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Chapter One
ELODIE
“If you don’t like it, then you can fuckin’ leave!”
I pulled my pillow tighter over my head, trying to drown out the raised voices, but it was no use. They still managed to penetrate through the thin trailer walls. I should have been used to the arguing by now, and in a way, I was, but it still had me on edge. Anything could happen when the shouting started, which meant I needed to be on guard.
“I ain’t fuckin’ leavin’. You leave!” a deeper voice growled back, followed by a bang. I winced at the sound, my breathing picking up the longer they went back and forth.
“This is my trailer!”
I ground my teeth together and squeezed my fists tighter, trying not to make a noise because I knew if I did, the argument would only come my way, and that was the last thing I wanted. I’d learned over time not to be seen and not to be heard. It hadn’t always been like that, though. Our small trailer had once been full of happier, quieter times, but that had disappeared the day my dad walked out of the flimsy half-broken door and not looked back. Not once.
The little girl, who had watched him get into his car with her face smashed against the window, her breaths fogging up the glass, had hoped he’d come back. She’d told herself that he was going to the store or the laundromat, but deep down, she’d known he wasn’t going to return.
She hadn’t understood why he’d left. She didn’t get why he couldn’t live in the same place as her. But the older I got, the more I realized it wasn’t me. It was her. He couldn’t live another day of his life with her. He couldn’t look at her each day. It was her who was destroying every part of him.
But instead of taking me with him, and giving me the chance he’d given himself, he left me. He left me with the woman who didn’t know when to say no. The woman who would sell her soul for a beer or her next high.
My mother.
He’d left me with her and not looked back. So even though a part of me despised the ground he walked on, I also understood why he’d had to do it. Because if I had a choice, I wouldn’t be here. But unlike the man whose sperm had made me, I didn’t walk away from the people I loved, no matter what they did. At least, that was what I kept telling myself. But I knew as soon as I finished the school year, I’d be out of here, and I’d most likely do what my dad did—not look back. It was the reality of the situation.
“I’ll burn your trailer to the fuckin’ ground with you and that bitch inside it!”
That bitch was me. My mom’s boyfriend of the last four years had never once called me by my name, not that I cared. Part of me wondered if he couldn’t fathom how to say my name when he was always either drunk or high, but the other part of me didn’t give a flying fuck. The less he knew and talked about me, the better.
Nine months. That was all I had left of school, and then I could be out of this trailer, away from this trailer park, and be in a completely new city. A city where I didn’t have to do anything and everything to survive. A city where I didn’t have to pretend to be someone else in my own brain just to get through each day. A city where I could go to sleep without hearing the constant arguing. A city where I felt safe in my own home.
“Try it, motherfucker. Try it!” Mom screamed, and a second later, I heard a thump and then silence. They’d either knocked each other out, or they were—
Moaning echoed through the thin walls, and I held my breath. Yep, they were fucking. I wasn’t surprised because it happened almost every night, but I’d hoped the night before my first day back at school as a senior would have been more peaceful.
I should have known better.
My heavy, tired eyes finally closed, and I blocked their moans out. Out of all the sounds they could have made, at least I could push that one to the side and pretend I was somewhere else. Maybe in an apartment of my own, or in a hotel on the beachfront listening to the waves crashing on the shoreline—my favorite place to escape.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
I groaned, sure I’d only just fallen asleep as I stretched my arm from under my comforter and felt for my cell. I tapped my fingers on the screen aimlessly, hoping one of them would silence the alarm, but all it did was make it ring out louder. The sun tried to stream in through the gap in my curtains, although calling it a curtain was an understatement. It was only an old T-shirt stuck to the frame of my tiny window. It did the job I needed it to do, though.
Slowly sitting up, I finally managed to switch my alarm off and relished in the silence surrounding me. That only happened when Mom and her boyfriend, Remy, were asleep. But as soon as they woke up, they’d be looking for their next fix. Lucky for me, that would most likely happen just before I got out of school, and there was no way I’d be coming back to this trailer until I needed to sleep. I’d learned my lesson about coming back here for anything other than to shut my eyes a year ago. When I was here, and they were awake and aware, I became the target. A target to fling insults at, and a target to get money from so they could get their next high.
I pushed out of my bed and stood, stretching my arms above my head and feeling the scratchy carpet rubbing against the soles of my feet. My room wasn’t much bigger than your standard bathroom, but it had everything I needed in it: a bed, a small chest of drawers, and my backpack. Everything I owned was in this small roo
m, apart from the car I’d bought myself thanks to my job.
My eyes felt like sandpaper because of lack of sleep, but instead of concentrating on how tired I was, I shook out my arms and tried to wake myself up. There was no use overthinking what had happened the night before because I was sure tonight would be a repeat. Hopefully, I’d be so tired that I’d sleep through their arguing. Or maybe I could crash at Knox’s for the night to catch up on the sleep I’d lost over the last week. I flung that thought aside as soon as it came to me. I’d stayed at Knox’s house a handful of times, and we never got much sleep, no matter how tired I was. He didn’t understand the concept of what I went through, mostly because he didn’t want to know. In his world, he was the only person who mattered, and I went along with it. He was my boyfriend, after all. A boyfriend I’d barely seen over the summer but couldn’t quite bring myself to feel bad about it.
But now summer was over.
I crossed the narrow hallway to the tiny bathroom we all shared and was smacked in the face with the scent of puke. Thankfully, I could forgo the cleanup and head right to school. I’d been using the school bathrooms to get ready since freshman year, and it looked like this year wouldn’t be any different.
I darted back into my bedroom, got dressed, and grabbed everything I needed. Mom was passed out on the sofa, her mouth hanging open and her pale skin looking grayer than yesterday. Remy was sprawled out on the floor, his jeans down to his knees and his yellow underwear on full display. I wrinkled my nose at the sight and let myself out of the trailer with my backpack slung over my shoulder. Seeing them like that wasn’t an image I wanted in my mind, but it wasn’t something I could escape. The sooner this year was over, the better.
The thin door slammed shut behind me, and I didn’t care one bit if it woke them, but once they were asleep, they were usually out for the count—at least until their bodies craved their next high. Then they’d be wide awake.
My silver Toyota circa 2000 sat next to the trailer, and I pushed my key in the driver’s door to unlock it. It once had a remote button that could open it, but that had broken a couple of months ago. I could get it fixed, but I’d decided my money was better saved.
The cool morning air whipped around me, causing my light-brown hair to fly in my face. I pushed it away and started up the engine. It was only a fifteen-minute drive to school, and although I’d be one of the first people there, at least I could get ready in peace.
My engine chugged several times before it finally decided it was going to run today, and then I reversed out of the spot and drove through the makeshift road in the middle of the trailer park. There were at least one hundred trailers on this small plot of land, and I’d even seen Tony—the owner—trying to make room for a few more. We were already packed like sardines, but it didn’t seem to matter when money was involved. I sometimes wondered what would happen to my mom if she moved off this trailer park. Everything she needed was here, including her dealer and a kid two trailers over who would fetch alcohol and cigarettes for her. She never had to step foot out of her trailer to get anything she wanted. It was convenient.
Many times I’d debated putting her in my car and driving away from the place, but then she’d look at me with her lip curled on one side and tell me how much I resembled my dad, and I’d remember how little she’d done for me since he’d left. I hadn’t only lost one parent that day. I’d lost both of them.
I did whatever I had to do to survive, even if it meant brushing my teeth and washing my face in the school bathroom, which was exactly what I did as soon as I walked into the school. The hallways were empty apart from the odd staff member who was unlocking the classroom doors. It would be at least thirty minutes until the halls would be packed, which meant I had time to do my business.
I was slicking on some lip balm when the sounds of cars pulling into the lot rang out, and I knew I’d run out of time. I was as ready as I would ever be. My jeans were tight around my thighs because of all the dancing I’d been doing. That was the one thing I refused to give up—my dance lessons. Dancing was a way for me to escape, no matter how or where I did it. It took me away from this world, if only for a little while. I needed it as much as I needed my next breath. The T-shirt I’d bought for a dollar at the thrift store was tied at my hip, and I’d French-braided my hair on one side to keep it out of my face.
Staring at myself in the mirror, I took a deep breath, then spun around. Today was my last first day of school. After this, I had no idea what I would be doing. If dancing wasn’t an option at college, then I’d take my chances at going professional, so for all intents and purposes, this could be the last time I had a first day at an educational institution.
As I stepped out into the hallway, I knew I wouldn’t miss it one bit. I kept to myself, mainly out of choice, but also because everyone knew I was the girl from the trailer park. The students who went to this school had “real” homes to go to, whereas mine was only plastic and metal.
I pushed my shoulders back and walked toward my locker in the senior hallway, passing by the cliques of guys and girls. The football players, the basketball players, the cheerleaders, the geeks, the outcasts, and the stoners. There was a group for each of them, and I didn’t fit into a single one. Well, I kind of fit into one, but it wasn’t by choice—mine or theirs.
