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  Shit. This is just too much.

  Oh no. I’ve let myself be swept away by the errant thought that someone might find me interesting. I can’t allow myself to entertain thoughts of a relationship beyond casual sex, and by the way Ryan kisses me, the way I feel around him, I know this could never be just casual. He’s made me feel more in two hours than I’ve let myself feel in two years. He’s been a breath of fresh air, a cold drink of water, and every other cliché out there for someone like me. I need to get out of here. I can’t let this go any further.

  Ryan must sense my panic, because he ends the kiss, pulling back to study my face. His eyes move back and forth, trying to read the words I’m not saying. That I won’t say.

  “What is it?” he breathes out, sounding more affected than I assumed he’d be.

  “I need to go.” I speak the words, but my body doesn’t budge, and Ryan holds tight to my biceps. “Please let go, I need to leave.”

  “I don’t understand.” His dark brown eyes are a mixture of warmth and concern. A concern I don’t deserve. The look in his eyes is enough to shove my body into motion. He shouldn’t waste his concern on someone like me.

  “There’s nothing to understand. Now let me go!” I twist my body, wrenching myself away from him. He releases my arms, and I storm across the parking lot. I’m not far from home now, roughly a mile. I can walk.

  I’m halfway across the blacktop slab when Ryan catches up to me. He grabs for my arm, but I yank it out of his grasp. At the last second, he snags my fingers and pulls me around to face him. If I thought he looked concerned before, it’s nothing to the emotion darkening his face now.

  “Will you just talk to me?” he asks.

  I’m losing my control. I need to get away from him before I fling myself in his arms and cry like a fucking baby.

  “There’s nothing to talk about. Kissing you was a mistake. Let go!” I pull from his grasp and start jogging across the pavement.

  “Tatum—“

  Whirling around, I deliver what I hope is enough to get him to back off. “That’s not my name!” I snarl. “I lied.” Without waiting to see his reaction or hear his response, I turn around and run home.

  He doesn’t chase me or call my name again, and I don’t stop running until I’m back inside my sanctuary.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Tatum

  A week passed since the night with Ryan. I didn’t run into him again, which is both surprising and welcome. In a town this small, the chance of bumping into him at the gas station or grocery store is pretty significant. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about it. He was so nice to me, sweet and concerned, and that kiss. My lips still tingle when I think about it. But then I ran like he lit a fire under my ass, and I’m positive he wouldn’t be so kind if I saw him again. Yet, I couldn’t shake the feeling of regret that followed me around all week like my own personal raincloud. He brought out feelings within me I normally keep locked down tight. And that scared me. Terrified me.

  I control how I feel. I don’t let some guy turn my insides to mush. I refuse to be one of those giddy, bouncing, gushy girls over some kiss. With a stranger nonetheless. So I spent the week trying to forget.

  I picked up extra hours at work to help cover my car repair, which ended up being a problem with fuel injectors or something like that. I don’t understand the first thing about cars so when Wyatt explained it to me, it went right over my head. My knowledge covers how to check the oil and fill the gas tank. Anything other than that, I call Wyatt. My car so much as sneezes, and I have Wyatt take a look.

  When I wasn’t at work or at the mechanic’s shop checking in with Wyatt, I was sleeping. And if I wasn’t sleeping, I was cleaning. I sorted through my clothes and made a pile for the garbage and a pile for Goodwill. I scrubbed the kitchen, cleaned the bathroom, swept and mopped the floors…twice. My place is small, and I don’t make much of a mess, so why I needed to do it twice, I don’t know. The crazy in me just keeps peeking out more and more lately.

  After I finished I went through my kindle, made a list of all the books in my library I haven’t read yet, and got started on one of those since I don’t have any money this week for the new release I’ve been patiently waiting to go live for months.

  Now it’s Wednesday. The first day of school. The first day of my senior year. It’s not as exciting as I imagined it would be. I know when this semester is over, I’ll still be stuck in this town, doing the same old thing until I can save enough money to ditch this place. And the crappy memories associated with it. My world isn’t bright and vibrant. I live in a realm filled with shades of gray.

  The only color left is the deep river of crimson rolling across my skin. Gliding over the edge of my forearm like a waterfall. Silently dripping to the cream tiles of my bathroom floor. Plop. Plop. Plop.

  This isn’t about dying. Or trying to die. The dull throb of the blade against my skin is the opposite.

  It’s about living.

  Feeling alive.

  In control.

  I’m the master of this sharp edge of metal, controlling how deep it plunges into my fragile skin, how quick it slices, the damage it creates. My skin prickles with electrical currents as I skate the blade across my arm again; a warm heat spreading from the fresh wound to the crown of my head, sizzling down to my toes. Anguish expelled in liquid form, more potent than any pill. My mind begins to quiet.

  My body rests against the bathtub, the cool porcelain causing goose bumps to ripple across my skin. I shiver. Not sure if it’s the cold or the overwhelming relief coating my insides. Whichever, it feels good.

  My body finally relaxed, I lift myself to the basin where a wet washcloth waits. Draping it across my forearm, I apply pressure to the fissures in my flesh. My eyes lock on the two hollow sockets reflected before me. Hazel, soft, but empty. Dead. Shuttered by the walls I’ve erected around myself. My skin is porcelain white. Not quite ghostly and pale, but in that creamy flawless color. Long locks of chestnut brown hair drape down to my breasts in curly sections. Natural curls that give the girls in my school hair envy. It’s about the only thing about myself that makes me feel beautiful. The rest of me is a toss-up between ordinary and distracting. Concert tees and tight jeans. Secondhand shop Converse or black boots. Stud through my nose and bands on my wrists. Rebel meets poverty.

  I toss the wet washcloth into the sink and slip on two black sweat bands—one for each wrist. The soft fabric feels like slipping into my skin. I’m naked without the twin bands. I’m not hiding the marks because I’m ashamed. They give me strength. It’s like a woman slipping on her favorite pair of power heels before a company presentation. Or one who wears sexy lingerie underneath her plain clothes. It’s my secret weapon. Wearing them makes me feel powerful.

  Em and I sit side by side on the floor in front of our lockers, comparing schedules with our heads together like we have on every first day of every new semester since seventh grade. Emerson Fitzgerald is the definition of beauty with no brains, with bright sapphire blue eyes and blonde hair to boot. But she’s feisty and loyal, and I couldn’t ask for a better best friend.

  “Tell me again what class you have third period?”

  “Ummm…” she slides her finger down the paper as she scans it.

  “Just give it to me,” I say, snatching the paper out of Em’s hands impatiently. She pouts the little pretty girl pout of hers that has the entire football team eating out the palms of her tiny manicured hands. We tried to pick all the same classes for our senior year, but upon my perusal of her schedule, I can see that didn’t work out in our favor.

  “Damn. You have choir third period. Why the hell are you taking choir?”

  “Seriously? I didn’t sign up for it!” She exclaims, throwing her hands up in a dramatic fashion. “I can’t even sing.”

  I snort, remembering more than one occasion of listening to her belt out the lyrics along with the radio. “I know. You’ll be kicked out by next week.” She smacks me pla
yfully on the shoulder, tearing her schedule back out of my hands.

  “Did we end up with any classes together?”

  “Looks like we have first and second—nice that’s French and study hall.”

  “Ugh, I thought we weren’t taking French again,” Em whines.

  “I need it for my college applications,” I reply. “It’s only one more year. I’ll help you study.” I glance down at the paper in my lap again. “We have lunch together, too.”

  “Thank God. I don’t think I’d survive if we didn’t have lunch together. Who else would I sneak out with?”

  I roll my eyes knowing she’s just being her normal dramatic self. “I’m sure you’d find somebody. I’m not your only friend out of this entire school. Oh, I bet Grant would take you for lunch.” And the rest of the football team, I finish in my head.

  “I thought you have a thing for Grant. Why would you want him to take me out?” she asks, her perfect little nose crinkling adorably.

  “You can’t count the time I dated him for a month in the ninth grade, Em. I don’t have a thing for Grant. He’s a nice guy, you should give him a chance.” Emerson is one of those girls who lives and breathes by ‘girl-code’. In her opinion, you never date a friend’s ex, no matter how long it’s been since they were together.

  “Would it bother you? I mean, I don’t want to like, take your ex or anything if you still have feelings for him.”

  “Emerson Lynn, trust me. I do not have feelings for him. Besides, you know how I am. I don’t get tied down.” The grin splitting her face is absolutely telling of her feelings for him. If I hadn’t already known, that would have been a dead giveaway.

  “Are you sure? It seems so wrong to date my best friend’s ex.”

  “You like him, and he likes you. He and I barely dated. I don’t even classify him as an ex, it was that meaningless. Yes I’m sure. Go get ‘em, girl.”

  “Okay,” she drags out the ‘ay’ sound as she flashes me her pearly whites. That was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be. She must really like him.

  We sit silently as we study the rest of our classes. These are the last classes I’ll take here for my senior year. At the end of the semester, I’ll be taking post-secondary classes at the nearby community college. My junior year I skipped the elective classes, instead opting for the remainder of the required classes I’d need to graduate. Come December, I’ll have completed all the requirements for my high school diploma. The post-secondary allows me a head start in college at no cost to me, because it’s paid for by the state. I’ll use all the financial help I can get if it gets me away from this place faster. While my peers are taking this year to prep themselves for the real world, I’m already there.

  During my junior year, I filed and was granted emancipation from my mother. The judge allowed me to live on my own instead of in a foster home after my mom was found passed out in the home we shared, the needle still sticking out of her arm from the heroin, which subsequently caused her overdose. I don’t know how many times I have thanked destiny, fate, or divine intervention that it was her scumbag boyfriend who found her lying in the bathroom instead of me. No matter how much I despise that woman, it’s not an image I’d want to carry with me for the rest of my life. Fortunately, or unfortunate depending on who you ask, she survived. I don’t know what I would have done if I were placed in foster care. My mother’s addiction and unwillingness to find a stable job had forced me to be self-sufficient from a very young age. This life is nothing I’m not already accustomed to.

  “Who is Mr. Ryan?” Em asks, her voice yanking me out of my memories. She’s been leaning over my arm, reading my schedule for who knows how long, while I’ve been off in the Land of Horrific Memories Past.

  “Huh?”

  “You have a Mr. Ryan for 6th period. Calculus. I’ve never heard of him before.”

  I look down at the piece of paper in my hands. “No clue. Must be a newbie.” She makes a face at me, one of disgust.

  “Calculus? Really, Tatum? Why are you being so hard on yourself this semester? French, calculus…it’s our senior year! You should be taking it easy.”

  I sigh and repeat my reasons again. I feel like I’ve told her this a hundred times. “You know I need a good academic record for college. I don’t have any money put away for school. The only way I’ll make it is on scholarships.”

  “You’re smart. I know you’ll find a way to college. If anyone deserves to go, it’s you,” she says seriously.

  I wish I believed that. I really do. But people like me don’t go to college. People, with parents like mine, who act like I do just don’t make it that far. They say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. More like the damn tree didn’t bother spreading its branches out far enough for the apple to have much of a future besides becoming rotted, mushy animal food. If only she’d tried a little harder to put me in a position to see the sun. It’s a hard reality to swallow sometimes, but after the shit went down with my mom, I’ve become accustomed to the taste.

  The first day of the semester is boring, filled with syllabuses and expectations and lectures. I was expecting very much the same when I walked into 6th period calculus class. It’s my last class of the day, as I get scheduled for early release from school in order to get to my job as a CNA by three o’clock. Because my grades were near perfect, it was a condition the judge granted so I could keep my job and still be able to make a living.

  I saunter in, taking my preferred seat on the far left column near the middle row.

  At five past the start of class, students are still chatting amongst themselves relatively oblivious to our missing professor. My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I remove it to display a text from Wyatt. Your place tonight?

  I work ‘til 11. Ill call when I’m off.

  Late night rendezvous with Wyatt are well worth it, and it makes my lonely nights a little less lonely. I can’t say between school and working full time I have a lot of spare time for socializing. I don’t date, but I use sex as a distraction. Wyatt is one of the few people who understands me. That understanding makes our arrangement mutually beneficial.

  At ten past with the teacher a no-show, I contemplate ditching out early. Mrs. Marsden has been going downhill lately, and I wouldn’t mind spending a little extra time with her this evening. I pack my notebook and pencils back into my bag, having made up my mind, and go to stand just as the assuming Mr. Ryan breezes into the room. I slump back into my chair dismayed.

  “Sorry, sorry I’m late,” he says as he rushes to his desk. Nice first impression. When I glance up from resituating my book bag, my breath catches. Oh no. No, no, no. Damnit! What deity did I manage to piss off to deserve this?

  Mr. Ryan is Ryan; Good Samaritan Ryan. Do-gooder Ryan. Fucking amazing kisser—stop that right now!

  He hasn’t noticed me yet, so I take a moment to really look him over. He’s out of breath and slightly red in the face. A light brown mop of shaggy hair sits messily upon his head, and I can’t tell if he’s styled it that way intentionally or if it’s disheveled from whatever made him late. Thinking of what kinds of activities result in the hairstyle he’s sporting takes root in my brain like a nasty virus. It clouds my vision as I take in the rest of his appearance—the loosely knotted tie, haphazardly tucked in shirt, down…down to the hastily and half zipped fly of his black slacks.

  I snort. Loudly. There’s no way I can sit through a class with him.

  “Afternoon delight, Ryan?” I call out. His face flushes a brilliant deep shade of red.

  “Excuse me?” He looks incredulous; his mouth hanging open slightly at the brazen remark even I’m surprised came out of my mouth. He scans the room in anger, but when his eyes finally rest on mine, they widen in surprise.

  I shoulder my backpack and stand. “Don’t worry. I’ll show myself out.” Snickers of my classmates follow me down the aisle into the back of the classroom. Maybe it’s not too late to get my schedule changed.

  “I didn’t
ask you to leave. Sit down!” he calls after me, but I ignore his request. Instead, I flick my hand in the air in a sign of retreat, before adding “I’ll show myself to the office.” Feeling like I’ve already dug myself into a deep hole, I add, “Oh yeah, and fix your fly.” More chuckles and hoots of laughter follow me out into the empty hallway.

  After a leisurely pit stop at my locker to dispose of the books I won’t need, I stroll down the halls to the double doors leading into the senior parking lot. To my dismay, I’m met by the school liaison officer and the principal himself. Crap. Mr. Ryan is a tattle tale, too.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Stephenson,” I say sweetly, hoping he isn’t here to haul me back to my calculus room for apologies. Damn me and my big mouth.

  “Miss Krause. My office please,” he responds sternly.

  “Yes, Sir.” I spin on my heel and lead the two men up to the second floor offices I’ve only been to a handful of times. Mr. Stephenson and I are by no means strangers, but I’ve never spent any significant amount of time with him being reprimanded. I have a feeling I’m in for a really long lecture.

  I seat myself in the hard blue plastic chair he keeps situated in the front of his large mahogany desk, as he rounds the back to perch himself in the black leather rolling chair. He sits; staring, studying, looking at me as if he is trying to read me like a foreign instruction manual. He steeples his fingers beneath his chin, contemplating where to start, I’m guessing. His kind blue eyes look more stern than usual as he takes me in. He’s an older man with a short cut of salt and pepper hair on his head. More than once in the past year, I allowed myself to wonder what it would be like to have him as a father figure.

  “Miss Krause,” he begins. I force myself to maintain eye contact. “You know why you are here, yes?”

  “It wouldn’t be to discuss my outstanding academic achievement during the last year, would it?” My mother said I was born a smartass. Although a handy feature, I’ve never been able to turn it off when appropriate.