PROLOGUE
REVERIE
Freshman Year
August 2021
There are a lot of ways my mother could’ve tried to kill me, but I’ve always been grateful she chose a method that left me with only internal scars. That was the first kindness she offered me in life.
The last was hanging herself seven months ago.
I sit on the edge of the massive indoor pool at the campus sports center, cool water reaching halfway up my calves, but it might as well be the death grip of the Grim Reaper preparing to drag me to hell. My heart pounds against my rib cage, desperate to evacuate from this stupid body, and I grip the cement edge until my knuckles bleach white. No matter how hard I work to still the tremors in my stiff muscles, they rebel against my desperate command.
Just stay calm, Rev.
Stay calm.
You’re safe, you’re still breathing, you’re barely even wet.
This is why I’m here—this is why I do this to myself. I don’t want to live in fear for the rest of my life, breaking out into a cold sweat every time I step into a shower or hyperventilating when I walk near a pool.
I’ve had enough of living in fear.
I close my eyes and inhale deeply, though the oxygen sputters into my lungs like an engine out of gas. Sweat dots my hairline and coats my nape and back. A slight breeze would feel like heaven right now, though heaven is the one place I’m trying my best to avoid.
I think I’m failing.
It feels like I’m drowning again, and the heavy weight of a hand on the back of my head grows until I’m convinced someone is physically pushing me down toward the water.
It wouldn’t surprise me if it were my mother’s ghost returning from hell to finish what she started fourteen years ago. Regina D’Amour is fucking persistent, and I’d be deluding myself if I reasoned away all the times I caught her staring at me, as if she wished my father never walked in on us and stopped her.
After all, she wouldn’t have slipped and fell while pregnant if not for me.
She wouldn’t have given birth to a stillborn baby boy later that night.
She wouldn’t have lost herself to grief and postpartum psychosis.
And ultimately, she wouldn’t have tried to drown me for killing her son.
However, my brother isn’t the only death I’m responsible for, and my mother isn’t the first to want me dead.
I jump when I hear the door behind me swing open. It’s nearly closing time. I’ve been here for an hour, but I only just talked myself into dipping my legs in the pool five minutes ago.
I promised myself when I arrived at Hollow Canyon University, I would do everything in my power to overcome my fear. It’s only the second day since classes started, and already, I’m about to make myself look like a freak. I came here because I knew I’d be alone, and I could comfortably have a panic attack in peace.
I guess I didn’t think of staff coming in to kick me out.
“I’m leaving,” I croak, wincing when the words sound like they went through a cheese grater.
“No need, darling. I quite like you where you are.”
My spine snaps straight as shock rips through me, followed by denial. Maybe a little grief, too.
Every single atom in my body comes to a screeching halt. If my body housed Earth itself, it would be spiraling into absolute chaos. Cells crashing into one another like cars before bursting into flames. My blood freezing into solid ice and trapping cells within its glaciers. My organs powering down and falling from the sky like airplanes.
Carnage, death, and destruction wreaking havoc on me in a matter of seconds.
All from hearing a voice both familiar and new.
