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CHAPTER ONE

Past

I was homesick for a place that didn’t exist A place where , and I had a father who cared It was easier to believe they’d never loved me at all than it was to pretend they had, and one day just simply decided not to

A irl would have protected her, right?

She would haveme delusional My mother’s fear of my stepfather and her lack of backbone caused her to act none the wiser I was left to suffer in silence Alone Always alone

Afteranother red dash on ot a total of fifteen That’s how one They hadn’t bothered with leaving a note or anything It wasn’t all that unusual for theo,back At first, I refused to believe her, chalking it up to the drug induced haze she’d been in Now the more time that passed, the more I wasn’t so sure

What if they really were gone for good?

For some kids in rateful that God finally stepped in and did so, but Cassie had an encyclopedia of issues I was tired of trying to understand

Leaving the sanctuary ofintodownstairs Her bed was uns from expensive department stores were strewn all around, and her curtains were drawn shut

With no desire to venture into her pigsty, I went down to the kitchen On the way, I passed the few fa on the wall We looked ordinary My stepfather, Mareen, and the pool was never dirty Everyone thought ere perfect But all they had to do was peek through the curtains, and they would see our normalcy was a pathetic sham

Before I even entered the kitchen, I s food in lass for water, so I never needed to wander out

That was the only reason I was unaware of the condition the rest of the house was in I had the saht from school to my room If I were lucky, my stepdad would leave me be