I balled up the paper and shoved it in the small trash can down the side of the toilet. Slipping out of the stall, I washed my hands and inspected my appearance in the mirror. My lashes were damp, the color drained from my cheeks, my eyes shadowed and haunted. I barely recognized the girl staring back at me.
And it was only the first day.
The first of many.
I inhaled a thin breath. I could do this. I didn’t have any other choice.
I wasn’t my mother. She was weak. She let my father’s betrayal destroy her. Her pain, her heartbreak drove to her breaking point and nothing—not even the daughter she’d sacrificed everything for—could save her.
I wouldn’t become her.
Even on the hardest days, when it felt like my heart was breaking apart all over again, I wouldn’t lose myself to the darkness again. I would live in it, bathe in it, and become one with it.
But I would never succumb to it.
Not again.
That was my promise to myself and Celeste and my therapist at Albany Hills.
People had the power to break you, to hurt and betray you. But in the end, nobody put a gun to your head and told you how to react.
We had to own our response mechanisms and we wouldn’t always get it right.
God knows, I hadn’t.
But I was still here. I was still fighting every day to do better.
To be better.
And I was determined to walk out of here—the town that had chewed me up and spat me out—with my head held high one day.
One day.
Nix
“You wanna hit Buster’s tonight?” Zane asked as we headed out of school for the day.
“No can do.”
“No.” He frowned. “Why?”
“Got some shit to take care of.”
“And by shit you mean…”
“Don’t ask questions you won’t like the answer to.” My expression tightened.
We reached my car and I yanked open the door, climbing inside. Zane followed, giving me a concerned look. “Do I need to tell you this is a bad fucking idea.”
“No. But I gotta see it with my own eyes, man.”
“Yeah.” He released a steady breath, running a hand over his jaw. “I get it; it’s Birdie. She’s—”
“Nothing, she’s nothing,” I said, hating how deep the words cut. “But I gotta know.”
“Want me to come with? Watch your back? If Denby catches you on their side of the res—”
“I can handle the likes of Marc Denby.” I jammed the key in the ignition and fired her up.
Zane snorted. “Still, a little back up wouldn’t hurt.”
“I appreciate it, Z. I do. But this is something I need to do alone.”
“Okay. But if anyone sees you… get the hell out of there, and fast.”
“I will.” He lifted a brow and I added, “I promise.”
“You know, I always thought the two of you…” He trailed off, tension making the air so fucking thick in the car, I couldn’t breathe. “How’s Jessa?” He changed the subject.
“She’s… Jessa. Still convinced she can change him.” Him being my piece of shit father. “I’ve given up trying to tell her to get out while she can.”
“You know, you don’t have to stay there. You could come stay with me and my gran. She wouldn’t mind.”
“I know.” Mrs. Washington was the best, but I couldn’t upend her life like that. Besides, I couldn’t leave. Not yet at least. Jessa needed me; she didn’t have anyone else.
“You’re a good friend, Z. The best. But I’ve got this, I promise.”
He gave me a clipped nod and I started backing out of the parking space. Most kids rode the bus or their bicycle to Darling Hill High. A handful of kids like me were lucky enough to have a hand-me-down ride. She was my pride and joy. The car my grandfather had restored with his own two hands. He’d left it to me in his will when he’d died a few years back, and I’d made good on my promise to look after her.
He was a good man. Nothing like his son. The fact he’d liked me while he was alive, was just another reason for my father to despise me.
It was only a ten-minute drive to The Row but with every mile closer, the pit in my stomach carved wider.
I hated this fucking place.
It was home, sure, and it held some of my best memories. Goofing around with Zane and Kye, causing mischief, hanging out with Harleigh…
Harleigh, fuck. My grip on the wheel tightened until I white-knuckled the damn thing. I was supposed to be over this shit. The guilt. The crippling hopelessness I felt. The simmering rage that burned inside me. Obviously it had only slumbered though, and now she was back, the monster was slowly awakening.
“You good?” Zane asked, and I flicked my eyes to his.
“I’m good.”
When you were born in a place like The Row, it became a part of who you were. Part of the very fabric of your soul. The scent of weed in the air, stale liquor and bad decisions, clung to you like a second skin. There was no escaping that shit. No outrunning it. But when you were Joe Wilder’s kid, his only flesh and blood, that stain was only amplified. There wasn’t a single person in Darling Row who didn’t know his name. If they didn’t use him for his connections, they feared him because of them. He was a mean sonofabitch who doled out favors and always collected with interest.
“I’ll come with you,” Zane said.
“Nah, man.” I shifted in my seat, feeling like a thousand fucking spiders were crawling under my skin as my trailer came into view. “I’ll be in and out.”
And if my luck was in, Joe would be out.
The car rolled to a stop, and we climbed out. Zane hesitated and I knew he wanted to say something else. But I beat him to it. “I’ll text you later. See what you’re up to.”
“You’d better.” He tsked. “Catch you later.”
I tipped my chin and watched him disappear around the side of my trailer. Joe’s beat up car wasn’t parked out front but that didn’t mean much. Sometimes, if he was too wasted to drive home from The Tap, Lyle, the owner, confiscated his keys and made him walk his sorry ass back here.
Trudging up the steps, I grabbed the door handle and yanked it open. “Jessa?”
“In here, sweetie.”
The smell of freshly baked cookies hit me like a warm blanket. “Hey,” I said, popping my head around the door leading to the open plan living space. Jessa was at the breakfast counter, adding cookies to the cooling rack.
“Where’s Joe?” I frowned when she didn’t look up at me.
“Out. He… uh…”
“Look at me,” I said, clenching my hand into a tight fist as anger rose inside me like a tidal wave hurtling toward shore.
“It’s nothing, Nix. Honestly, it looks worse than it is.”
Closing the distance between us, I gently gripped her chin and forced her to look at me. “Shit, Jessa.” My stomach dropped at the ugly black-and-blue bruise that mottled her eye socket.
“He didn’t mean it.” She batted my hand away, giving the cookies her full attention again.
“Jessa, come on. That’s some bullshit and—”