“But I’m not Ryder. I’m just… me.” I shake my head then jog down the stairs, going farther into the night before calling over my shoulder, “And I’m not so sure of what’s right and wrong because everything always feels so wrong.”

She doesn’t say anything and I walk underneath the stars toward a dark, unknown road. A road that I’ve been traveling for a long time. When I reach my final destination, I have to question if maybe it’s my final destination.

Forever.

By the time I enter the trailer home, I feel lonelier than I ever have before. I have no direction, no focus, no purpose. At least here there are people around me, some who I’d consider friends. Friends that like to get high, spun, and drunk, over and over again.

The entire room smells like pot, bottles of alcohol line the counters and tables, and there are couples making out on the plaid sofas in the living room, none of who notice my presence.

I’m invisible again.

“Hey cutie.” A woman at least five years older than me struts up beside me. She has short, bleach blonde hair, massive pupils, and a fake tan. Her boobs are bursting out of her top and her leather skirt barely covers her ass.

“Hey.” I force a smile as I drop my bag onto the orange carpet and take a look around at the place that’s going to be my new home.

“So what are you doing?” she asks as she follows me into the small kitchen area.

“Just getting a drink.” I grab a plastic cup from the yellow countertop and open the nearest bottle of alcohol.

“Oh yeah, I was just going to get one too.” She pours herself a drink and then joins me in the living room.

Music booms from the stereo, a  p**n o plays on the television, and the lights are turned down low enough that I can’t see exactly what everyone’s doing but can hear moaning from somewhere in the room. I haven’t had sex yet, not because I don’t want to, but because I haven’t found anyone who wants to have sex with me. All the people in the living room clearly have the exact opposite problem. For a second, I feel strangely out of place and wonder why I chose to live here. Is this any better than living under a roof with people who don’t want me? I still feel just as lonely.

As I’m standing there debating whether to sit down on the sofa, go back to my room, or run out the front door, someone puts a hand on my arm. When I turn my head, I discover the older woman is standing beside me with a joint in her hand and a lazy smile on her face.

“What you looking for, sweetie?” she asks, handing me the joint. She eyes me over, her hungry gaze eating me up. She wants me. I’ve never been wanted before and I kind of like the feeling. In fact, I’m enthralled by it.

“I have no idea,” I say then put the end of the joint up to my mouth and suck in a deep hit.  But I start to hack when my lungs burn and realize it’s not weed that I just smoked, but something else—something way more potent. “What was that?” I cough, giving her the joint back.

“Something that will relax you.” Her grin expands and I blink my eyes as the drug seeps into my body and makes my mind all hazy. “Follow me,” she says as her fingers enclose around my arm.

I allow her to lead me down the dimly lit hallway and into my room, either because I’m losing touch with reality, lonely, or because she’s noticing me—perhaps all three. When we get back there, she closes the door and locks us in before facing me.

“How old are you sweetie?” she asks, reclining against the door, her glassy eyes fixed on me.

I kick some clothes out of the way as I make my way to the mattress on the floor. “Old enough,” I tell her, uncertain where my bold response comes from other than the fact that everything seems to be spinning into something else, including myself.

“You’re cute.” She stands upright, ambles over to me, and offers me the joint.

I think about asking what drug it is again, but decide I really don’t care.

About anything.

I take another hit and the smoke saturates my lungs and soul while the woman strips off her clothes. Then she removes the joint from my hand, sets it aside in an ashtray on my drawerless dresser. She pulls my shirt over my head and undoes the button on my jeans. The way her hands graze across my skin feels so good and the way she’s looking at me, with want in her eyes, makes me feel alive in what feels like forever.

She can see me.

Feel me.

Knows I exist.

Maybe even wants me.

After all our clothes are piled on the floor, she inches her lips toward mine. “I’m going to take care of you,” she whispers then slips her fingers through mine and guides me to the corner of the room where the mattress is. When she gently shoves me down, I fall onto it.

And keep falling.

And falling.

And falling.

I never stop falling the entire way through it.

Because there’s no bottom.

Just like there’s no way to get back up.

Even when it’s over, I still feel like I’m falling, but I feel like maybe I’m not falling alone, but with her.

Maybe I don’t have to be alone all the time.

My mind is racing a thousand miles a minute as I lie on the mattress and watch the woman climb off me and get dressed. I can’t think straight, either from the drugs or the sex—I’m not really sure.

“What’s your name?” I ask, breathless.

She simply smiles at me as she pulls her shirt over her head. “It doesn’t really matter, does it? None of this does.” I swear her eyes silently say, ‘neither do you.’

Then she bends down to give me a kiss on the forehead. “I had fun.” It’s all she says before she stands up and walks out of the room.

Using me.

And leaving me.

Alone again.

Present day….

Chapter 14

The Abyss

Tristan

Drink.

After drink.

After drink.

Sitting out on the porch of the motel, I grip a nearly empty bottle of vodka. I’ve fallen off the cliff again and I’m not even sure what set me off this time. Rejection from Avery? Maybe. Perhaps when she put an end to something we never really had to begin with, it gave me the final push.

Deep down, part of me knew the reason why I’ve been sober for the last three months has something to do with Avery and what she did for me that night. Because part of me had thought that maybe she is different from everyone else that has floated in and out of my life.

But there’s even more to it than just Avery. A bigger reason that is buried under years of rejection and the simple fact that I’ve never been too good at living life.

Never.

Ever.

Ever.

Not really.

The alcohol is starting to fade and my emotions prickle through, sharp and potent. Finally the agony becomes too great.

I trip to my feet and stagger toward the room five doors down, chucking the bottle on my way, watching it shatter into a thousand pieces across the parking lot. Then I bang on the door. I’m not just looking for drugs. I’m looking for something to numb all the buzzing noise and pain inside me. And when the door swings open, I’m greeted by someone who has something I know will help me.

Bury the pain.

The rejection.

The silence.

The void in my life I can only fill with alcohol and drugs.

And I fall back into the abyss.

And fall.

And fall.

And fall.

To nowhere.
Chapter 15

The epiphany.

Avery

I’ve regretted a lot of things in my life, some that weren’t in my control, though most were made by my own free will. Like the home I lived in for seventeen years. Getting married young. Conner. Every bottle I picked up.

Conner.

Not graduating from high school, but getting my GED. Having a baby so young and not being the best mother I could be.

Conner.

Not being able to provide for Mason like most moms do. Not giving him a good father. Struggling for so many years. Dying.

Conner.

And now I’ve added one more thing to that list.

Tristan.

I’m not even sure why I regret stopping the kiss, but I do. I regretted it the moment I left the alley and even more so the next day when he doesn’t show up to work on the house. The regret festers inside me more and more with each passing day I don’t see him. My worry increases when I realize that Nova is avoiding me. Whenever the two of us cross paths, all she does is wave and offer me a friendly smile. No, “Hey, let’s go hang out,” or “How are you doing?” It’s a continuous pattern that I don’t like and I hate how much I don’t like it because it means so much more than what I want it to.

When day three of no Tristan rolls around, I begin to develop an obsession, knowing something might be wrong. Even with the random, heavy-breathing phone calls I receive every day, I still can’t concentrate on anything but Tristan. That night, I have a dream. The kind of dream that seeps deep into your blood and bones, the kind you can’t forget or stop thinking about.

In it, I’m burning alive, same old, same old, until Tristan materializes in the middle of the violent flames with me, looking as horrified as he did when I told him to stop kissing me. Instead of running from the fire, he just stands there with me, burning alive. I want to open my mouth and beg him to get out, but my lips remain sealed. I want to push him back toward the door, but my feet stay firmly planted to the floor. I want to stop the fire, but just like when the fire happened in real life, I don’t stop everything from igniting into flames. And we both end up burning, watching each other fade away into the smoke and flames. When I wake up, I swear my scars feel charred all over again and I can’t shake the feeling that the dream is my subconscious trying to tell me something.

But what?

What are you trying to tell me?

As I lie in bed overanalyzing everything, my phone starts vibrating from the nightstand. I’m instantly wary about the incoming phone call, considering how late it is. The wariness multiplies when the unknown number flickers across the screen. This time, I don’t answer it. If it is Conner, I don’t want to talk to him or hear his breathing.

Eventually, the caller hangs up without leaving a voicemail, and I attempt to go back to sleep, but between the call and the dream, I’m wide awake and end up climbing out of bed to get a drink.

As I’m pouring a glass of milk, the sliding door glides open. Paranoia seizes me, and I spill milk all over the counter, reaching for a knife in the drawer, ready to fend off whoever is entering my home.

What if it’s Conner?

But Jax wanders in from outside, bringing in the faint scent of cigarette smoke with him. He’s sporting pajama bottoms and a jacket with the hood over his head. As he shuts the door, he catches sight of the knife in my hand and his jaw drops. “What the f**k, Avery?”

I lower the knife. “Sorry, I heard someone and thought…” I trail off, not wanting to worry him.

“Thought what?” he asks as he draws the hood off and unzips his jacket.

“Nothing.” I set the knife on the counter and reach for a roll of paper towels. “What were you doing out there this late at night?”

“Smoking.” He shucks off his jacket and drapes it over a table chair. “What are you doing standing in the kitchen in the dark?”

I rip off a paper towel from the roll and then flip on the light. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“Me neither.” He crosses the kitchen and opens the fridge. “What was it about this time?”

I pause, in the middle of wiping up the puddle of milk. “What was what about?”

He grabs a cheese stick then shuts the refrigerator door. “Your nightmare.” He faces me as he removes the wrapper. “That is why you can’t sleep, right?”

I ball up the wet paper towel and toss it in the trash. “Yeah… but how did you know?”

He peels a thin piece of cheese off. “Because I can hear you sometimes when you wake up crying from them.”

I frown as I screw the cap back on the milk. “You were never supposed to hear that.”

“I’ve heard worse.”

“I know… but I don’t want to be the worse for you.”

He sighs as he discards the wrapper into the trash. “You’ll never be the worst part of my life, Avery. And you need to stop thinking that.”

“I can’t help it. I worry all the time.”

“I know you do. You need to stop and start having some fun and enjoy the life you have.”

“I do have fun,” I protest as I put the milk away. “And I enjoy my life all the time.”

“When do you ever have fun?” he asks condescendingly.

“Um, how about a week ago when I went to the concert?” I reply lamely as I bump the fridge door shut with my hip.

He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, you looked like you had fun when you came home. You were so tired and you’d been crying.”

I gape at him. “You could tell I’d been crying?”

He bites the top of the cheese off. “I’m not blind. Of course I could tell.”

“I know you’re not blind, but…” I shake my head as I pick up the glass of milk. “I’ll do better from now on, I promise. No more crying.”

“That sounds nice in theory, but I don’t want you to do better for us,” he tells me. “I want you to do better for you. I worry about you. Not just with the crying and lack of sleep, but because you always seem lonely.”

“Well, I’m not lonely.”

“You seem like you are. And the last time you seemed that way you… Well, you know…” He trails off, but I know what he’s going to say.