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PartOne
Prologue
Skylar
I once knew a boy whose stormy eyes stole my very breath away just by looking directly into mine. Either in fear or morbid fascination, he always managed to captivate me. Too young and dumb to know any better, his stare was enough to leave me an emotional wreck. I was either intoxicatingly enamored by his tumultuous sea of blue or overwhelmed by the notion that diving into such deep waters would be my ultimate ruin, drowning me once and for all.
From the tender age of fifteen, his eyes promised me so much.
Promised me pain, suffering, and almighty misery.
And for years, he made good on all his promises.
He became the bane of my very existence. The boy that sought me out, only to torment me, purposely casting a shadow on every joyous moment I had in my pathetic life.
I’m not going to lie to you, my life was definitely an endless ocean of dullness.
Especially considering the only rush that excited me—the only thing that made me feel alive—was taking him on and provoking his wrath at every turn. I never shied away from his bullying. I didn’t curl up into the fetal position and take his abuse. Oh no, I always fought back. I made it a point of showing him he could never break me, no matter how ingenious his attempts were. My world could have been falling on top of me and I still would’ve mustered the strength to give him the same hell he showered me with.
And what glorious battles we had.
I thrived and yearned for them.
But not once did I think I’d lose the war.
It never occurred to me what his true end goal was—that somehow, against all odds, he’d be capable of stealing something as precious as my heart.
Like a fool, I gift wrapped it for him, naively believing that somehow it would be safe in his malicious hands.
He played the long game, I’ll give him that.
So much so, that right up until the very end, I never saw it coming—how deviously cruel his black heart really was or how calculating he’d been from the start to make me fall the way I did.
He played his part beautifully, and like a sucker, I fell for it.
Kudos to him.
He really did a number on me.
Because of the boy I once hated, I’d never be the same girl again.
One
Noah
Fifteen years old
"You're going to have to do something about this hair, kiddo. If you let it get any longer, you won't be able to see a thing in front of you," my mom teases, running her fragile fingers through my blond locks and giving one strand a meager pull in playful reprimand.
"Guess you better get well soon then, because no scissor is coming within an inch of my head if the person who's wielding it isn't you," I reply with a mischievous wink, gaining a small smile out of my frail mother.
Still rooted to my chair at her bedside, I slouch as much as I can toward her, just so my mom can get her fill. When she starts humming in delight while carefully combing my hair with her fingertips, I close my eyes and pretend I'm five years old again. In my mind, I’m the one who’s bedridden while my mother sings me to sleep, toying with the strands of my hair exactly like she used to do anytime I got sick. Her tune isn't as strong as it once was, but the raindrops on the windowpane camouflage it enough that I almost believe we’re in my room back home and not in the sterile environment of Falmouth Hospital.
But this small reprieve is quickly stolen from me when one of the nurses comes in to do her daily routine of checking my mother’s stats. Resentment for the woman who just entered the small room consumes me when my mom quickly pulls her hand away from my hair and straightens up on the bed, trying to appear stronger.
"Is your father coming today?" she asks after a long pause, her eyes never straying from the nurse going about her business.
"He's on a fishing expedition. He'll be back in a couple of days. We told you that last week when we were both here. Remember, Mom?"
