started to shoot up in height, so with her slight weight, it was easy enough to haul her into my arms.
My heart started to race when she grumbled under her breath, but she merely reached for me in her sleep and slung her arms around my neck to hold on. I carried her to the bed she rarely slept in.
As I was pulling the covers over her, she spoke. “Thank you.”
I looked up and found her red-rimmed eyes on me.
I got everything from my mum. Hair and eye color, height, and though no one would believe it, my intelligence.
Mum had gotten into St. Andrews University and was studying to be an engineer when she fell pregnant.
She told me bitterly (and often) that it happened on a drunken night out with some random bloke whose name she couldn’t even remember.
Her mum had insisted she come home and have me, and that was the worst thing that ever happened to my mother.
My grandmother died when I was three and Mum inherited her house.
She’d been leaving me alone in it ever since, working several jobs at a time in between partying, and she paid some of the bills when she remembered to.
The soft expression on her face told me she was in a self-pitying mood. “It’s all right,” I muttered, pulling back.
She grabbed my wrist, stopping me. “You’re a good boy.”
Then why can’t you stand to be around me?
“Get some sleep.” I yanked my wrist from her weak grasp and walked toward the door.
She whimpered, “I’m sorry I’m such a shit mum.”
I halted, head bowed. My chest burned as a swelling sensation moved into my throat, a familiar choking feeling.
“I stay away so I won’t hurt you,” she admitted on a quiet sob.
I glanced back at her.
Her eyes begged for forgiveness for all the times she’d left me with no food in the house.
For the times I’d had to rely on Deirdra, my elderly neighbor, who fed and took care of me whenever she could.
For all the times Mum had beaten me black and blue while she was drunk or high and ragin’ at a life she could have changed, if she’d only tried hard enough.
The truth was, I knew that’s why she stayed away. Because some part of her didn’t want to hurt me. “I know.” I gave her a small nod, unable to give her anything more, and walked into the bathroom across the hall to get washed.
I stared at my reflection in the mirror above the sink.
The bathroom was clean because I cleaned it.
Our small, terraced home had become the place my friends crashed and hung out since there was no adult supervision.
For so long I’d lived in filth as a kid, but as I got older, I learned to keep the house clean.
People didn’t need to know how bad my situation was, and a clean house helped pull the wool over everyone’s eyes.
And ultimately, I could take care of myself.
I knew how to cook, how to tidy, how to do my own laundry, and now that I was making some money online from game testing and reviewing and play-to-earn games, I could afford to pay the bills Mum forgot about.
Deirdra let me use her bank details so I could get paid.
She took the money I earned out in cash for me.
“You’re a good boy.”
Then why didn’t Mum want me? I thought for the millionth time as I stared at my unremarkable face.
Why wasn’t I enough?
“Fuck,” I muttered, squeezing my eyes closed.
I needed to get my shit together.
It was stupid to let those thoughts in.
Better to do what I did daily and act like most people’s opinions didn’t matter.
It seemed to work for me. Girls seemed to like my “couldn’t give a shit” attitude.
I’d lost my virginity a year ago and my best pal, Lewis, who was definitely better looking than me, was still a virgin.
He’d made the mistake of falling in love at sixteen.
Callie, his girlfriend, was a nice lassie, but love held you back.
Love had you building sex into something it wasn’t so you were still a virgin when you were dating the hottest girl in Sutherland.
Not giving a shit had you losing your virginity on your fifteenth birthday to an eighteen-year-old stunner from Inverness.
What can I say? She liked my confidence.
And I’m a fast learner.
Since then, there had been three more girls.
Until Carianne. I didn’t love Carianne. She didn’t love me.
But she was pretty and she liked sex, so it was convenient for us both.
But honestly, she was kind of irritating me lately.
She wasn’t academic, which was fine, but she was constantly on my back when I wanted to study.
Calling me a geek had turned from an endearment into an insult.
And I’d been insulted enough over the years to last a lifetime.
Time to end things with Carianne.
It had been a crap day.
Carianne did not want to be dumped. She made a scene and I hated scenes because, again, it’s all I’d had my whole life with Mum, so I told her she could tell everyone she dumped me. That sorted her out.
But I’d gotten a B in my history class, again, and it was pissing me off.
My history teacher, Mr. Martin, had taken a dislike to me and was always lowballing me with grades.
This time I’d had enough and had a word with my favorite history teacher, Ms. Heron, and asked her to look at all my papers for the year.
She’d been shocked by the request and I knew it probably put her in an uncomfortable position, but ballsy Ms. Heron said she’d look over them and get back to me.
She knew how important it was for my grades to be top-notch. I needed to get into university.
Lewis was going to come over to study, but I was in a crap mood, so I told him to hang out with Callie instead.
He tried his best not to be a bad friend by not forgetting about me, but I knew he enjoyed any chance he could to hang out with his girlfriend.
I let him off the hook and trudged home, hoping Mum would be gone when I got there.
When I stepped in the door, I stumbled to a stop.
The living room had been ransacked. Cushions torn off our old sofa, the drawers in the sideboard pulled out, contents everywhere.
“Mum?” I called out, dropping my heavy backpack.
Nothing.
A feeling came over me.
A knowing.
“Fuck!” I bit out, rushing toward my bedroom.
Sure enough, it was completely upended.
And the drawer where I kept a stash of my money in a sock was on the bed, the socks all unraveled.
The money was gone.
Heart racing, I pulled up the rug by my bed and pressed down on the floorboard. It popped up and I sagged in relief when I found the majority of my earnings still secure. I’d planted the sock money as a red herring because I knew one day she’d look for it.
Getting up, I stalked into her bedroom and halted again.
Her closet was open and every item in it was gone. As was the suitcase she’d kept in there. She’d never taken all her things before.
And I knew. Deep in my bones.
This time, she was gone for good.
I stumbled back and lowered myself to her unmade bed. My chest ached. A dull, throbbing pain near my sternum.
But there was relief too.
And that made me feel as bad as the pain.
I tossed my glasses onto the bed and buried my head in my hands, shoulders shaking as I cried quietly in the silence of her empty bedroom.
Tears were the last thing I ever let that woman take from me.
The knock at the door had me wiping my face and eyes and reaching for my glasses. It was possible it was Deirdra and that she’d heard Mum make the commotion when she tore up the place. Hurrying through the mess to the front door that led straight into the living room, I yanked it open.
And then froze.
Lewis’s wee sister, Eilidh, stood on the other side.
She was two years younger than us at fourteen, but with her height and confidence, she could pass for our age.
“What are you doing here?”