Chapter 1
Carly
Idon’tknowhowlong I’ve been running.
The cold makes it hard to tell anything. It strips time down to seconds and breaths. My lungs burn every time I drag air in. It feels like I’m inhaling knives. My breath puffs white in front of my face and I hate it, because it feels like proof.
Proof I’m here.
Proof I’m moving.
Proof to anyone watching.
Pine trees crowd in on both sides, dark trunks and sharp needles, watching me stumble through like I don’t belong here.
My bare feet slap frozen dirt and scattered debris. At first it was pain so sharp it made my eyes water. Now the pain is fading, and that scares me more. I keep curling my toes, trying to wake them up. They don’t listen.
I can’t think about that.
I can’t think about anything except getting farther away.
If I think, I remember.
And if I remember, I slow down.
The room flashes behind my eyes anyway. The smell of bleach. The thin mattress. The bucket shoved into the corner like an insult. The lock that never moved no matter how hard I twisted the handle. The crack under the door where light seeped in, and shadows passed, and the sound of men talking carried through like I was a piece of furniture in the next room.
One of them laughed, and then said something I can’t stop hearing.
“No family. Twenty-four. Young enough to sell high. Nobody comes looking. And her roommate said she’s a virgin.”
He wasn’t guessing. He was stating a fact.
And the worst part is that he was right.
I slam my shoulder into a low pine branch, and the needles rake my cheek. The sting snaps me back. I bite down on a sound.Don’t make noise.That rule is louder than everything else right now.
My whole life has been rules like that.
Don’t be difficult, Carly.
Don’t ask for too much.
Don’t cry where anyone can see.
Make yourself easy to ignore, so nobody gets irritated enough to leave.
I learned early. I learned it before I even had the words for it. I learned it in a kitchen where my mother’s attention slid past me like I wasn’t there. I learned it when she left and my grandmother pulled me into her arms and whispered that it would be okay, even though she had no way to promise that.
My father was gone before I existed. My mother lasted until I was five. Then she packed a bag, kissed my head once like she was checking a box, and walked out to another man’s truck.
I remember the sound of the door closing more than I remember her face.
Grandma became everything after that. Warm hands. Soft voice. Dinner on the table even when she was tired. A roof over my head even when money was tight. She wasn’t perfect. She was stubborn and sharp-tongued when she was angry. But she loved me in a way that was solid. Automatic. Like I belonged.
Then she got sick. Then she got smaller. Then she died.
Two years, and I still sometimes reach for my phone when something happens, as if I can call her and hear her say,tell me, baby.
