Prologue:
Glass Houses
Alaina (Age 10)
I shouldn’t be doing this.
Running is bad, it’s bad, they’ve told me so many times it’s bad, but I can’t stop doing it.
They hurt me when I stay.
They don’t mean it, but they do. They hurt me and the only way to make it stop is to run.
So I run.
It’s too cold, too rainy, but it really hurt this time. I’m scared to go home. I just need somewhere to warm up a little and then I’ll go back.
I have to go back.
My eyes blur from tears as I see a treehouse up ahead. It looks old, like the one I used to have before Daddyaccidently set the fire. I remember being safe there, being warm, so I run toward it.
I just need a few minutes.
Pain spikes up my side as I climb the ladder, nearly slipping twice on the wet stairs, but I make it. I’m safe now, I think, until I look around and see I’m not alone at all.
A boy around my age is staring at me with wide orange eyes and messy dark hair, and I think maybe he isn’t real. Boys don’t have orange eyes. Do they?
“Are you a ghost?” I ask, not daring to move an inch. “How did you die?”
He frowns, but there’s a hint of amusement in his expression. “You killed me, remember? You stabbed me in the jugular with that ugly pen.” He lurches forward. “Boo!”
Without thinking, I smack him. Not hard, I don’t think, but enough to make him back up a bit. “My monsters are bigger than you, and I don’t own any pens.”
“Ouch!” He presses his hand against his cheek and moves away from the entrance. “Who doesn’t own pens?” I see a pile of them next to some wrecked notebooks, but he glances at the other side of histreehouse like he’s inviting me in, so I ignore his question and move deeper inside. “What kind of monsters?”
I don’t want to tell him. Telling is the only thing worse than running, and I’ve already done that. Fidgeting, I lean a little to the left so my ribs don’t hurt quite as much and look around. Other than the art supplies, there isn’t much up here, just a couple of granola bars in a ripped box that make my stomach growl. ”Do you have any water?”
He looks around and then hands me a Dr. Pepper he’s already drank half of. “I can go get you water from inside if you prefer it. Are you crying?”
He drops his gaze and squirms slightly like he’s never seen anyone cry before, and suddenly I know he’s not dead. Boys don’t have orange eyes, but this one does.
I bet he goes to a good school, too. He sounds smart. Smarter than me, anyway. “This is fine.” Taking a sip, the fizziness makes my nose burn and my mouth feel funny, but it’s good. A little painful, but tasty. Like someone bottled what it feels like to be alive. “I’m not crying anymore. It doesn’t hurt that bad.”
“What hurts?” He looks over my body curiously and tosses me a granola bar, staring at me like I’m the most interesting thing he’s ever seen.
Like I’m the one who looks like Halloween.
“It’s nothing, I’m fine,” I lie, but the way I tear into that granola bar says otherwise. Even I see that. “My parents don’t like me very much.”
“Do any of our parents actually like us?” he asks, leaning back with a sigh. I’m sure other people have shit parents like I do, but I’m positive mine are worse. “Do yours love God more than you, too?”
My nose scrunches. “Who?”
His head tilts, amusement returning to his face. “God? Jesus? Church?” Each word sounds more disbelieving than the last when I don’t react to any of them. “You’re funny.”
“I’m not laughing. My mom says church is where the hypocrites go, but that’s all I know.” Eyeing the last granola bar, I squirm a little. “Is God a... hypocrite or something?”
“Yes. They all are,” he admits, following my gaze before he tosses me the other one. “If you say you accept him into yourheart you can basically be as shitty as you want to be, and all you have to do is ask for forgiveness. It’s stupid.”
