“It can’t be,” I whispered.
I touched the red tattoo on his neck and smiled.
Wild green eyes. He sucked me under and he held me there. He kissed me harder, branding me his. “You’re my happy life, Imi.”
I was cold. I was hungry. I hadn’t changed my clothes in months and I couldn’t remember the last time I had slept all the way through the night, but that didn’t matter.
“I love you, Yossarian Frazier.” He smiled.
Yossarian. My Yoss.
My happy life.
“Yoss.” His name was razorblades on my tongue. In my mouth.
He didn’t answer. His eyes remained closed.
I hadn’t recognized him underneath the bandages. Beneath the bruises.
Yet the red man on his neck gave him away.
“Yoss,” I sobbed.
My Yoss…
He had been my happy life. Even when things were ugly.
Later he became my broken heart.
Fifteen Years Ago
He found me when the sky was bleeding.
It was a warm, summer night in the middle of June. School had been out for a week.
And I was angry.
So, so angry.
I had run away for the third time that month. But I didn’t plan to go back. Not this time. I didn’t really think that my mother would even care. She was probably too busy with her new boyfriend to notice that I was gone.
My problems seemed huge. Insurmountable. The only way out was to escape.
In my immature mind, a life on the streets was better than a life perpetually ignored.
How stupid I was.
But at sixteen I was bull-headed. Stubborn. It was one of my more problematic personality traits.
There was no way I’d go home with my tail tucked between my legs only to be lectured for my impulsivity and then promptly forgotten again.
I’d make a new life for myself. One that didn’t involve my selfish mother and her latest boy toy.
The city of Lupton, Virginia transformed at this time of day. At the end. Shadows became longer and the atmosphere crackled with energy that put me on edge.
I was angry.
But I was also scared.
