The world he comes from, teenagers are a thing of the past, the parties at mansions, parents irrelevant, and the fights far crueler. They fight over girls or guys or whose fault it was for the points scored by their rival teams from the night before’s game.

They camp out and are welcomed home the morning after by loving mothers and fathers with smiles and biscuits and gravy. Here, teenagers get drunk on tailgates on dirty riversides. This guy, he comes from a place so far from this one it’s not even funny. He simply doesn’t care, because he knows he’s untouchable, it’s written in the way he pushes the passenger door open and steps out into the murky air with the ease of a rogue rebel. He’s parked directly in front of my aunt’s house with the windows rolled down and doing nothing to hide the sound or smell coming from the vehicle.

He sits in plain sight, laughing and chatting with the guy behind the wheel, smoking on something he definitely didn’t buy here, while he waits for what, me?įor some sort of grand exit where I’ll flip my hair over my shoulder and push my chest out, paint my lips bright and do my best dirty work to draw him right in, all the while he’ll be laughing in his mind, planning the move he’ll then make on his friends little sister. He thinks he’s sly, laying back in the seat of a car that can’t possibly be his, playing PI, and sucking at it. It hurts, stings, but only for a second and then. I intend to approach them from the side, to bring life back to the dead eyes bound to find mine, but as I get closer, no more than two spaces away, the inevitable sears my soul. The eyes trailing me shoot wide, and I’m lunged at, but I’m already too far gone. I pretend to go easily, but slip away, sliding on my feet and darting around the far side of the room. I’m suddenly spun, rushed toward the door and shoved through it. The body behind me grows rigid, the shadow to the right now creeping closer, a dark and haunting chill charging the air around us. It’s the last-ditch effort, the one that leads to the end, right here in this very spot. I’m stuck, frozen, knowing the move to follow before it’s even made. It’s a deep, cavernous sound that sends panic across the room and ice through my every vein. Someone’s scream roars around us, but I can’t say who it comes from. The fiercely pumping blood and heavy pounding heart should clue me in to what’s coming, but I ignore the warning, stuck in a nightmare of my own making. I try for a full, deep breath, but my lungs refuse my desperate plea. Tension lines my forehead, a heavy throbbing taking over not only my head, but my entire body.

Break me meagan brandy