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<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“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\u00a0begins<\/em> and thus write it. I’ve been too concerned with the complicated backstory and not thinking of the book in terms of\u00a0scenes.<\/em> 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.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n …<\/p>\n Chapter One \u2013 For Real This Time<\/p>\n I think there was once a time when I could have been happy. I\u2019m 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\u2026 those were the mysteries that I was to solve.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s 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\u2019s over the bathroom sink, mentally calculating how many I would need to take to slip into a coma and, eventually, die?<\/p>\n Too many. Among other things. But how many times had I actually gone through with it? None.<\/p>\n Actually, let me start over.<\/p>\n My name is Jane Wickham. I\u2019m seventeen years old. My hair is honey-colored; a warm, golden brown, medium-length, curly at the ends. A lot like my mother\u2019s actually, when she was alive. My eyes are brown. Also warm.<\/p>\n I want to die.<\/p>\n I guess that\u2019s really the start of all of it, isn\u2019t 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\u2019m not hurting for money, and my record is clean. So clean.<\/p>\n But still, I want to die.<\/p>\n I suppose that\u2019s what attracted me to John Amos in the first place.<\/p>\n He was both the most terrifying and most interesting person that I\u2019d 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\u2019t 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\u2019d been mixing his own dialect over his world travels. Deliberately attempting to disguise his identity.<\/p>\n This was for very good reason.<\/p>\n I first met him at a club. I shouldn\u2019t have been there in the first place, but big surprise I don\u2019t listen to common sense when it comes to my own well-being. It\u2019s like my sense of self-preservation just goes right out the window.\u00a0<\/p>\n I don\u2019t want to be talking about this as if it were so long ago. Everything\u2019s 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\u2019t I think straight? Where was I, that night, when all of this started crumbling apart?<\/p>\n I remember the guns in my underwear drawer. How they got there, I can\u2019t 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\u2019m so fucked up. I\u2019m fucked up and no one can help me.\u00a0 There\u2019s loss everywhere. Decisions to be made. Things are too hard. I\u2019m losing my mind.\u00a0 I need to stop drinking. I should stop smoking. I should give up the wild parties. I know all of this but I just\u2026 can\u2019t.<\/p>\n 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?<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Had I been drinking that night? Was that where this all began?<\/p>\n I drink scotch because I wish I were invincible.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not. I should have died, too. Or instead of mom.<\/p>\n We both could have died. Or dad could have saved us both. I want to tear my hair out. I\u2019ve 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\u2019t say. But that\u2019s, again, the point, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n That I don\u2019t know why anything happens, and I\u2019m obsessed with figuring it out.<\/p>\n Austin was\u2026 warm, too. He had a smile that was crooked and brilliant. He had no idea what was going to happen. I don\u2019t think that he would have let me go that night if he had. I don\u2019t 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\u2019t bring myself to care about anyone or anything. What was that smile? What was that expression that they used?<\/p>\n 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\u2019d been through enough to bother listening to me. Why it is always boys? Where are the women in my life?<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Perhaps Austin is where I should start.<\/p>\n He was Pacific-Islander. A recent transfer to Witten High School, a private academy in Lyndoch. It\u2019s clich\u00e9 to start the story with the new boy, but you know, that\u2019s where things changed. That\u2019s 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\u2019s memory and sacrifice.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s co-ed sport. Volleyball was the order of the day. We split into teams. I watched him when it was his turn to serve.<\/p>\n Please note that I had no intention of dating someone in my school. That was always<\/em> a bad idea, and Austin was no exception.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “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\u00a0begins and thus write it. 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