Deadly Desires (Desires Trilogy #1)
Prologue
Melody
The rain pitter patters on the shingles of my house, a song desperate with longing for the sun. The wind is howling, screaming its defiance to any that will listen...
I’m listening. It’s all I can do. All I’ve become is a shell of myself since that night. A night so twisted, I revisit it in my nightmares each time I go to sleep. The medication barely works, but my doctor won’t up the prescription. Sleep evades me like the moon evades the sun. A clap of thunder shakes the house and I startle. Loud noises launch me into panic attacks that steal my breath and cloud my vision. This storm is raging a battle against me, but inside, I’m too numb to care to even arm myself to fight back.
Most nights I lie awake contemplating life and how to end it. I am a survivor, but I have no idea how much longer I can claim that title. Most days I fight the need to cut, to release this energy within my soul lest it burst out of my very being in ways that would hurt those around me. I wear the scars of my failed battles on my wrists, hidden behind long sweaters and jackets that I can always be found in. I long for peace, to be rid of this constant, all consuming pain.
I am broken.
My parents say it about me in hushed tones they don’t think I can hear at the lavish parties and charity events they host. I suppose I am, though I have no energy to care or dispel their belief. They tell me I need to get out more, go hang out with my friends, or meet a new guy. But they don’t understand. They don’t understand I physically, mentally, and emotionally have no energy for any of it. I barely have enough energy to paste on a smile at the events and hold myself tall with poise and grace as I make idle small talk with old Mrs. Anderson, one of our charity sponsors who is always decked out in massive amounts of diamonds.
This is depression, anxiety, and PTSD wrapped into one shell of a person.
I dream of better days, where I am whole and well. It seems like such a foreign notion. I think back to who I was a year ago; a bright college student going for her bachelor’s degree in criminal law and the star linemen on the college football team was proposing to her during their championship win. Life was good. Until it wasn’t only three months ago. Until life shattered everything I thought I knew and hoped to be. I dropped out of college. I couldn’t handle it at all with my depression, suffering from anxiety attacks anytime someone got too close to me, or even bumped into me. My parents knew what happened, and my friends suspected, but I’ll keep that secret until I’m dead and cold inside.
Other than my parents, there is only one other that knows my secret… and that was my then-fiancé, Brian. Although he claimed he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me, that all changed once he found out what happened that fateful night. How broken I am inside. I would be a stain on his otherwise pristine reputation, and he didn’t want to risk his career with my “drama.” We both run in the same upper class; there is no room to be dragged down by me. He ended things immediately, wanting no part in who I now am. I quickly learned that it was best not to utter a single word to anyone else. Because surely they would do the same—cut me from their lives and abandon me. So instead, I’ve pushed everyone away so they can’t hurt me first.