Prologue
They say I’m lucky.
Less than two millimeters to the right and I would have been gone before they found me on the bathroom floor.
But I’m not lucky at all.
I have nothing—not a cent to my name, a future to work toward, or a family who knows their daughter nearly bled out on the grubby, cold tiles of a public bathroom at a truck stop.
The rich-colored haired doctor looking over my chart regards me with questionable caution as he delivers yet another, “You’re very fortunate, Ms. Underwood.” There’s a distant smile on his face—full of curiosity over the eighteen-year-old propped up on the hard stretcher with wrapped wrists and hollow eyes in front of him.
That girl doesn’t feel like me—she feels distant and cold, lost mentally and emotionally somehow.
“Out of your head, Underwood,” my best friend always told me when I’d lose myself in it, waiting for the trained, “Head in the game” reply he got from me every time.
I’m not her anymore though.
Because I’m not fortunate at all.
I was two millimeters off.
Chapter One
Two Years Later
Ivy
The pounding headache in my temples matches the loud thumping of my housemate’s headboard smacking into the wall above me. Covering my face with the stained, flattened, pillow does little to drown out what’s going on upstairs. What’s always going on. That’s what you get when your rent is dirt cheap—four hours of sleep a night in a party house that I heard had a spare room through the grapevine at work.
I didn’t realize when I showed up with two measly bags and the clothes on my back that I’d be shoved in the dank, musty half-finished basement that smells like old socks and lavender Febreze and brushed off with barely a second look from the six other girls I live with. Or that most of them like to party, drink, and screw, usually in that order, whenever they get the chance to.
But I’d endure. I have nowhere else to go in this godforsaken town thanks to my spontaneous decision to get my life together and have no room to judge what Sydney is currently doing in the confines of her bedroom. I’ve done far worse, far more times, I’m sure of it.
Groaning when I drag myself out of bed, I throw on my typical Bea’s Bakery attire, blue jeans and a black long-sleeve shirt that has the business’s cartoon bee logo flying around a cupcake across the chest and slide a brush through my faded blue hair. I’m lucky Beatrice Olsen, the elderly woman who owns the bakery here in Lindon, New York, hasn’t asked me to dye it back to my natural color. The brown copper color my hair used to be had natural red and caramel highlights in the sunlight, a unique mixture my mother used to tell me she envied because it took a lot of money at salons to produce the same results.
No longer is my hair a mixture of my parents’—my mother’s pretty copper and my father’s chocolate brown. The long locks I desperately need to cut soon are one of the few things I can change about myself. It’s a chance to be someone else even temporarily, an identity of my own, unattached to my past or the people I walked away from.
It’s barely seven in the morning when I slip upstairs, ignoring the moans coming from the only other door off the kitchen besides mine, and focus on grabbing my Starbucks iced coffee from the fridge and leaving before my housemate and her hookup are done.
There haven’t been many times where people have bothered me since I moved in back in July. The large white two-story Victorian is well known around campus as the place to party. Unfortunately, that means a lot of guests stay overnight—hookups, people too drunk to drive, and the occasional significant other pop up from time to time when I’m not locked in my room.
Raine, the only girl here who acts like I don’t have fleas, and her boyfriend Caleb are two people I tolerate. The few times I’ve been hassled by one of my roommate’s hookups it’s always Caleb that gets them to leave me alone.
The six foot-something running back for Lindon University’s football team has the kind of smile that could charm the socks off the grinch, but the kind of glare that tells everyone not to mess with him either. It’s no wonder Raine is smitten with the local. He’s got the physique of most sports players, but not the personality of the ones I’ve encountered. His laid-back outlook on life makes it easy to get along with him, but his no-nonsense attitude when telling handsy frat boys to buzz off is bonus points in his favor. Since words aren’t my forte, I thank him with homemade baked goods which he takes to his place that’s rumored to house a handful of other football players.
I never ask for confirmation, and he never remarks on the double batch of desserts I send his way figuring there are other massive men to feed. He simply brings back the clean dishes for the next time he has to fend off some asshole who can’t take no for an answer.
My shift at the local bakery is like any other when I clock in, tie a small white apron around my waist, and help Bea’s granddaughter, Elena, get the pastries out for the day. There are early morning regulars, older couples who love the Sunday specials, that I get to greet and make easy conversation with, and a few grad students who don’t totally piss me off when they hang around using the Wi-Fi.
In Lindon, everyone knows everyone even though the college brings in over 3,000 students each semester. It’s what I imagine a real-life Stars Hollow from Gilmore Girls would feel like if it were a small city. The customers who come in the bakery always have a new slice of gossip to share, and you’re never safe from being one of the topics.
The sixteen-year-old sitting on the back counter with her legs dangling over the side in a swinging motion pokes at my hair. “When are you going to redye this?”
I make a face as I pour myself a cup of coffee since the one I brought didn’t cut it. I’ll need the extra caffeine after the last hour and a half turned into a nonstop morning rush. “I don’t know. I’m not sure what color I want to do next.”
And I’m broke, I silently add, blowing on the steam billowing from the cup. No matter how hard I save up what little extra money Bea not-so-subtly sneaks into my paychecks each week, it’s still not enough to justify buying pointless little things.
“I can do it,” she offers, sipping on some disgusting concoction that only she drinks.
Setting my cup under the counter so I don’t accidently spill it, I say, “I’m good, Lena.”
Lena is sweet enough. A little too talkative and bubbly for my liking, especially first thing in the morning, but I’ve worked with worse—spoiled teenage brats and older people who are asses. My biggest problem with the social butterfly is how much she reminds me of what could have been before I messed everything up. It’s not her fault that her tender age and obvious naivety to life triggers something dark inside of me that I prefer to bottle up.
It’s something I have to deal with every time she complains about things like her mother refusing to extend her curfew, let her date, or wear certain types of clothing when she’s out. Her nose always crinkles when I say, “I don’t see why you’re so upset. Your mother loves you, that’s why she’s hard on you.”
Lena’s about to say something when her eyes get big and she kicks me a little too hard in the back of the thigh with her favorite checkered platform Vans. “He’s back!”