Allie Stewart never liked change. She actually hates it. Change means days are coming and going, the leaves falling and growing, time flying and moving.
It's just that she hasn't seen her mother in eight years, and she hasn't shown up ever since. She remembers her, but it seemed like it was all just a dream...Now, her dad announces they're going to be staying in her late grandmother's house, in an old town beside an ocean, and they might stay there indefinitely.
For her dad, everything's still the same: the house, the square, the beach, the people, his childhood friend across the house. He's trying to forget all his regrets, all his sadness. And now, he's trying to do the same for Allie, by trying to make her friends with his childhood friend's son, Matt.
Matt understands Allie's situation, and tries to help her take it all out. But it isn't easy, because she keeps it all, stored tightly and precisely, in small rectangles, captured and taken, unique and effortless in pictures. How can Matt tell her that moments just can't be taken and seen inside those four walls of a picture?
"You ungrateful bitch. I keep a roof over your head, and this is the thanks I get?"
"You could have killed her," I retort, trying to muster up confidence that I don't possess. "What if she goes to the cops, Dad? That bruise on her face is enough to get you arrested and charged with assault."
"What? You mean when she tripped over the mess you made in the kitchen?" His smile is so wicked that it chills me to my core. "She ain't going to the cops. Hell, she'll probably be back here tomorrow."
"You're a bastard," I whisper, tears filling my eyes. "No wonder Mom left! She probably couldn't bear to spend another second with-"
I'm pushed to the floor. I scramble backwards as he approaches me, his cheeks scarlet with rage, his pupils the size of needle points. In fourteen years, I've never seen him this mad.
I've really done it this time.
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(COMPLETED) Life is hard when nowhere feels like home.
For Layla Dodds, there is only one goal: survival.
Abandoned by her mother and abused by her father, she dreams of the day she can finally escape the hick town she's been forced to call home. She just has to graduate first. With a genius level IQ and her best friend, Damian, by her side, she thinks she can weather any storm.
Except the universe might have other plans.
Four Walls is a tale of friendship, first loves, heartache, a little bit of magic, and a lot of self-discovery. Join Layla as she tries to make it through the hardest part of any teenager's life: high school.
~Book One in the Mind Over Mayhem series.~