Prologue
Eleven years earlier
Ipull the phone away from my ear when all I hear is more loud rustling and muffled voices. “Lo? Helloooo?”
I don’t even know why I answer the calls anymore. When they aren’t an accidental butt-dial, they typically go about like this: now that she’s twenty-one, she calls me from outside some bar near her college campus—waking me up at all hours of the night—and then proceeds to slur her words as she rattles off all the reasons why “straight men are misogynistic, think-only-with-their-dick assholes.” Those once were her exact words, I kid you not.
Love Lauren right to pieces, she’s been my best friend since middle school, but damn don’t I wish she’d understand that I need sleep so I can keep this latest job being a janitor—oh, sorry, anenvironmental services specialist—at the local military base. They are extremely fucking strict there about showing up on time. Some of us didn’t choose the party-hard college lifestyle right out of high school like shedid, some got rigidity and boringness chosen for us instead. Thanks a bunch,Daddio.
Pretty sure he thought this would, somehow, entice me to enlist—so he could continue to live out his dreams through me—but all it does is give me complete and utter disdain (with a side of nausea) at how trashed the restrooms get during the day. I mean, seriously, what the fuck? We can do better than that; we're supposedlyevolvedand all that shit.
“Lauren Elizabeth Mayberry,” I huff, “I’m about to hang up on you…”
“H-hello?” an unfamiliar voice answers.
I know Lauren, and I know you’d have to fight tooth and nail to pry that phone away from her. Those hands might look dainty, but—speaking from experience—they’re most definitely not. And her cell?Pfft, forget about it. That thing is pretty much an extension of her.
“Who are you? Why do you have Lo’s phone?”
“I’m Ashley, her roommate. I dialed her emergency contact…”
I sit up in bed, throwing the sheets off me. “What’s going on? Ashley, are you with Lauren right now?”
“Something’s not right. She’s back in our dorm right now, but I know she was out at one of the frat houses earlier. One of their parties. A couple of guys just dumped her off here, and she’s pretty out of it. They said they found her outside a bar, but I don’t know how she got there. She asked that I call you…”
“Fuck,” I hiss into the phone.
“I’m sorry…”
“No, don’t be. You did the right thing, calling me. I’m going to head that way now, but Ashley? It takes me a couple hours to drive from Harrisburg to Scranton. Does she look like she’s been hurt?”
“Um, she has a couple of bruises that look new on her upper arms. A scrape on her cheek that I don’t remember seeing before I went to class this morning…”
My jaw tightens; a wave of fear-induced nausea washes over me. “What’s she doing now?”
“She curled up on her bunk. She’s crying, but won’t tell me what’s wrong. She just keeps saying she needs ‘her Marcus.’ I’m assuming that’s you…”
“It is.Fuck. I’m getting dressed right now. Can you ask her if she needs you to call campus security or the police or anything?”
I can hear more muffled voices on the other end of the line before some rustling. Finally, Lauren gets on the line, but she sounds more distraught than I have ever heard her before. “M-Marcus, I need you to take me to the emergency room. O-only you.Please.”
My stomach just about drops out of me entirely. I’ve never heard such pain in her voice. “I’m on my way, Lo. I’ll be there as quickly as I can.”
“S-stay on the phone with me? I j-just need to hear you…”
“Who hurt you?”
She cries out, her sobs twisting my insides violently. Here I am, helplessly listening to the strongest person I know emotionally bleeding out on the other end of the line. Amongst the pulse pounding violently in my ears, I hear her croak, “I-I don’t know who…”
I vaguely hear my dad yelling at me from his bedroom window, but I don’t even bother responding before I’m in my truck, backing out of the driveway with my phone pinched between my chin and shoulder. I know I’ll catch hell over the spray of gravel I leave in my wake, but that’s the least of my concern at the moment.
Lauren. I have to get to Lauren. Somebody hurtmyLauren.
Lauren picks at a thread on the quilt she’s had on her bed for as long as I can remember. We’re in her childhood bedroom, where she’s been holed up most of the time since dropping out of nursing school two months ago. She never went back afterthat night.
I can’t say that I blame her. The memories would be too much for me to handle too. I mean, what shecanremember, at least. The night was mostly a blur to her. What she does recall is accepting a drink from someone she didn’t know, and then wound up being brought back to the dorm—flustered and upset—by a couple of other guys she also was unfamiliar with. The “friend” she went to the party with wasn’t too much help either. Apparently when her classmate, Elaina, left the bar, Lauren appeared to be happy and chatting with someone she’d met there.
Mostly, Lo blames herself for what happened during the blackout, and I hate that for her.
