HIS TO KEEP - A dark, psychological romance

PROLOGUE (Preview)

My first kiss was with a boy from church. He was a choir boy with the voice of an angel and hair like woven silk. Arrogant, I thought, but Melissa said that was confidence, and she'd be the same if she could sing like him.

At church one day, during a school visit, she rushed over to tell me she overheard him saying he liked me to his friends and was going to ask me out. Before I had a chance to prepare myself, he appeared next to me and invited me to walk with him in the gardens. As we did, I struggled to know what to say to him. Not that he made any effort to talk to me. We didn't speak for the first five minutes until he mentioned something about the weather, which was dull of him.

"Actually." He stopped me beside a bush of pearly white roses and rubbed the back of his neck like he was nervous. Why, I don't know. He was the least timid boy in our whole school. "I just wanted to tell you how beautiful you are. The prettiest girl in our grade by far."

As if telling me that would flatter me enough, his hand fell on my hip, and I held my breath when he confidently leaned in and put his lips against mine. It was my first kiss, and it was terrible. There were no butterflies or fireworks, and our teeth knocked together, his tooth slitting my bottom lip open. When he pulled away after I gasped, it was apparent he was as underwhelmed as me.

"Ouch," Melissa laughed when I told her about it. I was speechless and embarrassed it happened. My lip throbbed, and the metallic taste of blood mixed with his spearmint gum made me queasy. Melissa erupted into more giggles. "You must have broken him, Ava. He's meant to be a great kisser!"

He wasn't, and I was upset there was nothing when we kissed—not like how Melissa described her first kiss at the back of the bleachers during gym class.

The kiss played on my mind all day, bleeding into the next and disrupting my focus in class. Seeing I was moping, Melissa told me I was being silly. "It was only a kiss. It's not as if he asked you to marry him."

She was right, I knew that. But when we passed each other in the school hallways, and he avoided me, it hurt. Even more when rumors circulated he'd kissed a senior girl in the morning.

Were kisses so meaningless to boys? If that were true, then I never wanted to kiss anyone again.

The day only got worse when I arrived home from school. Someone had told Gran about my secret kiss in the garden, and her reaction changed everything. Cornering me in my bedroom, face twisted with rage, she demanded I tell her what I'd done. I had no choice but to reveal I kissed a boy at church.

Grabbing my hairbrush from the dressing table, she surged forward and hit me over the head with it. She beat me until I was cowering on the floor, my arms my only defense as I cradled my head from her vicious attack. Not giving me a chance to explain I already knew kissing him was a mistake and I was sorry for letting him steal it.

"How dare you put your lips on another!" The bristles on the brush were like claws scratching my skin. Warmth slid down my face, and tiny drops of crimson dotted the beech wooden floor beneath me. "And sin in the house of our Lord, you devil girl!"

She hurt me that day—physically and deep in my heart. I knew she was old-fashioned and a proud Catholic woman, but she was never strict or violent, especially towards me.

Leaving me broken on the floor, she staggered away, and when she called me down for dinner hours later, she stared straight through me like you would a stranger, and it terrified me. It didn't end there. More beatings followed after that day. My sweet Grandmother I loved was gone, replaced by someone who wanted to control my every move and paint my skin with bruises.

Soon, I learned I wasn't going to be a normal teenage girl when she forced me to stop being friends with Melissa, who had been confused and bitchy about it when I drifted away like a ghost, no longer giving the attention she deserved. She found new friends to fill the void, and all was forgotten. I was forgotten.

It was a kiss with a boy, but it's the deadliest sin of all.