Dangerous Innocence: Prologue

“It’s going to be a new beginning. I can feel it. Everything here is holding me back from reaching my potential. In New York, I can become someone new. I can find a agent who really helps me get into magazines and on runways,” Imogen crooned, her green eyes distant.

Our eye color was the only outward similarity we shared, but where my hair was red, Imogen’s was strawberry blond, though she’d been dying it a lighter shade of blond since she was sixteen, hating the slight red tinge. My hair didn’t only have a hint of strawberry—it was red, no matter the lighting.

Imogen propped her bony elbows up on the bridge railing, dreaming of a glorious future away from our hometown and our family. Away from everything that was seemingly holding her back, weighing her down. Soon, Dublin and the River Liffey would fade away and become a distant memory.

“I’ll miss you,” I said. Despite our differences, Imogen had been a constant in my life. The rushing water beneath Ha’Penny Bridge sounded like a sorrowful lament, but I loved my hometown. Even the squeal of suitcase wheels as impatient tourists dragged their luggage over cobbled streets, thinking they could discover Dublin’s whole beauty in a weekend getaway. Even the stink of vomit and piss in Temple Bar on a Sunday morning.

Maybe not that.

Imogen didn’t say anything. I wasn’t sure if she hadn’t heard me or couldn’t say it back. She was already gone, no longer reachable for me. She’d been dreaming of leaving for a long time, and now she finally had the money from blackmailing Finn’s father; if he didn’t pay up, she would tell his wife he had impregnated a sixteen-year-old.

“Don’t you want to wait until Finn’s third birthday? It’s only four weeks away,” I said.

Shoulders hunched, Imogen’s thin fingers clutched the rail. “I can’t. I already booked the flight. You and Mum will take care of him. He won’t even realize I’m gone. In a year or two, he’ll have forgotten I even exist.”

My heart ached hearing her words. I wanted to blame Imogen’s incapability to care for Finn on her young age—she’d given birth to him three months after her seventeenth birthday—and the fact that Finn’s start into life had been difficult because he’d been born eight weeks early, but it had never stopped me from taking care of him. And being young hadn’t stopped Mum from taking care of us either; she had given birth to Imogen two weeks after her sixteenth birthday, and I followed twelve months later.

“I can’t become big if I don’t go to New York,” Imogen said, looking guilty for a second. “I’m getting older. I still have a shot at a modeling career at twenty, but I can’t wait longer.”

She’d appeared in a few fashion ads for smaller brands and walked in a few shows at shopping centers in Dublin, but apart from that, selfies on her Instagram page were as close as she got to being a model.

“I know.”

“You believe in me, right? That I can become a famous model?”

“I do,” I said. It was a half-truth. I believed in Imogen. She was beautiful, tall and thin, with high cheekbones. I believed in her potential to work as a model, even admired her drive, but I worried that she’d quickly become jaded if things didn’t come easily or not quite as she’d hoped, or that she’d follow dangerous voices who promised quick fame in exchange for something.

“Just be careful,” I whispered.

Imogen’s eyes crinkled in amusement. “You sound like Mum. The both of you prefer to avoid all risks and live in your comfortable bubble, in the same place, with the same job, the same boring boyfriend, but I want more. I have dreams.”

I ignored Imogen’s jab at Patrick. I had dreams too. But beside Finn and household and work and Patrick, I rarely dared to give thought to them, and I’d stopped sharing them with anyone else.

Shoulders hunched, Imogen’s thin fingers clutched the rail. “I can’t. I already booked the flight. You and Mum will take care of him. He won’t even realize I’m gone. In a year or two, he’ll have forgotten I even exist.”

My heart ached hearing her words. I wanted to blame Imogen’s incapability to care for Finn on her young age—she’d given birth to him three months after her seventeenth birthday—and the fact that Finn’s start into life had been difficult because he’d been born eight weeks early, but it had never stopped me from taking care of him. And being young hadn’t stopped Mum from taking care of us either; she had given birth to Imogen two weeks after her sixteenth birthday, and I followed twelve months later.

“I can’t become big if I don’t go to New York,” Imogen said, looking guilty for a second. “I’m getting older. I still have a shot at a modeling career at twenty, but I can’t wait longer.”

She’d appeared in a few fashion ads for smaller brands and walked in a few shows at shopping centers in Dublin, but apart from that, selfies on her Instagram page were as close as she got to being a model.

“I know.”

“You believe in me, right? That I can become a famous model?”

“I do,” I said. It was a half-truth. I believed in Imogen. She was beautiful, tall and thin, with high cheekbones. I believed in her potential to work as a model, even admired her drive, but I worried that she’d quickly become jaded if things didn’t come easily or not quite as she’d hoped, or that she’d follow dangerous voices who promised quick fame in exchange for something.

“Just be careful,” I whispered.

Imogen’s eyes crinkled in amusement. “You sound like Mum. The both of you prefer to avoid all risks and live in your comfortable bubble, in the same place, with the same job, the same boring boyfriend, but I want more. I have dreams.”

I ignored Imogen’s jab at Patrick. I had dreams too. But beside Finn and household and work and Patrick, I rarely dared to give thought to them, and I’d stopped sharing them with anyone else.

“Just be careful,” I repeated.

“I’ll do whatever it takes to get what I want, Aislinn.”

My worry became a torrent.