shove to my chest, each blow to my emotions, each truth I’ve spent years trying to deny, to hide.
Soft fingers curl around my wrist, and I look down to see Lucy’s hand attempting to grasp mine. I let her take it and chance a peek up at her. She’s looking into my eyes, searching between them. She’s trying to find the same thing our mother spent my entire life searching for. There has to be something in me, something she can connect to. Something more.
To them, I’m a vessel.
Empty inside.
I release Lucy’s hand, wanting to tell her just to let me go. Let me get away from this reality and back to the memories of Mia. Because I know, somewhere amidst all the pain and the heartache, there was good.
I was good.
“You okay?” Lucy mouths, her eyebrows drawn in concern.
I nod.
A lie.
I’m not okay.
And I don’t want to be here.
But more, I don’t want her here.
What the fuck is she doing here?
Part One
Chapter One
Mia - Age 12
It all starts with a prank.
A stupid, pathetic prank.
Mayhem, they call it.
The funny thing is, it isn’t even directed at me.
So far, the summer I’ve spent at the Prestons’ is… lonely. It’s the only way I can describe it. And that’s saying a lot considering I’ve grown up as an only child, raised by my grandfather on an old farm in a town with a population of fewer than 200.
The only person I speak to regularly besides my grandpa is Holden, my best friend. We’d always looked forward to summer breaks, spending almost every second of daylight together, trying to discover new things we hadn’t already seen or done. It becomes harder the older we get, and the more time we spent stuck in The Middle of Nowhere, North Carolina, the more we itched to get the hell out of there. Well, he did. Me? I’d be happy there if I could actually see a future for myself. The previous summer, Holden made me a promise that he’d find a way out, and when he did, he’d take me with him. “One day, Mia Mac…” he said as he crouched down in front of me, scraping the dirt mixed with blood off my grazed knee, “we’re going to get the fuck out of this shithole—”
“Holden!” I squirmed uncomfortably, slapping the bead of sweat from the back of my neck. We’d been running. I don’t know why. But Holden yelled out to run, and so we did. We ran through the thick brush, flicking hanging branches out of the way, and I was so afraid of whatever I was running from that I didn’t see the giant tree root sticking out of the ground. I tripped, landed on all fours, and that’s how I got there: me on my butt, both knees and what little pride I had stinging in pain. Holden looked at me, waiting, and I could feel the blush creep to my cheeks. “You shouldn’t curse,” I mumbled, knowing I was giving him exactly what he wanted. I didn’t like it when anyone swore, but him especially. Besides, we were eleven. It felt so wrong for such dirty words to leave the mouths of such innocent souls.
I watched him try to hold back a laugh, right before he leaned in, his mouth coming closer and closer, and for a moment—one split second—I thought to myself, “If he so much as tries to kiss me, I’m going to punch him right in that innocent mouth.” But he wasn’t going in for a kiss. Instead, he whispered, “Fuck. Shit. Ass. Tits.”
I punched him on the arm.
“Crap, Mia! That hurt!” he shouted, rubbing at the spot I’d just hit.
“Don’t antagonize me.”
“Ooh, big word… for a girl!”
My eyes narrowed. “You want another one?”
His features fell, eyes going wide as he shook his head. “Your grandpa been teaching you some moves, huh?”
I shrugged. “Papa wants me to be able to protect myself.”
“From what?” he almost laughed. “The giant cicadas on your front porch? Because that’s really the only thing you need protection from.” His gaze fell to the ground, and, tentatively, he added, “Well, that and your parents.”
I would’ve punched him again if he wasn’t so right.
A frown tugs at my lips at the recollection as I sit on the dock of the Prestons’ private lake, my bare feet swaying in the water. I grip the cellphone—the one my grandpa gave me to keep in touch with him over the break. There are only two numbers stored