Chapter 1
Maya
The nightmare is alwaysthe same.
I’m in the bathtub. The water is cold now, has been cold for hours, maybe and my wrists ache with a pain that doesn’t quite reach through the fog in my head. There’s red in the water. So much red and somewhere far away, I can hear Carter screaming my name.
But in the nightmare, I can’t answer. Can’t move. Can’t do anything except watch the water turn darker and feel relief that it’s finally ending.
Then I wake up.
My alarm goes off at 5:30 AM, pulling me from the dream, into the too-warm darkness of my dorm room. For a moment, I can’t remember where I am. Can’t remember if I’m seventeen and dying or nineteen and trying to figure out how to live.
Then it comes back in pieces: Thornhill University. Freshman year. Carter’s campus. A second chance I’m not sure I deserve.
My hands are shaking. They always shake after a nightmare.
I sit up slowly, my wrists, the ones they stitched back together eighteen months ago, aching with phantom pain that my therapist says is psychosomatic. Doesn’t make it hurt less. Doesn’t make the scars disappear, thin white lines that I hide under bracelets and long sleeves and the careful lie that I’m fine now.
I’m fine now.
Everyone keeps saying it like if they say it enough, it’ll be true.
My roommate, Alexis, is still asleep, her retainer whistling softly with each breath. She’s a theater major who keeps vampire hours. We barely overlap, which is exactly why I chose her when the housing office asked for preferences. No questions. No bonding. No risk of friendship that might require me to explain why I flinch at sharp objects or why I can’t take baths anymore or why some days I wake up crying and can’t remember why.
I slip out of bed, muscle memory guiding me through the dark. Shower. Dress. The uniform of invisibility, jeans, oversized hoodie, beat-up sneakers. Nothing that draws attention. Nothing that screams “Carter Lynch’s sister” or “that girl who tried to kill herself” or “be careful what you say around her.”
My phone shows three texts from Carter that I didn’t hear come through.
Carter
Morning check-in. You up?
Carter
Don’t make me come over there.
Carter
Text me back or I’m skipping practice.
I respond quickly.
Maya
I’m alive. Calm down. See you at breakfast?
Carter
Java Junction. 7am. Don’t be late.
We do this every morning. Have done it every morning since I arrived on campus two months ago. It’s the deal we made, I come to Thornhill for college, stay close where he can keep an eye on me, and in exchange I prove I’m okay. That I can handle being here, that I’m not going to fall apart again.
Some days I believe it. Other days I’m just really good at performing.
The campus is still dark as I walk to Java Junction, the coffee shop where Carter insists we meet before his morning practice. October in New Hampshire means frost on the quad, my breath fogging in the pre-dawn air. Students are starting to emerge from dorms, early risers and insomniacs and athletes with practices that start before the sun remembers it has a job.
I used to love this time of day. Before. When I was just Carter’s little sister, not Carter’s little sister who tried to die. When I had a future that looked like something other than just surviving until tomorrow.
