off the treadmill, and then the darkness around me closes in. In my head, I’m living my nightmare. I’m five years old, and standing in the middle of an antique store. There are corners, so many corners and I turn and I turn and I turn and then there are windows. Big, huge windows. And I stand in front of them and look out to the parking lot, but my grandpa’s truck is gone.
I forgo my usual routine of using the bathroom to empty my stomach. Instead, I leave the barn, let the cool night air sting my flesh, my throat. I make it to the porch and hold on to the rail of the steps to keep upright.
Then I force air into my lungs.
And then two fingers down my throat.
I purge all the ugly and the filthy and the vile out of my system until there’s nothing left. And then I do it again.
I do it until there’s nothing left of me but my body.
A shell.
A hint of my existence.
Legs weak, I climb the steps and collapse into the porch swing, where I lie across it, let my exhaustion creep through every cell. My eyes drift close, and I stay that way even when I hear the screen door open.
“Mia?”
I struggle to open my eyes, to see Dad squatting down in front of me, dressed in all black with a glass of whiskey in his hand. His eyes are so red, so raw, and when he reaches out, the backs of his fingers stroking my forehead, I close my eyes again.
His voice breaks when he asks, “What are you doing out here, Mia?”
I sniff back a sob. “Waiting for Papa to come home.”
Part Four
Chapter Fifty-Three
Mia
I don’t want to be here.
It’s the only thing that ran through my head, causing my bloodline to fill with nervous energy.
And dread.
It’s the same feeling I had almost ten years ago. Only then, the person sitting next to me with her hands on the steering wheel—utterly clueless to my current state of mind—was assuring me that everything would be okay, that I’d be happy here. An assumption, I’m sure, because she barely knew the twelve-year-old girl beside her, and now? Now we’re virtually strangers. An odd thing to say considering she’s my mother.
She sits ramrod straight as she makes the final turn toward the Preston house, inconspicuously checking herself in the mirror as she does. I used to catch her doing the same the summers she had me spend with her, wishing for the day Mr. Preston would see her in a different light.
Yeah, that was never going to happen.
I try not to roll my eyes at her, and instead, take a moment to breathe. Just breathe. Wiping the anxiety-caused sweat off my palms onto the worn upholstery of the car seat, I settle my head against the headrest and try to calm my pulse by looking out the window. Trees line the road, the bright sunlight breaking through the thick leaves as we pass. A short wooden fence behind those trees lets you know it’s private property, even though you can’t see any houses from the road. Loose gravel kicks up from the spinning tires below us, and when I roll down the window, just slightly, I can feel the crisp, fresh air fill my nostrils.
The first time I was here, it reminded me of home.
It didn’t take long for that feeling to fade.
The car slows as Mom pulls into the Preston driveway, and my breath halts in my chest, my bottom lip stinging in pain with the force of my teeth clamping down around it.
I try to keep the memories distant.
Try to keep the tears at bay.
Nothing is different.
And yet… everything has changed.
I don’t want to be here.
Not again.
I can pinpoint precisely two moments in my life when I’ve wanted out of a situation so bad, I’d have given anything to be able to crawl out of my skin and disappear. One of those occasions happened to be within the Prestons’ property line.
Standing in the house’s entryway, I keep my head down, grateful that my hands are too busy holding the numerous containers filled with food. “We’re going for Lucy’s daughter’s first birthday,” Mom had explained in the car as soon as she scooped me up from the airport. She didn’t tell me her plans prior to my landing, and as I sat there, letting that information sink in, I stared at her, my eyes wide in disbelief.