INDIE
If I had to choose between them, I would die. There is just no way I could only choose one.
I need them all.
I don’t even care if that’s selfish. I want them all.
And if I thought I could have Nathan St. James, then I would. I would have him too. I would keep all four of them because they are each different, and unique, and give me something I can’t get from anyone else.
Every single way they fill me up has been written in this journal. So if it’s not clear by now, there is nothing left to be said. There are simply no words to describe my need.
But I am afraid that you will see this and you won’t understand. And I don’t care if you are Nathan, or McKay, or Adam, or Donovan. I need you to understand.
How many other ways are there to describe Nathan St. James? He is my boy next door. He is my best friend. He is the firefly-catcher, and the treehouse-builder, and the swamp-charmer.
Oh, I know what Adam would say. “He was running around on you back in high school.” Yes, Adam. He told me all about what he did. He told me that you caught him. He told me what you said to him. And I get it. If Nathan loved me best, he would be more careful with my heart. He’d be like McKay.
McKay is so very, very careful with me. McKay is my soul. He is my trainer. He is the dinner-maker, and the hair-washer, and the nightmare-chaser.
But McKay will never admit he has always loved me. That I am his first, and only, one true love.
So I have Donovan. Donovan is careful too. He is my mind-reader. My note-taker. He is the light in the dark, he is the filler of holes, he is the voice in my head that keeps me calm during my stormy nights of insanity.
But he’s part-time. We all know it. He will never take me with him to LA and I wouldn’t want to go. This is my home. Right here. This is where I belong.
And that’s where Adam comes in. Adam. My owner. My knight. My protector. He is my partner in crime. The fixer of mistakes, the leader of us all, the untouchable one.
He is like a mean old dog who will bite anyone who gets too close.
Everyone but me.
He lets me get close.
But will he share?
Will any of them share?
Only if I make them.
So this is how I made them…
PART ONE - IGNORANCE IS BLISS
Everyone has secrets.
They can be big or small.
Mean a lot or very little.
They can change lives, they can destroy bonds, they can break hearts.
But a secret always comes with a reason.
Everyone has been told a lie at least once.
That lie can be bad or good.
It can spare your feelings or crush them to dust.
It can hold you prisoner or set you free.
But a lie is just a secret in the shadows.
Everyone has been discarded by someone at one point.
That rejection can kill your spirit or lift it up high.
It can set you down a path of revenge or redemption.
But secrets, and lies, and rejection are almost never about you.
So before you go lookin’ for those secrets. Before you go uncoverin’ those lies. Before you let that rejection seep into your heart and wound your soul—ask yourself this:
Do you really need to know the truth?
Because that truth doesn’t come with a return policy.
You cannot unknow things once they are known.
You can’t unsee things once they are seen.
So be very, very sure that you need those answers.
Because it will change everything.
Ignorance is bliss, my friend.
Pure. Bliss.
CHAPTER ONE - McKAY
PRESENT DAY
Indie Anna Accorsi blows into a life the way a hurricane spins across the Gulf of Mexico on a late summer night. She is both terrifying and sensational. The kind of girl you can’t walk away from even though you know damn well she is out to destroy you.
She is hard rain that stings your skin, and overflowing rivers that carry things away, and there’s always a debris field left behind. Little smudges of dirt and detritus that remind you she was there.
She was fucking there, ya know?
But she is someone else too. She was small once. And OK, maybe she was never exactly sweet. But she had her moments of balance and peace. I call those moments the ‘eye of Indie’. Like ‘eye of the storm?’ Wild winds raging all around her. Fuckin’ shit flying everywhere. Houses blowing by, air-raid sirens blaring, and she is standing in the middle of it all with her eyes closed and her chin tipped up. Calm.
And you never quite know if she’s just immune to the chaos or if she’s controlling it like some force of nature.
I don’t care what she’s done or will do in the future. It doesn’t matter how many years pass or how many other ways I know her, in my mind she is this girl. The Eye of Indie. The one I first met when she was ten.
This afternoon she is swirling dark skies pouring out tears. Drenched through to her skin, cornered, wide-eyed, filled with fear, and with no way out.
She needs something.
Not specifically me, just one of us. And I’m easy to find.
Indie’s long straight hair always looks dark even though it’s blonde. Her face is too pale even though she tans brown in the sunshine. And her eyes remind me of angry thunderheads backlit by wild blue lightning.
That’s a storm right there if ever there was one.
But she always comes with flowers too. There is always another, hidden side to this girl.
There’s no telling how that flower will present—a small bud tucked behind her ear, an embroidered patch on her old, ripped jeans, or a new tattoo on her wrist.
I have seen her with all three in times past but this afternoon it’s just a graphic design on a t-shirt partially visible through the opening in her jacket.
But let me be clear. Because it would be a mistake to assume her obsession with botanicals and her Bohemian name accurately describe the monster inside her head.
Indie Anna Accorsi is fragile like footsteps on thin ice. She is soft like the skin of a poisonous snake. And she is quiet like a panther watching you from a tree.
You do not take your eyes off her.
Today Indie is faded, ripped jeans and tough-girl brown boots. Black leather jacket with a maroon-checked flannel underneath, and a vintage band t-shirt peeking through the haphazard button job.
Guns N’ Roses. I recognize it—used to be black, now faded to gray. White skull flanked on either side by red roses. She stole it from me when she was eleven—and immediately I start wondering how much thought she put into this little impromptu visit.
Indie Anna Accorsi is not spontaneous. She is a well-thought-out plan.
She wears a faded pink velvet choker around her neck. Also, something I recognize. And she’s turned the cuffs of her flannel into fingerless gloves. Small holes at the wrists with thumbs poking through.
She is not the Eye of Indie right now.
And I did that to her.
I made her—I shaped her into this wicked paper-doll of a girl.
This isn’t bragging.
It makes me sad to see her. It makes my heart hurt in a way I can’t explain. It fills me with regrets.
But it wasn’t just me.
I wasn’t the one who broke her, but I definitely played my part.