Little Sunshine

Prologue

“Ithink we should break up.”

Wait, what?

Standing in my open doorway, I tilted my head as I looked up at CJ. Tall. Hot in that seventeen-year-old way that was still kinda boyish but almost a man. My boyfriend of almost six months. My first real one.

The love of my sixteen-year-old life.

Or so he’d said.

Studying his somber expression, I waited for him to crack a smile and tell me he was kidding. He loved to prank me. He said it was hilarious.

I didn’t really agree, but it made him happy, so whatever.

But there was no amusement in his expression. No twinkle in his dark eyes. No look of love or—more commonly—horniness. Not even a hint of a smile.

Instead, his lip was curled in disgust. As if those same lips hadn’t just been pressed to mine minutes before. Like we hadn’t been making out on my couch while he’d pushed me to let him go further.

Go all the way.

And now he was dumping me.

“Okay,” I said. Not because it felt okay. God, it didn’t feel okay at all. I should’ve been used to the feeling, but the rejection stabbed away at my already battered heart.

CJ gritted his teeth at my one word, but his tone was gentle. “It’s not you.”

But it was.

I didn’t fit into his world. Our lives were too different. Maybe he was tired of sneaking over to the wrong side of the tracks. Maybe it was because I wouldn’t have sex with him.

Whatever the reason, I knew it was my fault.

For a moment, the invite to my bedroom hovered on the tip of my tongue. It wasn’t like I held on to my virginity because it had some imaginary value.

But I wasn’t going to sleep with any random guy who showed me interest. Or who I could get something from.

I wasn’t my mother.

“Okay,” I repeated, at a loss of what else to say. I just wanted him gone.

CJ didn’t get the message. He kept talking, making it seem like he was trying to make me feel better when I knew it was the opposite. “I need more freedom. I’m still young. I need to be able to go where I want. Hang out with friends. Just live without someone grilling me and being all…”

Clingy.

He didn’t say the word, but he didn’t have to.

We both knew it was there.

For someone who’d said it wasn’t about me, his reasons were exclusively about me. My faults. My weaknesses.

My issues.

“Okay,” I said, yet again.

“That’s all you have to say?”

I shrugged. “There’s nothing else to say.”

Irritation tightened his handsome face, and he opened his mouth to cut me down more. It was what he did when I pissed him off.

Although what I’d done to deserve it, I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t the one dumping him.

I couldn’t take it.

Looking around him, I squinted my eyes. “I think someone is near your car.”

He was off my busted porch before I could blink. It wasn’t a surprise that he quickly abandoned our conversation. He loved that loud thing more than anything. Clearly more than me.

I slammed the door and clicked the lock into place.

Leaving me alone.

As usual.

The small house may have been silent, but my thoughts weren’t. CJ’s words kept ricocheting in my head.

I hadn’t thought I was that bad. Between school and my job as a hotel housekeeper, it wasn’t like I had hours to spend hounding him. CJ didn’t have a job, so he had plenty of time for friends and whatever else while I worked. But when I was off, I had wanted to spend that time with him. I thought that was normal.

Apparently, I thought wrong.

My boyfriend. My own mother.

No one wants me around.

Blinking back bitter tears, I loaded up the slow-as-hell internet on my phone and started searching for apartments. My own place.

Well, I don’t need either of them.

Them or anyone else.