: Chapter 1

The rapid thump of my feet against the cement sent students scattering from the sidewalk as I sprinted from school. I needed to get home before Mom did.

“It wasn’t my fault this time,” I said under my breath. I raced around the corner, navigating the route home at high speed. “She pushed me into the locker. What was I supposed to do?”

I knew what I was supposed to do. Not fight. Yet, my temper never listened. Why couldn’t I just be like other people my age? Moody but not irrationally angry?

I shook my head while neatly jumping over a kid on a tricycle. His mother squawked from her place on their porch. The look she shot me sent my temper flaring again.

“He’s fine!” I shouted. “Maybe you should get off your ass and stand by him if you don’t want people jumping over him.” However, I was already four houses away when I finished my rant, so I doubted she’d heard more than “he’s fine.”

Focusing once more on what I planned to tell my mother, I rejected my first approach.

“Come on, Megan. You can do better,” I said to myself. “I was upholding the school’s anti-bullying policy. I saw that girl shaking down people for their lunch money and used my words to ask her to stop.” I nodded. That sounded good. I’d point out that I’d used my words, and not my fists, first. “She didn’t like me sticking up for her victims and tried pushing me into my locker.”

That sounded like a winner. But, enough to keep me from being locked up in the house for a week while suspended? Probably not. I ran harder. If I could make it home before Mom, I could delete the messages the secretary had left on the answering machine.

She was yet another person I’d like to punch in the face, and not just because of her condescending tone when she’d spoken to me today. Something about her had rubbed me wrong from day one, and it had only gotten worse during the month I’d attended Parkerville High.

Not even winded from the sprint, I stopped in front of my house, only seven blocks from school. Like the omen of ill fortune it was, Mom’s shiny red sports car sat at the curb. I swore and touched the hood. Cold.

I was so screwed.

Rubbing a hand over my face in frustration, I stared at my reflection in the glossy paint. Wisps of brown hair, escaped from my ponytail, framed my angry face. I took a deep breath and tried to relax my expression into something that could pass as pleasant. My brown eyes softened just enough to not look like I wanted to rip someone’s head off, which I totally did. I hated that I couldn’t shake that feeling.

Working hard to keep my relaxed expression, I turned to the house and slowly started up the walk.

“I was upholding the school’s anti-bullying policy,” I repeated under my breath before opening the door.

My ready excuse fled my mind at the sight of boxes lining the hallway and stacked on the dining room table.

“Come on, Mom! Seriously?” I threw my bag off to the side and stalked toward the kitchen where I could hear the clink of dishes.

“Is that how you address me?” she asked calmly as soon as I entered.

My temper snapped. I needed a Mom, but she’d been fighting that role for years now.

“Okay, Paxton, pain-in-my-ass birth giver. Two little fights in one week don’t warrant another move.” Hopefully, she wouldn’t point out that it was only Tuesday.

She set the coffee cup down slowly. I swallowed the curse I wanted to mutter. I’d pushed her too far. Again. I stood still, waiting for her to lash out at me. Instead, she stood there, gripping the cup as if it were my head and she wanted to smoosh it. A red flush crept over her flawless and naturally tanned skin. My imagination spiked because I could swear I actually felt the heat of her rage radiating off of her. Sweat beaded my brow.

“Paxton, I’m sor—”

The cup shattered.

“You think you know so much, but you don’t. I’ve given you everything, and you throw the few rules I have back at me. Go to your room. Pack. When you’re done, come help me. We leave in the morning.”

I wanted to say something more, but the cold blue in her eyes when she finally looked up at me sent me scurrying to my room like a good little girl.

Not that I was little anymore. At seventeen, I stood only a few inches shorter than Mom. Paxton. I rolled my eyes in the safety of my room. She’d had no problem with me calling her Mom until I turned fourteen and started sprouting boobs. Then, suddenly, I had to call her Paxton because she didn’t want her boyfriends to know she was old enough to have a kid my age. I didn’t see why it mattered. She didn’t look old. Not in the slightest. We looked more like sisters than mother and daughter. As long as she looked good, why did she care about her age? Vain.

I started shoving clothes into one of the boxes on my bed and hoped I didn’t warp into a vain middle-aged woman like Mom.

After an hour of packing up my room, I went back to the kitchen. A note waited on the table along with a plate of food.

Went to deal with Darren. Eat and finish up the packing. We leave at 2.

I looked around the house. Most everything was already packed. We lived light because we moved often. Sometimes due to my fighting, but mostly due to Paxton’s failed relationships. Although, lately, that balance had been tipping more in my favor. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. Why did I have to be angry all the time?

I didn’t use to be like this. The last therapist I had thought it might be due to a hormone imbalance brought on by puberty. Given my age, I had a hard time believing his prognosis. But my belief, or lack of it, didn’t change the fact that I had anger issues and no one could figure out why.

Sighing, I sat and ate my plate of spaghetti then packed what remained. When I finished, I went straight to bed. Two in the morning would come early, and my temper got worse when I didn’t get enough sleep.

The soothing vibrations of tires over pavement stopped, waking me. I opened my eyes and blinked at the dimly lit semi-rural road in confusion. Waist-high grass occupied the space around the house in front of which we’d parked.

“Why’d we stop?” I asked, trying to clear the fog in my head. Even with going to bed early, waking up to Mom’s “let’s go” had been rough.

“We’re here.”

“It’s still dark? Why did we have to leave at two in the morning?” Even as I asked it, I knew why. A quieter road meant less reason for me to lose my temper.

She opened her door and got out without answering. Not yet done questioning her, I fumbled with my door to follow. Outside the car, my disbelieving gaze locked on the faded, white two-story house hiding in the overgrowth. Paint flaked off the wide boards in not so tiny peels. Within cloudy windows, half-torn curtains dangled, giving the house a creepy, abandoned vibe.

“What do you mean we’re here?” I asked. “Where is here?”

“Home,” she said, wading through the grass to the front porch. The boards held her weight and didn’t send her plummeting straight to hell like I’d hoped.

This had to be a joke. Mom preferred furnished, trendy places, which she always talked her boyfriends into renting for her.

“This isn’t a home. This is a fire waiting to happen.”

“Hurry up and get inside, Megan,” Mom said softly, unlocking the door. “I’ll bring the boxes in myself.”

Torn between anger and frustration, I stomped through the grass to the wide front porch while Mom disappeared inside. A light came on, then another, so I wasn’t walking into the seventh ring of hell blind.

The musty stink of neglect filled my nose, and a sneeze ripped through me a moment later.

“Seriously, this place is a dump,” I said, looking around.

The old bulb cast a weak glow in the living room that Mom had lit up. Old furniture coated with dust sparsely decorated the space. The next room, a small kitchen, didn’t look much better. The larger room off to one side looked like it wanted to be a library when it grew up. Barren bookshelves and a fireplace played host to long-vacated spider webs.

“I am so not sleeping here,” I said under my breath.

“Don’t be a baby,” Mom said from right behind me, making me jump. “There’s a decent room to the right at the top of the stairs. Go back to bed. When you wake up in the morning, things will be different.”

I shook my head.

“Yeah, daylight is going to make this all look way worse.”

“Go!” Mom’s angry yell sent me scurrying up the dark stairs.

A light at the top led the way to a bedroom that didn’t look quite as bad as the rest of the place. A full-sized bed with a white, dust-free quilt tempted me. Ignoring the pull to go back to sleep and pretend this was all still a dream, I looked around the rest of the room. Dresser? Check. Creepy, empty closet decorated with more spider webs? Check. A good view from the room’s single large window? Nope. Just a crap ton of towering pines.

“Lovely.” I turned and face-dove into the mattress. No plume of dust greeted me, so I closed my eyes and let myself pretend.

However, when I opened them again hours later to way too much daylight, I knew I couldn’t pretend any longer and trudged down the now dust free stairs. I frowned and poked my head into the library. That looked cleaner now, too, and it had a few more books.

“Come eat,” Mom said from the kitchen.

I turned and saw a plate of food for me on the table. Eggs, bacon, toast with jelly. The works.

“Wow. Thanks. Did you sleep at all?”

“No. There’s a lot I need to do yet. I went to the store and stocked the cupboards. It was too early for the bank or school so I’ll need to leave again in a bit.”

“Where are we?”

“Maine.”

“I figured that since we didn’t drive very long. Where in Maine?”

“This house is on the outskirts of the village of Uttira. Population of about one thousand, but most people only live here part-time.”

“Are you trying to say this is a vacation home?” I couldn’t keep the disbelief from my voice.

“Don’t be smart. While I’m running errands, I want you to try to mow the lawn in back.” She turned to look me in the eye. “Only in the back.”

“Fine. Geez. You might want to power nap before you go.”

She took a long, slow breath and continued her study of the backyard.

“I’ll sleep later, once you’re settled. Behave and stay inside once you’re done with the lawn.” She turned and left the room. A minute later, I heard the front door open and close.

I rolled my eyes and quickly finished my breakfast. She’d been trying to keep me inside and away from people for as long as I could remember. Couldn’t blame her. I rubbed people wrong because they rubbed me wrong. Yet, I loved being outdoors.

After I washed my plate and put everything away, I strolled outside. The back deck was sad in comparison to the front and looked out over a sea of waist-high grass gone to seed. I didn’t know of a lawn mower on earth that would tackle this job.

Parting the grass, I made my way to the weather-worn shed. The right door opened easily. The left tried to give me a hard time, but I was stronger than I looked.

With the doors gaping wide, I studied the variety of rusted lawn care implements. The mower sat off to one side, the pull-start rotted and hanging in two pieces. Even if I could have gotten it to start, it would have done little good.

From the wall, I grabbed a golf club looking thing with a serrated edge at the bottom and gave it an experimental swing over the grass. It neatly sheared the top of the blades from the bottom on the first swing and the return.

Grinning, I stepped out further and set to work. By the time Mom returned, I was in the kitchen, sipping some iced tea. The backyard looked like a farmer had cut hay.

She placed a bundle of papers and a plastic bag with several boxes in it on the table and went to the back door.

“The mower didn’t work?”

“The pull cord’s broken, and there’s no gas. I used that thingy against the door. It worked okay.”

“Feel better?” she asked, her voice actually motherly for a change.

“Yeah. I do.”

“Exercise always helps with moods. Don’t forget that.”

How could I? She raised me saying it. I used to jog to help with my moods. But, when the people I passed started pissing me off by just existing, I’d had to stop. After that, Mom suggested I try getting a boyfriend. She’d claimed the right one could help with moods, too. At fourteen, I’d gagged and locked myself in my room, trying not to visualize how she and her boyfriends exercised to help her stay calmer.

“I’ll set up a service to cut the front yard.”

“What’s the point? It’ll maybe need to be cut twice before it stops growing for the season. I can do it.”

“People will want to stop you to talk.”

I sighed and quit arguing. I didn’t talk to people; I snarked at them.

“I’ll see if someone can deliver a new lawn mower or fix the old one so you can do the back,” she said.

“Okay.”

She turned and nodded toward the stack of papers and the bag.

“That’s for you. The school system here is a little different than what you’re used to. They cater to the needs of the students. Because of your issues with fighting, you’ll learn on your own at home with required weekly check-ins. If you ever reach the point where you can go to classes without wanting to remove someone’s teeth, their doors will be open for you.”

I indifferently picked up the first folder. It read Girderon Academy. These people had vacation homes and private academies that catered to individual students? That screamed money. We didn’t have money. The men in Mom’s life usually did, though. Maybe we were here so she could hook up with a new guy.

“Are we in some low-income part of an elitist community?”

“Something like that. I’m going to go upstairs and sleep. Don’t answer the door, and stay out of trouble.”

As she went upstairs, I reached for the bag. She’d bought me a new laptop, phone, cable modem and wireless router. I started setting everything up, made myself lunch, then picked up the phone. I wasn’t sure why she’d gotten it. Friends weren’t my strong suit. Who did she think I had to call?

Setting it aside, I went outside and started weeding around the base of the pine trees. By dinner, Mom was up and had a plate of food on the table for me.

She sat next to me with her own plate.

“There’s no TV in this place. I ordered one, as well as cable hook up, so you won’t go stir crazy.”

All this outpouring of niceness was making me suspicious. For once, though, I kept my snark to myself and just said thanks.

“You’re welcome, Megan.” She reached out and gave my hand a squeeze.

That was the last time I saw my mom.