Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 87155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
When Dad was gone, my mom was a totally different woman.
Don’t get me wrong. Whether he was home or not, she was always smiling. It was how I learned what an incredible disguise a grin could be. People didn’t pry about why you had bruises if you were happy. Nor did they inquire if there was enough food to feed your children or if your husband had spent all of his money on beer, video poker, and truck-stop hookers. (Yeah, my old man was a real class act.) People didn’t actually ask questions at all if you were sporting a smile. It became my family’s greatest defense.
Around town, we were known as an all-American, hard-working family.
Behind closed doors, Nora cried herself to sleep every night, hugging a ragged teddy bear to her chest.
Behind closed doors, my mother wrapped her battered ribs with bandages.
Behind closed doors, I lay in bed, dreaming of all the places I wanted to go when I finally escaped that hell.
I had high hopes for the small town of Clovert. It was only sixty miles away, but that was more than enough distance for me to start over. The new house was a dump on the inside, with peeling linoleum, filthy carpet, and holes in the walls, which my father promised to patch in exchange for a discounted rent. The outside didn’t look so bad though.
That was exactly how I lived my life, showing the world a pretty exterior to hide the disaster on the inside.
And trust me, on the inside. I was a disaster of epic proportions. I’d failed fifth grade. Math was not my thing. Neither were science, history, English, tests, quizzes, or homework. My mom told me she’d pick up an extra shift at the restaurant to pay for me to go to summer school so I didn’t have to repeat the year. My dad said he wasn’t going to waste a single cent on a dumb fuck who probably wouldn’t make it any further than eighth grade anyway.
I hated that man something fierce, but when he made up his mind, there was nothing that could be done to change it. And for some reason, my dad had made his mind up that I was a loser who would amount to nothing when I had still been in diapers.
Luckily, I had my mom. No matter how hard things got, she was always there with a warm smile and a kind word.
Until she wasn’t.
She left on a sunny Sunday afternoon with a big purse busting at the seams thrown over her shoulder. I knew she was never coming back the minute I saw her answer a cell phone my father didn’t know she had.
I’d imagined running away every night since I was old enough to dream. But in my dreams, I’d taken her and Nora with me. We were a family. The three of us against him. Forever.
In the end, my angelic mother, who I’d placed on the highest of pedestals, proved she was no better than he was.
She blew me a kiss as she backed out of the driveway.
She wasn’t crying.
She wasn’t frantic.
She smiled.
And then she was gone.
So there I was, eleven years old, abandoned by my mother, stuck with an abusive father, repeating fifth grade, completely overwhelmed with life, crying in a tree, belt in hand, trying to convince myself that Nora would be okay without me.
Cue Thea Hull.
The first time I saw her, she was sprinting across a hayfield. Her long, brown hair, the color of the sparrows we used to feed in my old backyard, flowed behind her as she raced to the base of the tree I was hiding in. I’d love to wax poetic about how she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen, because one day, she would become exactly that. But right then, she was just a girl who had interrupted me while I was on the verge of self-destructing.
Quiet and careful not to rustle the leaves, I watched her for what felt like forever. I wanted her to leave. I all but prayed for it. The last thing I needed was for her to look up and catch me with red-rimmed eyes and tear-streaked cheeks. But she just sat there, staring at her watch as if it were the most entertaining thing she’d ever seen. About the time she got comfortable and leaned back against the trunk, I realized that the good Lord my grandpa used to preach about wasn’t going to deliver me a miracle. My foot was asleep and my arms were shaking from holding the branch above me. The only thing I could do was dry my eyes on my shoulders, put on my mask, and hope I never saw her again.
Of course, that was before I accidentally broke her leg.
As guilty as I felt about that, especially given that it happened on the same day her mom had died, it turned out to be a miracle in and of itself.