stumbled out of bed, dosed up on NyQuil. At the time, I thanked God I had put my phone on the loudest setting on my pillow right next to my head in case she got a little tipsy and needed a ride home. She never got drunk, but always sipped on a Smirnoff. And she was such a tiny thing, such a lightweight, that just one was enough to make her all giggly.
My mom heard me falling down the stairs as I tried to get my shoes on at the same time I was making my way to the front door, still on my phone. One look at the panic in my eyes and she took my keys out of my hand and we hurried to my pickup. I slurred the address to her, and we got there in record time, all while I stayed on the phone with my sweet Shelly, who cried quietly on the other end of the line.
When we reached the house, the effects of the medicine had mostly worn off, and I ran up the front porch steps, my mom behind me, as we burst through the open door. The house was packed, loud music playing, everyone dancing and laughing, cups and bottles in their hands. I looked around, yelling into the phone so Shelly could hear me over the insanity, asking her where she was.
Mom and I found her in one of the bedrooms, hiding in the closet. When my eyes landed on her, the blood, the bruises, the flesh under her fingernails, her ripped and disheveled clothes, I saw red. I would kill the motherfucker. I swore on my life I wouldn’t stop until he wasn’t just six feet under, but obliterated to the point he wouldn’t even need an urn.
We took her straight to the hospital.
And for ten months, she’d been in therapy.
Apparently, it wasn’t enough.
Because as I lie here in a hospital bed, trying to come up with a “simple” answer to give the doctor in reply to his question of why I’m here…
All I can see are Shelly’s slit wrists and her lifeless eyes.
Chapter 1
Astrid
I was always in love with the idea of being in love. From a very young age—kindergarten, I think—I had crushes. My first boyfriend was Nick, when we were five years old. I can remember us sitting next to each other on the carpet at our teacher’s feet while she read a book to us before naptime, when the boys would then have to go to their side of the room and the girls to the other before lying awake on the blue and red foldable mats. I was restless, longing for the hour to be over so we could then run outside to recess and I could play with the sweet dark-haired boy who was always nice to me.
He moved… or maybe he just had a different class the next year. Our parents weren’t friends, and again, we were five, so it’s not like we knew how to keep in touch. One day, he was my whole reason to go to school, and the next, he was gone.
But that was okay, because in second grade, I met Kevin. And he was just plain dreamy. We were big, bad seven-year-olds, grown as could be, and we—gasp!—exchanged phone numbers. I sat in the kitchen talking on the phone with its long cord stretched across the space so I could sit beneath the table and pretend I had privacy to discuss important matters, like whether Kim Possible or Powerpuff Girls was better. I even saw him once outside of school. His house was on the same road where the town’s little Fourth of July parade was held, and we sat on the sidewalk together and watched all the homemade floats drive by before getting my first hug from a boy and saying goodbye.
I loved him.
I was going to marry him for sure.
But alas, it wasn’t meant to be. He really did move. His dad got a job in some other state, and he was gone.
My next crush came in the fifth grade. That was a weird one for me. He picked on me, and for some reason, it made me like him. I guess because people would tell me “If he’s picking on you, that means he likes you!” And just the idea of a boy liking me made me like him too. Me? You like little ole me? The idea now makes me shake my head… and