Part I
Bleed Me Dry
Nine years ago
Chapter One
Rosalie
Some of us are born lucky. We get the whole picket fence and the yappy little dog in the backyard, a doting mother and father who don’t waste their money on alcohol or scratch-offs, and the regular family dinner.
It’s a picturesque lifestyle.
One I only have the privilege of seeing from the outside with my nose pressed against the glass. I’ve never considered myself a part of the ‘lucky’ few blessed with a normal existence.
My mother fled Mystic, Connecticut, the moment the hospital released her. She was still high—buzzing from whatever she’d shot up last—and more focused on her escape than the infant she left behind. My aunt Kathy was the one who stayed, cradling a newborn swaddled in hospital-issued blankets and clutching a handwritten note with vague instructions on how to find my father.
Aunt Kathy wasn’t meant to be a mother. She didn’t think twice about handing me over to a man she didn’t even know.
She tells me she regrets her decision over our twice-a-year phone calls, but hasn’t made a move to come and scoop me up. Not even during our last chat when I was huddled in the bathroom with fat tears streaming down my cheeks as I begged her to come. The whole time, I was curled up with my knees tucked under my chin and my body shaking with every slam of my Dad’s fist on the locked door.
He had been on a bender the previous week and was now having withdrawals. He spent every last dime we had on cheapbooze and a pack of cigarettes. When the liquor ran out, he was a live wire and looking for someone to terrorize.
He targeted me, and I locked myself behind the door so he couldn’t reach me.
It was my first mistake.
The second was believing him when he said he wasn’t going to hit me, and I crawled out of the bathroom with my burner phone tucked safely into the back pocket of my jeans.
“Look at her clothes,” comes a wicked snicker from Jordan Elsher, the bane of my existence, and all-around mean girl who haunts the halls of Mystic High School.
She tosses her shiny, platinum blonde hair over her shoulder as scrutinizing blue eyes narrow on me. Unlike my hand-me-downs, two sizes too big and riddled with holes from my distant cousin who lent them to me, Jordan’s cute pink blouse fits her perfectly and is tucked into ripped boyfriend jeans.
I once considered her beautiful.
It’s hard not to with her straight teeth and infectious smile. It wasn’t until we started eighth grade that I realized how nasty she was. All it took was one poorly executed joke, and I became the laughing stock of our classmates.
Now, I only see a hollow shell where Jordan’s light once resided. She’s soulless and colder than any glacier.
Stephanie Thurnbrook, her right hand, and a leggy brunette with light brown eyes of honey and thin lips, sneers at me. “Her clothes? What about her face?”
As if just noticing the deep bruise on my right cheek, Jordan’s features twist in disgust. “I try to stay away from the danger zone. I hear she can turn you to stone…”
They giggle behind raised hands, but I walk past them as if the horrible things they say can’t touch me. Inside my head is where I’m the safest. In here, no one can hurt me.
Except myself.
I shake the thought away, banishing that little voice that often tries to drag me down. It’s gotten louder overthe years, constantly clawing away at my insecurities until I’m abandoned in tattered shambles. I’m always left to patch things up—holding those torn bits of what once made me smiling and carefree as I scramble to piece myself back together. I’ve spent too many hours speaking affirmations out loud to let it drag me into the darkness. I’ve repeated every word like a lifeline, holding onto hope with trembling hands.
Because I don’t know if I’ll come back from it.
I have to keep pushing.
As I take in the scrambling students on their way to their first hour class, brightly colored backpacks, notebooks, and smiling faces pass, but it’s all background noise. There is no place for me. Not here, and not in the single-wide trailer I live in at the Oak Woods trailer park.
There are no friends to greet me, and there’s going to be no one when I get home.
I’m alone.
