The Secret Life of Katherine James

Prologue:

It all started out so simple, so easy. I wouldn't say I was carefree, but I was most definitely happy. I didn't have to lie, or hide these awful fears from the ones I loved. I wasn't in danger, or always stressed and looking over my shoulder. My friends weren't always at risk. How it all turned bad I don't exactly know, but it did. And now I can't go back. I see that now, the consequences for my choices will follow me forever. I just hope they don't follow other people, good people, my friends, family, and the ones who choose to know my story.

Usually when these things happen, everyone talks about that one day where everything changed or how something just felt different. I don't have that day and I sure didn't have that feeling; all of the days felt the same and there was no sign. No immediate turning point to when my life started to fall apart and I started to realize that I was trapping myself in a game I didn't want to play. Nope, there was no day like that. But I want to tell my story, because I want people to know what happened. I think I'll start a few days before I found out that Adrien was who he was. That he wasn't a stranger, not just some random man choosing to follow a random girl. When I found out that he was a boy I grew up with, a boy I knew,. That he was a boy I looked in the eyes day in and day out, over and over again. And to him, I'm wasn't just a girl either. To him, I meant something, though I have yet to figure out what, exactly.

Yeah, well I guess that's good. As good a place as any at least. Let's start with those days leading up to it, the crazy discovery.

This is the story of a most dangerous game, a game I helped create. This is also a story of how the game ends and what the game costs to play. I want to tell it and yet I want to keep it all inside, keep the pain to myself and not subject any one else to the feelings I have. It makes for a complicated choice. Be warey please, if you choose to read on, it might not have the ending you think it will. Maybe it could be considered a happy one, maybe not. And maybe you can walk away unchanged, but I couldn't. And maybe, if I do my job, you won't either. If that's the case, I'm sorry. But that's what happens when you play with fire. That's what happens when you get caught playing the game maker, that's what happens when you're cast as the star player in The Game of Lives. A game in which you're picked without a choice, and forced to live a life you don't want. Forced to tamper in the shadows with the lives of other people, the people close to you, the ones that matter. When you unintentionally ruin the lives of the people you love, you don't walk away unchanged, neither do they. That's the point here. I wrecked lives, and I'm chanced forever. But that's what The Game of Lives is, and that's the game I was forced to play. And that's the story I'm going to tell.