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I have an apple juice box and a sugar donut and an apple. I don’t like apple juice, because it tastes like metal, but I’m thirsty, so I drink it anyway.
The policewoman asks me questions that make my tummy hurt.
I throw up the donut, and that makes me cry even more.
Mommy tells me it’s going to be okay, but I don’t feel like it is.
Finally they stop asking questions. I’m glad because I don’t like them. Then someone takes pictures of all of my bruises. I don’t really know how I got them all. Daddy is angry, and Mommy tries to hide how sad she is.
I’m glad when they finally say we can go home.
Daddy carries me out to the car, and Mommy sits in the back seat with me. I snuggle into her hair, breathing in her shampoo, trying not to let the memories or the smells come back. I want to put on my favorite pajamas and hug my stuffed beaver and never leave my house again.
I want to feel safe.
Daddy carries me upstairs, and Mommy starts a bath for me. Daddy sets me on the stool beside the bathtub and kneels in front of me. I only have one shoe on. I don’t know what happened to the other one.
My dress is filthy, covered in smudges of dirt. Kodiak’s hoodie has a tear on one side, and there’s crusty brown stuff all over the sleeves. I start to cry again, because everything is too much. I dig my nails into my palms, so I don’t make any noise.
“Hey, hey, hey.” Mommy pries my hands open. My palms are crusted in dried blood, and fresh blood wells in the cuts I’ve opened up. “Lavender, honey, who did this?”
“He said if I made a sound, I’d never see you again, so I screamed into my skin.”
“I’m so sorry, sweetie. We’ll never let anything bad happen to you ever again.”
“What if he comes back?” I whisper. “What if he takes me again?”
“He won’t, honey. I promise that’s not going to happen.”
I want to believe her, but the memories are still there—like a bad dream that doesn’t go away. He lives in my head now, the biggest monster in there.
Later, after I’m all cleaned up and in fresh pajamas, Mommy makes me a snack. But I’m not hungry, and all I want is my bed and to make sure River is okay. I want to tell him it wasn’t his fault that he couldn’t keep hold of me.
I want everything to be the same as it was before.
But it isn’t.
And I don’t think it ever will be.
Chapter One
First Day Fuckery
Lavender
Present day, age 19
“HEY, LAV!” MYbrother’s fist slams against the bathroom door, and half a second later it flies open, scaring the living shit out of me as it bashes into the wall.
I jab myself in the eye with my mascara wand, and coffee sloshes down the front of my white tank. I was attempting to multitask. I should know better. “Ow! What the hell, Mav!” I cover my burning eye with my palm and drop my mug in the sink. The handle breaks off. “Goddammit! That was my favorite freaking mug. And I could’ve been naked!”
Maverick makes a gagging sound. “I just ate breakfast. Don’t say things like that if you don’t want me to hurl.”
“Screw you, fuckboy.” I try to close the door on him, but it’s useless, since he’s a damn giant and standing in the middle of the doorway. “And looking at your face makes me lose my appetite.”
Much to my parents’ dismay, Maverick is a certified manwhore. A monogamous one, but a manwhore nonetheless. Based on what I’ve learned from the girls who like to stop by our house—there are many—he hangs out with the same girl for exactly four weeks. And by “hang out,” I mean, bones as often as possible.
My brother is not an ogre—far from it. Maverick looks like a damn supermodel with his wavy dark hair and ridiculously chiseled features. Girls and women fawn all over him. It’s annoying.
