Jessie Kensington thought she had escaped her troubled past when she faked her death and started a new life as Violet Arrowood. But three years later, she finds herself at Vanguard University on a scholarship, trying to build the future she always d...
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My hand has been hovering over my seat belt buckle for the last ten minutes. Everything looks familiar now. I tell Ty to take the next left—Mikey's house is just around the corner.
We turn the bend, and I barely wait for the car to stop before I swing the door open and stumble out of the car. Ty calls my name, but I'm already running through the browning grass; everything looks the same. I leap over a dumped bicycle and miss the stairs as I barge through the front door, not bothering to knock. I know Ty will wait outside, he knows I need space to do this. I go straight to his room, and my heart drops when I see it's empty. His room doesn't look any different from the last time I was here. The only difference was the photo that was on his bedside table of us at the fair when we were younger wasn't there anymore. There was no essence of me in this room anymore, just my memories. Where is he?
Everything is silent. I sit on his bed, running my fingers over the faded spaceship-patterned doona I slept under years ago. He loved this doona cover as a kid. Then I hear the faint hum of music and I know exactly where he is. I rush outside and around the house telling Ty to stay where he was.
As I turn the corner, I hear the faint beat of music coming from the rundown shed that hides in the corner of his backyard. A relieved smile pulls at my lips. It's his shed and there's music playing— this is good. I run past the broken basketball net we used to play with. Run past the now deflated blowup pool we ran to after school during summer—where we would lay back and imagine we were somewhere tropical, somewhere beautiful. I bang on the door to the shed. The music is blasting and I can hear something going on in there.
I don't wait for him to open the door. I try to yank it open, but it won't budge, but I know where he keeps a spare key. I go to find the rock around the side of the shed. The one next to the purple flowers and a stupid gnome that we stole from the porch of a girl who was mean to me in fourth grade. I drop to my knees, pull the rock up from the ground, and dig into the dirt until my fingers brush the familiar glint of silver.
I run back to the shed door, fumbling with the key to get it into the lock, but as I turn the key, the door opens.
The smell hits me first and I turn my head away as the familiar smell of weed and smoke consumes me. My stomach twists as I turn back and see the eyes of a man I don't know. It isn't Mikey.
"Who are you?" The man asks, or accuses. His bloodshot eyes and chapped lips hit too close to home.
"I'm here to see Mikey."
The man grins, his teeth yellowed and blackened.
"Where is he?" I snap, but he just steps aside, letting me in.
Everything in me screams not to go. But I have to. I need to see him. I have to see him in the flesh to know he is okay.
I walk in and instantly hear the crunch of something under my sneaker. I look down, lifting my foot up, and see a used syringe on the ground. There's no way Mikey is in here. I turn, ready to run, but the man blocks the door, nodding toward the back of the room. I take a shaky breath and follow his directions. The room is thick with smoke. The old red couch that we used to lie on is covered in rubbish and a crack pipe nestles in the corner. Tears sting my eyes—partly from the smoke, mostly from this dreaded ache inside me. This can't be Mikey's life, I refuse to believe it.
