He could have been anyone. I was eleven the first time I read something about my body in print. Thirteen when it started becoming a daily thing online. Fifteen when it started turning sexual. Eighteen when I found my first real death threat.
There aresomany people who want to kill me.
I remember the way his hands felt on my neck.
I remember him telling me how he was going to kill me. Down to the last little detail, like he’d imagined my eyes popping out hundreds of times before.
But then he was off me, and Grim stood in his place.
When I could finally breathe again, it was…it was like the lights turned on. Gray vanished into Technicolor.
I’ve done every mind-bending drug from shrooms to Molly to LSD, but nothing flipped me open like that.
I didn’t remember what happened to the body or Grim. I pushed through the nightclub, into the streets. The rainwater was a goddamn baptism. The neon reflecting red in the puddles on the asphalt vibrated and burned.
I almost died andfinallycame alive.
For…like, a day.
And then everything went gray again. The volume turned down. The keys slowed. I couldn’t remember why the color in the puddle affected me so much. Or even really the color of it. After that, I’d post my location every now and then. It felt a little bit like driving without a seat belt. If something happened, it was still an accident.
“I worry about you, Gemma,” my mother said, her sleep-soft voice cutting into the memory. “Who will take care of you? You have no husband. No prospects.”
Part of me wanted to tell my mother I could take care of myself. That it wasn’t 1821. Instead, I stayed quiet, because I knew it didn’t matter.
“Mom…” I caressed a stray silk thread on the pillow, picking it. “How much did you take tonight?”
“Oh, just a little melatonin.” She sighed and patted the pillow beside her sleepily, eyes closing.
“You’ll never leave me, right?” my mom asked through closed eyes.
“Of course not.”
“Because you’re my perfect little girl.” She gripped my wrist. “I knew you would be the day I found out I was pregnant.” I rolled back, staring at the ceiling, my mother’s hand still tight on my wrist.
A few moments later, my mom’s soft snores demarcated she’d fallen asleep.
I got out of bed and walked to her bathroom, checking the little orange bottle lying haphazardly on its side. Only four pills were missing, plus a bottle of wine.
I grabbed the antique 24K gold wastebasket on my way out. Years ago, my mother tried to kill herself. It was after my father died in a car crash. Death wasn’t something she planned, but she definitely wasn’t trying to live. She would have died had I not found her and forced her to throw up a month’s worth of pills and alcohol.
As I placed the basket on the floor beside her, I caught my image in a floor-length mirror. My hair tangled. Bags under my eyes. It felt like I’d stepped into quicksand five years ago, and now it’s starting to reach my torso.
The bruises on my arms and neck were darker. Fresher. I ghosted my touch across the purple spots. Maybe Mom thought if something had happened tonight, it was still an accident.
I shook that off and slid back into bed.
We never talked about that day, but for a year I sneaked into her room and hid her pills. At night I would come to her room and find her knocked out on whatever was left.
Then I got engaged. It was like a switch flipped in my mom, and suddenly she was normal again. For years my mother was focused on me—my reputation, my wedding, my life, but after Grayson blew up our family…
I glanced at my mother, her mouth hanging open as she slept.
I stayed up, watching the sparkling stars fade into inky black, snuffed under the clouds. I didn’t remember falling asleep, but then the caw of seagulls woke me up. It was still early in the morning, the sky iron blue with lingering night.
“You’re awake.”
I jumped at my mother’s voice.
