Crushed - Pamela Ann Page 0,7

gave me a compliment, I could never shake it off. I had to think twice about it before trying to accept it.

It was a feat to admit it even to myself, but my self-esteem was tattered, and I wasn’t sure how I could reshape it into something positive. Maybe my obsession with Brody masked all the ugliness in my world, because whenever he was around, I could only focus on how my heart would rapidly accelerate, making me feel completely alive and so passionate it was hard not to get addicted to the feeling.

Lost in the sea of tumultuous thoughts, my mind wandered to the one night that had sealed the deal for me.

Chapter Three

Approximately six years ago…

It was one of those balmy California summers where everyone gathered around the beach and their swimming pools to cool off. Donning their cute, sexy scraps of bikinis, they sipped their beverage, laughing and enjoying a lazy, hazy afternoon.

Desperately needing to get away from my problems, I sought out a pool party that was thrown in the Spanish-style mansion of Brody’s parents in Montecito.

It was also one of those rare moments where Lindsey wasn’t around, and Brody was being chased by the girls from school he flirted back with ceaselessly. Hormones raged and it was a given that, if Carter, Brody, or Cooper chose you to be their “girl,” you were the lucky one. They were dubbed the hot, sexy trinity, and every girl I knew wanted them, any one of them. The girls could have the rest because I only wanted one—the one I had been secretly in love with since middle school or maybe even way before that. Who the hell knew?

My parents were being their usual rotten selves, and that night, things had somehow escalated to a breaking point. I was an only child, one they had then kept pointing out that I wasn’t planned, that they had gotten married because my mother had gotten pregnant, and back in their heyday, it was imperative for a man to marry the girl. Since Mom came from an influential family background, my father had been left no choice in the matter. Shotgun marriage, it sure was.

I wasn’t sure what was worse, really: to be born into a family who couldn’t care less if I vanished or died somewhere or to be endlessly criticized for not being smart enough, pretty enough to be granted a sprinkle of attention. It seemed the only time they cared was when I got in trouble.

It began when I angrily beat up my cousin Benson, who was two years older than me, with a heavy, silver hairbrush because he wouldn’t stop mocking me. Back then, my anger had been channeled into a lot of throwing and destructive things, but it was the first incident that I had hurt someone intentionally. My anger coiled and rolled off me as if I was possessed by it. I couldn’t control it; the deep-seated need to keep on going was inevitable. It gnawed at me, blinding me from what I had truly become. So¸ in the shroud of its darkness, I didn’t realize what had happened until Benson was shaken to his core, his eyes glassed with tears as he look at me with that big, painful gaze of his. In it, I found something—he was terrified of me. For the first time, I had found a way to make him halt his demeaning taunts, and I felt empowered by it.

His forehead was cut open, and it drew a deep crimson-colored blood trail, somehow freezing me in amazement at how easily I could actually hurt anyone even at such a young age. Benson’s mother, my mother’s sister, obviously was hysterical and didn’t waste any time before she started lecturing and shrieking at my mother’s incompetence, blaming her for my lack of respect and foul attitude.

At first, I was mortified at what I had done, but in the end, I realized that, by doing such awful things, it reflected on her and my father. In some weird way, it got a reaction from her, letting her know I had inflicted hurt the way she and my dad consistently did without remorse.

This was one of the focal points where I became accustomed to the word and lifestyle known as addiction.

“Hey there, Amberini.”

Upon hearing his warm, deep, honeyed voice, the war—the pain and all the painful things that were compressed in my chest—immediately vanished.

“Hey,” I meekly replied, barely giving him a glance.

Brody … He was