PROLOGUE
KENDALL, TEN YEARS AGO, BACK IN HIGH SCHOOL
I refuse to let Grant Wyndham get to me.
He glares at me from his spot with the rest of the seniors. His sandy blond hair stands at artfully styled angles off his forehead. Sure, he’s hot, but it’s absolutely wasted on him. I stare back at him, challenging. I’m Teflon. I’m not some vulnerable flower he can crush under his expensive shoe.
I adjust my lyrics at the podium. I catch my older brother’s eye, and he gives me a thumbs up. He sits near our mother in the front row, wheelchair brakes locked so he won’t roll forward. I’d suggested sitting in the accessible seating near the back, but he declined, and now I’m glad I can see his face.
I lift my chin. A bead of sweat rolls down my neck in the stuffy auditorium. One of our teachers sits behind me on stage, and the cloying scent of her perfume reaches me. A stray cough sounds from somewhere. I block out all the distractions.
The first notes of “The Climb” play through the speakers. The song itself is a little overdone, I guess, but I like it anyway. I bring the microphone to my lips.
I close my eyes and sing the first few bars. My voice is clear and resonant, not shaky at all, and I relax as the song builds.My hips sway and the music envelops me. I love performing. The audience fades away, including Grant and his stupid, gremlin-like friends.
As the final notes fade, I open my eyes again. Grant still fixes me with his malignant little stare. His eyes rake over my clothing—a dress purchased from a consignment store and repaired several times—and up to my face. His lip curls.
He’s tried to break me during our years in school together, and it never works. When he stuffed a picture of a hippo with the caption “glad you could make it to the swim party” in my locker, I yawned. When he taunted me in class, I rolled my eyes. He makes fun of my looks, my homespun clothing, my crooked teeth. My body, my size when he’s feeling particularly cruel, even if that’s not his main focus. I never cry, though—at least not where he can see me. I won’t.
It does hurt, sure. I’m only human. But he doesn’t need to know that.
I scan the rest of the audience. My group of friends, along with my mom and brother, almost embarrass me with their thunderous applause. I catch Clay cupping his hands around his mouth and whooping, and my cheeks warm. Most of my other classmates clap politely.
Grant’s surly figure keeps drawing my eye. He sits with his arms crossed in front of him, looking bored. He’s not clapping. When he sees me surveying the crowd, though, a small smile curves his lips. He looks a little sinister, like he might have more teeth than he’s supposed to. I grin back at him. He’s not going to win. He’s salutatorian, but I’m valedictorian. My accolades outshine his. We’re both from Blacksburg, a tiny town in the Appalachian Mountains of Eastern Kentucky, and his condescension is laughable, anyway. Who does he think he is? Royalty?
The rest of the awards program sees me sweating through my best dress, but a sense of anticipation curls in my belly allthe same. I’m getting out of this hellhole of a town, and I can’t wait.
After saying my goodbyes to my family in the parking lot, I climb into my old, rusted car, paid for with my job at McDonald’s as well as an unexpected influx of cash from my itinerant father, and I head to the ice cream place. It’s a charming little hut surrounded by picnic tables and beds of sparse gravel with blades of grass poking through. My stomach swoops when I spot most of my class here, including Clay.
The evening breeze brushes along my skin. I’ve never thought of high school as magical, but now that it’s almost over, a charge stirs the air as though the ambient excitement casts a spell on our little space. We’re in this bubble together, my classmates and I, filled with hopes, dreams, and hormones.
My friends and I order our desserts and park ourselves at a wooden table. I sneak glances at Clay, who, though it may be my imagination, throws his own looks my way. He’s skinny and pale, and a hint of a blush stains the tops of his fair cheekbones when his eyes land on me.
“You think he likes you too?”
I jump at the low voice. I swivel to face Grant, of course, whose cheeks dimple with his display of straight, white teeth. He really is cute, and it’s cosmically unfair that he gets to be smart as well.
“Yes,” I snap. Am I telling the truth? I have no idea. My friends go still behind me, sensing an apex predator, perhaps, but I don’t have the same sense of self-preservation. “Why? You want to talk to him for me?” I bat my eyelashes.
Grant chuckles before snatching my phone from the table. I bolt upright, panic flooding my veins, and reach for it, my hands grasping around his forearm. I’m tall, but he’s a little taller, and he holds my cell with an iron grip as he scrolls through some of my texts.
“Give it back!”
“Let’s see what Kenzie’s been texting about.” He grins. “Clay talked to me in English today.” His loud voice carries to the surrounding tables, and I want to crawl into a hole in the ground. “I think he’s going to ask me out.” His eyes shoot to mine, his lips pursing, as he scans me and finds me wanting. “Oh, damn. Did he, actually?”
My gaze finds Clay, whose jaw hangs open. Oh God. I might just leave town and never come back. Who needs these people? I’ll probably never see them again once I go to college in the fall.
Grant’s not done, of course. I glare at him, stoic, as he waves over a few of his friends. His girlfriend, Maggie, hovers behind him, biting her lip. She’s actually kind of a sweet girl. What the hell does she see in Grant?
“I think we should send a picture to him.” He moves the phone around, pretending to find the right angle. “Damn. Can’t get a good one. Can you pose? Under the table, maybe? Or better yet, let’s switch you out with someone else.” His stupid friend, this chinless dude named Tom, chuckles next to him.
Ah, yes. His most inventive insult—the burden of the sight of me. Charming, how he thinks anyone wants to look at his own evil face.
My eyes find Clay’s again for a lightning-quick second. He still stares at me, and my skin burns.
“That’s enough,” I say to Grant, grabbing hold of his forearm and digging my nails into the skin. I don’t care if I break it—his arm, that is. I don’t have money for another phone.
He wrenches away from me.
