“I only got 1,249 words written today, but that’s a far bit better than the previous days. I believe that if I give it a little bit more thought tonight while I’m not sleeping in bed (insomnia, always a double-edged sword), I will be able to decide where the story truly begins and thus write it. I’ve been too concerned with the complicated backstory and not thinking of the book in terms of scenes. This is, as you might guess, a problem. Regardless, I’m writing again, and believe that I will be able to catch up with a few 2k-3k days coming up… And as always, thank god for the weekend.”

…

Chapter One – For Real This Time

I think there was once a time when I could have been happy. I’m not sure when the divergence came, when I crossed that line. Somewhere over the past eight years, it just became the accepted truth. I would die young and miserable. How, why, where, when, though… those were the mysteries that I was to solve.

Strange, I guess, to be thinking that while sipping champagne at a benefit ball. Those around me laughed and smiled, words nothing but empty statements of success and their own personal worth. They wore the right clothing, said all of the right things, but were so insincere it made me sick. Perhaps that’s why I was thinking about death that night. Why, for the thirty-fourth time that evening, I was considering suicide. But, even as I say this, I have to admit that I, too, was just full of it. How many times had I held a blade to my wrists, knowing exactly how to cut to ensure a bleed out? How often had I held that bottle of prescription pain medication of my dad’s over the bathroom sink, mentally calculating how many I would need to take to slip into a coma and, eventually, die?

Too many. Among other things. But how many times had I actually gone through with it? None.

Actually, let me start over.

My name is Jane Wickham. I’m seventeen years old. My hair is honey-colored; a warm, golden brown, medium-length, curly at the ends. A lot like my mother’s actually, when she was alive. My eyes are brown. Also warm.

I want to die.

I guess that’s really the start of all of it, isn’t it? I have every reason to believe that I could have a future. There are boys that are interested in me. My grades are good. I’m not hurting for money, and my record is clean. So clean.

But still, I want to die.

I suppose that’s what attracted me to John Amos in the first place.

He was both the most terrifying and most interesting person that I’d ever met. Tall, like a lone pine in a stretch of scorched earth. No hair on him; no eyebrows, no mustache, nothing on his chest or legs. Head shaved completely bald. I couldn’t quite place his race but his skin was tanned and he spoke with a vaguely southern accent. Though, the way in which he spoke seemed terribly inconsistent; as if he’d been mixing his own dialect over his world travels. Deliberately attempting to disguise his identity.

This was for very good reason.

I first met him at a club. I shouldn’t have been there in the first place, but big surprise I don’t listen to common sense when it comes to my own well-being. It’s like my sense of self-preservation just goes right out the window. 

I don’t want to be talking about this as if it were so long ago. Everything’s just been in the past seven months, with years of angst leading up to it. Really, where is the start of my story? Why can’t I think straight? Where was I, that night, when all of this started crumbling apart?

I remember the guns in my underwear drawer. How they got there, I can’t say. But I knew how to take them apart and put them together again. I kept them clean, well-oiled. Loaded, with the safety on. And I looked at them often. What was I doing? Who am I kidding? I’m so fucked up. I’m fucked up and no one can help me.  There’s loss everywhere. Decisions to be made. Things are too hard. I’m losing my mind.  I need to stop drinking. I should stop smoking. I should give up the wild parties. I know all of this but I just… can’t.

It started before I knew that Austin Green existed. Kent Hartwell was in my life. He was in love with me. That was before he knew what my story was. Or did he love me still, even after that? It hurts to think about. All of it. And what is my father going through?

I know that the story ends with me against a wall. Each shuddering gasp accompanied by two strong beats from my heart, expelling more of my blood into my hands.

Had I been drinking that night? Was that where this all began?

I drink scotch because I wish I were invincible.

I’m not. I should have died, too. Or instead of mom.

We both could have died. Or dad could have saved us both. I want to tear my hair out. I’ve considered shaving my head, too. All of it. Just clean off. Just like Amos did to his victims. Every one of them. Shaved clean from head to toe. Eyelashes, too. The theory was that he would only kill you when he knew that you were completely naked. Why, I really couldn’t say. But that’s, again, the point, isn’t it?

That I don’t know why anything happens, and I’m obsessed with figuring it out.

Austin was… warm, too. He had a smile that was crooked and brilliant. He had no idea what was going to happen. I don’t think that he would have let me go that night if he had. I don’t think that he would have let anything happened if he had had any idea at all. He and Kent, both. Boys that cared about me when I couldn’t bring myself to care about anyone or anything. What was that smile? What was that expression that they used?

I walked through the cemeteries to find that boy; the paranormal investigator kid. He took notes in a spiral-bound notebook, pen scratching away with a fervor that matched my own for information, for acquiring correct and functional details. But I never spoke to him. I knew that he’d been through enough to bother listening to me. Why it is always boys? Where are the women in my life?

After my mother died, I never looked for anyone to replace her. All that was left was dad. Dad and Kent. And then Amos. And finally, Austin.

Perhaps Austin is where I should start.

He was Pacific-Islander. A recent transfer to Witten High School, a private academy in Lyndoch. It’s cliché to start the story with the new boy, but you know, that’s where things changed. That’s when I started to care. My life before that was the same. Day in, day out, for weeks and months without anything new. The only interesting things that ever happened were cases in Boston and the quickly dulling thrill of seducing a new conquest at those parties. What a way to honor my mother’s memory and sacrifice.

Austin was loud. This was enough for me to have an excuse to never speak to him, but to be fair, he ignored me, too. At first. He did give me a glance over when he walked into class, but then turned away almost immediately to check out the girl next to me. It was gym class. We wore uniforms and sat on the bleachers, waiting for our coach to go over that unit’s co-ed sport. Volleyball was the order of the day. We split into teams. I watched him when it was his turn to serve.

Please note that I had no intention of dating someone in my school. That was always a bad idea, and Austin was no exception.