I unhitch my jaw and force my lips to move. “Callie.”

My mom appears above me. Her eyes are colder than I

expected and her lips are pursed. “Do you have any idea what you

put this family through? What is wrong with you? Don’t you value

your life?”

I glance at the doctors and nurses around my bed and

realize it’s not fear I’m seeing, but pity and annoyance. “What…”

My throat is dry like sand and I force my neck muscles to move as I

swallow several times. “What happened?” I start to remember:

blood, violence pain… wanting it to all end.

My mom puts her hands next to my head and leans over me.

“I thought we were over this problem. I thought you stopped.”

I tip my head to the side and glance down at my arm. My

wrist is bandaged up and my skin is white and mapped with blue

veins. There’s an IV attached to the back of my hand and a clip on

the end of my finger. I remember. Everything. I meet her eyes.

“Where’s dad?”

Her eyes narrow and her voice lowers as she leans in even

closer. “Gone on a business trip.”

I gape at her unfathomably. She’d never done anything

about the violence when I was growing up, but I guess I was kind

of hoping that maybe this would have pushed her to the end of

her secrecy and her need to always defend him. “He’s on a

business trip?” I say slowly.

A man in a white coat with a pen in his pocket, glasses, and

salt-and-pepper hair says something to my mom and then he exits

the room carrying a clipboard. A nurse walks over to a beeping

machine beside my bed and starts writing down stuff in my chart.

My mother leans in closer, casting a shadow over me, and

whispers in a low tone that conveys a lot of warning, “Your father’s

not going to have any part of this. The doctors know you cut your

own wrists and the town knows you beat up Caleb. You’re not in a

good place right now and you’re going to be in a worse place if

you try to bring your father into this.” She leans back a little and

for the first time I realize how large her pupils are. There’s barely any color left except for a small ring around the edge. She looks

possessed, by the devil maybe, or my father—but they’re kind of

one and the same.

“You’re going to be all right,” she says. “All the injuries

missed anything major. You lost a lot of blood, but they gave you

a blood transfusion.”

I press my hands to the bed, trying to sit up, but my body is

heavy and my limbs weak. “How long have I been out?”

“You’ve been in and out for a couple of days now. But the

doctors say that’s normal.” She starts tucking the blanket in around

me, like I’m suddenly her child. “What they’re more worried about

is why you cut yourself.”

I could have yelled it—screamed to the world that it wasn’t

all me. That it was my dad, that he and I had both done the

damage. But as I glance around the room, I realize there’s no one

here who really cares. I’m alone. I did cut myself. And for a second

I kind of hoped it would be my end. That all the pain and hate and

feelings of being worthless would finally, after nineteen years, be

gone.

She pats my leg. “All right, I’ll be back tomorrow.”

I don’t say anything. I just roll over and seal my eyes and

mouth and let myself go back into the comfort of the darkness I’d

just woken up from. Because right now, it’s better than being in

the light.

Chapter 1

#62 Don’t break apart

Callie

I spend a lot of time writing in my notebook. It’s like therapy

for me almost. It’s extremely late in the night and I’m wide awake,

dreading going back to campus tomorrow morning and leaving

Kayden behind. How am I supposed to just leave him, bail out,

move on? Everyone keeps telling me that I have to, like it’s as

simple as picking out an outfit. I was never good at picking out

outfits, though.

I’m in the room above the garage, alone, tucked away in the

solitude with only my pen and notebook for company. I sigh as I

stare at the moon and then let my hand move across the paper

almost on its own accord.

I can’t get the image out of my mind, no matter how hard I

try. Every time I close my eyes, I see Kayden, lying on the floor.

Blood covers his body, the floor, the cracks in the tile, and the

knives that surround him. He’s broken, bleeding, cracked to pieces.

To some people he probably seems like he can’t be repaired. But I

can’t think that.

I was once shattered to pieces, destroyed by the hand of

another, but now I feel like I’m beginning to reconnect. Or at least I did feel that way. But when I found Kayden on the floor it felt like

part of me splintered again. And more of me broke when his

mother told me he did it to himself. He cut himself and has

probably been doing it for years.

I don’t believe it.

I can’t believe it. Not when I know about his dad.

I just can’t.

My hand stops and I wait for more to come. But that’s all I

seem to need to write. I lie down in the bed and stare at the moon,

wondering how I’m supposed to move forward in life when

everything important to me is motionless.

* * *

“Wipe that sad frown off your face, Missy.” Seth is holding

my arm as we walk across the campus yard. It’s cold. Rain is

drizzling from the gloomy clouds and the sidewalks are covered in

murky puddles. There’s practically a river running off the rooftops

of the historic buildings that enclose the campus. The grass is

sloshy beneath my sneakers and the icky weather matches my

mood. People are running to and from class and I just want to yell,

Slow down and wait for the world to catch up!

“I’m trying,” I tell him, but my frown still remains. It’s the

same frown that’s been on my face since I found Kayden a little

over a couple of weeks ago. The images hurt my mind and my

heart like shards of glass. I know part of this is my fault. I’m the

one who let Kayden find out about Caleb. I barely even tried to

deny it when he’d asked me. Part of me had wanted him to find

out and part of me was glad when Luke had told me Kayden had

beat up Caleb.

He nudges me with his elbow and constricts his grip when I

trip over my feet and stumble to the side. “Callie, you need to stop

worrying all the time.” He helps me get my balance. “I know it’s

hard, but always being sad isn’t a good thing. I don’t want you

going back to the sad girl I first met.”

I stop in my tracks and step right into a puddle. The cold

water fills my shoes and soaks through my socks. “Seth, I’m not