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Prologue
SOL
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
I close my eyes and wait for the starter pistol's pop before diving into the pool. Swimming is in my DNA. It’s part of who I am, how I cope with my life. Swimming is the only constant I’ve ever known, and I’m unsure what I’ll do without the competition over the summer.
My arms arc, one over the other, flying through the water like a mermaid in dire need of breaching the ocean’s cocoon. My body pierces through it like I belong as I propel forward, kicking my feet steadily. At the end of the lane, I lift above the surface and inhale deeply before flipping around and heading back to where I started.
I’ve been captain of the girls’ swim team since my freshman year, and while it’s garnered me some enemies from the other competitors because I’m not popular enough or pretty enough, I’ve always had a single-minded focus.
To win the gold.
And I do.
Year after year. Swim meet after swim meet.
Before I know it, the race is concluded, and I’m hauling myself out of the water to the cheers of my coaches, some students who believe winning is everything, and a few of my teammates who haven’t known me long enough to hate me yet. Everything else happens as quickly as it always does. I’m congratulated, handed flowers, and led to the podium for me and the two runner-ups to stand. A gold medal gets placed over my head, I smile, shake hands, and pretend all is right in the world.
But nothingisright; nothing is what it seems.
And in the next second, another shot goes off, and my body jerks backwards. Fire burns through my side as I collapse in slow motion. My back hits the ground, my head bounces off the turf, and I stare up at the cloudless sky as the wind is knocked out of me.
Lifting my hand from where the pain appeared, I stare at my fingers, stained crimson with blood, and I wonder what just happened.
ONE
Sol
THREE MONTHS LATER.
Staring in the mirror on the back of my door, I examine my naked body, turning to the side to find the bullet's exit wound that ripped through my right flank a few months ago. If I remain idle for too long, I can still feel the moment of impact—the excruciating agony of someone’s anger being directed at me.
Not just anyone, either.
A girl I thought was my friend.
Vanessa Osborne was one of the few people I’d remained friends with over the years. She was always competitive about swimming, but while I thought it was all in good fun, she was biding her time. She held a secret hatred for me that she masked our entire high school career.
I don’t know why she snapped during our final meet; nobody does because she hasn’t uttered a word, and I think that’s what makes everything so much more difficult for me. I want to understand. I want to know what I did to cause such animosity.
For so many years, she was the only person I had to lean on. I told her all my secrets. The way my father ignored me, the way my mother treated me with restrained fury. She knew everything. And now, all I thought I knew is suddenly…gone.
Until the incident, I hadn’t recognized just how alone I had been. And now, in the middle of a huge city, surrounded by people every day, I feel so isolated. My father is CEO of Titan Pharmaceuticals and has a huge staff that is in and out of the house all the time, but he’s never mentally around for me. His mind is always on business.
My mother was a beauty queen back in her day, before all the plastic surgery and the constant drinking. Now, she reminisces with other women who were once in her circle and barely pays me any attention. When she does, it’s usually because I’ve done something to anger her. Like walking into a room she’s in.
My life isn’t all bad, however. I want for nothing, so long as it’s material. When it comes to love, I don’t even know what that feels like.
“Sol! Hurry the hell up!” My mother’s screeching voice carries through the house. Today is my first day back in the public eye since the shooting. It had been two weeks before my high school graduation—which I missed—and now that my first college semester is starting, so is swim practice.
I’m expected to be a Division One swimmer for my school, but honestly, after everything I’ve lost, I don’t know if my heart is in the competition anymore. It’s ruthless and cutthroat, and after the past few months of retraining my body, I realize how exhausted I am.
Dragging a black crop top over my head, I know my mother will throw a fit at the scar that will be visible, but I don’t care. Grabbing a pair of sweat shorts, I roll the waistband over a couple of times until they fit properly and aren’t falling off.
Before the shooting, I was always thin. I swam for hours daily, burning more calories than I could possibly eat, but since then, I’ve had to watch my caloric intake, and my mother has relished in that.
