CHAPTER ONE
Alli
The
wake proved a somber affair,
though Alli’s mom would’ve preferred people to remember her with joy. Yet, this
had shown itself hard to do—when she’d died so young. To her family and friends,
her death remained a tragedy. Everyone, who had attended to say their last
goodbye, put on a brave face, fighting to smile, trying to keep their tears at
bay.
Yet, no one fought their grief as much as
her own daughter, fourteen-year-old Alli.
She ducked her head, now, behind the dark
hood, she’d worn to hide her face. Her pale face peering out, here and there, searching
the crowd for her step-dad, with deep-green eyes, stark with unshed tears.
Her mother wouldn’t have approved of her
daughter hiding under a hoodie, while everyone else dressed in suits and ties, and
dresses and shawls, all in black.
Well, to be fair, Alli wore black too. She
just couldn’t bring herself to play dress up. The idea made her too miserable. Dressing
up, meant attending a party. And Allie was not
attending a party.
She couldn’t bring herself to put on
something pretty, even in something as subdued as black. It hurt too much to
think about. She hid, instead, beneath her thick, cheerless clothes, with her
chestnut hair tucked back, her face swamped by the large, dark hood where no
one could witness her tears.
No decals adorned her hoodie. No chains hung
from on her jeans. Nothing broke the endless night of her slight form, dressed
in joyless attire.
Ordinarily, Alli loved black. She loved
the feeling of the invisibility it gave her. Yet, now, it only gave her a
glimpse of a bleak and unappealing future, without her mother. Her future
loomed ahead of her, like a sinister chasm—threatening to swallow her whole.
Alli shifted forward. The idea she could
live into her eighties—and all those years without her mom there with her—made
her strangle on her next breath. Suddenly, the room, itself, seemed surreal,
without color. Everything almost took on a lack luster—deprived of its usual
bright, perky shades.
She stared around her. She felt like
someone had come along and sucked all the living out of her life. She didn’t
know how to survive this. She found
it impossible to wrap her mind around the idea that her mom had died—forever
gone from her, from all of them.
She watched her step-dad as he hugged the
shadows against one wall. He had the same stricken look on his face, she
recognized must mirror her own.
He hadn’t said a word when he’d noticed
what she wore. She knew he would have—at any other time. Not that he had much
to say to her—or anyone else for that matter. A man of few words, still he’d have
never let this—her refusal to dress for such an affair—slide by on any other
day.
But he did today.
He’d left her alone with her grief, recognizing
it for what it was. Or, maybe, it said something about his own. Regardless—she
loved him for it.
Silently, she watched him. Alli understood
why he avoided the crowd. She didn’t blame him. No one here would miss him.
They whispered to one another, whether he should be here, though he’d been her
mother’s husband, though her mother had loved him deeply, and wouldn’t have spoken
to anyone here if she’d known how they would treat him—now—when she had gone.
Ducking her head, Alli sighed. She hadn’t particularly
liked—or not liked—her step-dad. He’d never tried to replace her real dad, though
anyone could have replaced him. Her real dad had been a cruel, violent man.
Alli had scars across her heart. No one could be her dad. At fourteen—she grasped that she headed for disaster.
She didn’t trust men. Heck—she’d stop trusting them around five. She didn’t
really trusted anyone—except her mom….
She took to the stairs, two at a time, and
hid at the top—away from the crowd—watching—where no one could see her hidden in
the shadows on the landing, against the far wall.
From there, she spotted him. A tall, dark,
black man, her step-dad held himself with regal accountability. Alli appreciated
that her mother had been attracted to him.
Most women were.
He’d dressed in a deep, grey suit, almost
to the point of black, which only emphasized how handsome he looked. She’d
noticed, too, how the women fell all over themselves around him—even when he
appeared to not like their attention. And—she noticed how the older, busybodies
harrumphed and snubbed him for it, like he’d been responsible for bringing it
on.
Closing her eyes, Alli leaned her head
against the banister. She didn’t blame her mother for loving him. He’d been
really good to them. He’d protected them, when they needed it most. And he’d
provided for them.
She watched, now, as two women spotted
each other—and made a beeline straight for him. She shook her head in
amazement.
He’d spotted them, too, and to his
credit—ducked out the door.
Alli sniffed in disdain. He didn’t ask
these women to treat him the way they did. She couldn’t imagine why anyone
would act that way. Didn’t they have more pride—then to throw themselves at his
feet?
Her mother had only laughed, whenever he’d
come to stand beside her, to keep the women from coming on to him. She’d tell
him then, he was her handsome prince—and
she didn’t mind that the other women knew how lucky she was to have him.
They’d been blessed to have him there.
Alli had always realized this. They might have never escaped her father without
him. But she’d never gotten too close to him, either.
Her step-dad had tried to get to know her. But her real-dad had beaten all the
trust out of her, with each blow of his fist to her mother. He respected her
pain. She sensed that he understood, even though she’d been young when she and
her mother had escaped her father. She’d taken her father’s violence hard.
She’d stopped speaking to anyone, but her mother, for several years. And she’d
been adamant that no one man would get the chance to cause her the pain—she’d
witnessed her own father cause her mother.
He’d been the one to convince her father
that it wouldn’t be in his best interest to keep hunting her mother. He could
be a pretty intimidating man, when he wanted.
And even though she’d never gotten too
close to him, didn’t mean she appreciated how they treated him—now—when her
mother no longer could be a witness.
Sighing, Alli looked away. She didn’t find
it cool that now people, who had been pleasant enough to him when her mother
lived, converged on him, now, with their hate—when her mother could no longer stop
them.
Alli worried about what they might do next.
She’d suffered enough, losing her mother.
It wasn’t fair. Now, she fretted that these busybody, vultures would cost her,
her home, too. Within a day, the old bats had come right after her step-dad
before her mother had even been cremated.
Alli watched as three of the main ones
scanned the room, now, searching for him.
She groaned inside and fought off a fresh
wave of tears, threatening to spill. How could they do this to her? What if
they managed to get rid of him?
What would she do if they succeeded in
making him leave—without her?
She might not be close to him. She might
not trust him with her deepest secrets—but he was all she had. And her mother had loved him.
She got up from where she’d been sitting, watching
through the railing. This had always been her favorite place to spy—where she
had, in fact, spied on her mother.
She’d been jealous of how happy her mother
had seemed with him. Now, she’d give anything to have her here—laughing—sneaking
opportunities to watch a movie with him, on the couch, where they would eat a
batch of popcorn together.
Alli would make excuses, not to be there.
Most of the time, she’d tell them she had homework, or something, and sneak off
to her room. She regretted those moments—those lost opportunities—she’d missed
to spend time with her mother.
If only she’d known this would happen—that
her mother would no longer be around.
This time, her tears did slip past all of
her attempts to hold them back. Hot tears slid down her cheeks, unchecked. She
didn’t try to wipe them away. She didn’t care how much her mother wouldn’t have
wanted her to grieve.
She couldn’t help it.
She already missed her so much, she couldn’t
breathe. She gaped around her, but she didn’t see. Everything had become
blurry.
She clutched at her middle. She felt as
though something heavy sat on her chest, and she could hardly draw in her next
breath. She wanted to pass out.
She gripped the banister, glowering at the
people below, who kept talking as though her whole world hadn’t ended.
How could she do this? How could they
expect her to? How could she go on, when she couldn’t imagine the next hour
without her mom—much less the rest of her life?
Alli stared at the room below. She placed
a shaking hand over her mouth. She sucked in her breath.
She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t do this. They couldn’t make her.
She gawked at everyone on the lower floor,
who stood talking, like she didn’t sit up here on the landing, suffocating with
the knowledge that nothing would be the same again. Her life, as she knew it,
had ended. How could they keep going as if everything hadn’t changed?
She realized then, she couldn’t imagine
her future—couldn’t see it at all. She didn’t even want one—without her mother
in it.
Alli bent double, looking down at the
crowd. No one looked up. She glanced around, wildly. She couldn’t get down the
stairs, to get outside. She turned, instead, toward the stairs, leading to the
attic, which her mother had let her have for her bedroom. Making it to the
door, she looked up the endless
passage up—but the stairway seemed to stretch out before her, forever.
Her breath caught, as panic set in, and
she struggled to suck in air. In blind misery, she drug herself up the stairs,
onto the landing, on the floor above, as tears poured down her face and grief
tore through her.
She turned right and stumbled into her
room, collapsing on the bed, struggling to inhale. She puffed, swiping at the
tears, now slipping down her face too quickly to stop them, her chest heaving
in great gulps, as she sobbed, no longer able to contain her sorrow.
Her anguish caved her will. She stopped
caring she couldn’t breathe. Then, sweet peace took over, and she calmed.
So
this was it.
She was dying, too. Well, maybe it was better this way. She wouldn’t have to
live without her mother. Pain filled her being. She thrashed in sorrow, her
entire world falling in on her all at once—her hurt, too great, too care that
her own grief would, now, kill her too.
She’d heard of people who had died of a
broken heart. Too late, she guessed, it might be true. Someone should’ve warned
her that her sorrow could kill her.
She strangled, fighting again for her next
breath—and then she saw her.
