Copyright ©2019 Paige P. Horne. All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, place, events and other elements portrayed herein are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real persons or events is coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photography, recording, or an information storage and retrieval system without the prior consent from the publisher and author, except in the instance or quotes for reviews.
No part of this book may be uploaded without the permission of the publisher and author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is originally published.
Other novels written by Paige P. Horne include:
Close To Falling
Chasing Fireflies
Chasing Ellie
If I’d Known
The Give Me series
Give Me love (Book One)
Give Me Perfect Love (Book Two)
Give Me Forever Love (Book Three)
Give Me Redemption (Book Four)
Cover designer: Cover It Designs
Editor: Paige Maroney Smith
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter One
Kathrine
Twenty years earlier
Cold wind seeps through the windowpane as I stare out at tumbling snowflakes. They fall from silver-white puffy clouds and a steely sky. The big tree in the yard is holding on by a string as thick ice hangs off its old branches, weighing them down. One snaps, and I watch it land with a hard thump onto the ground, spraying snow dust and tree bark. A flutter of a gale moves clouds, giving way to the golden sunshine, and another branch falls, shattering pointy icicles along with it.
“There won’t be any left,” I say.
“What?”
“The branches. There won’t be any left if the wind keeps blowing.”
Mama walks over and looks out. I can see her reflection in the window as she wrings her hands in a faded red dishtowel, and I notice a look of sadness as it washes over her face.
“Everything goes eventually,” she whispers. I look from her reflection to her face, noticing her eyes focus ahead as though her mind has gone elsewhere.
Her distance isn’t new; she does this more often than not. Like she can’t cope with the now, so she disappears inside her head. It’s something I worry about, and even though I’m a child, I think I understand why she does it.
She isn’t happy.
And it shows.
“Wanna go play in the snow?” I ask, trying to cheer her up. She doesn’t answer me. “Mama,” I say, shaking her arm.
“Hmm, baby?” She moves her eyes from the window and looks at me.
“I said, do you wanna go play in the snow?”
“No. I’ve got other plans for us.” Her lips brush against my forehead before she walks back to the sink, picking up the lit cigarette that was resting in the ashtray. Smoke twists and twirls upward. I follow its path and notice the ceiling, stained yellow.
“What other plans?” I ask, turning back to the show outside and blowing my breath onto the window. I draw a heart into the fog I’ve created and look past it into the field that surrounds our house. We’re alone out here. Not another house for a while. I hate how secluded we are.
“Go get your shoes,” she says, drying her hands off and holding the brown filter between her lips. She leans against the counter and gazes out the window. Her dirty blonde hair falls across her forehead. She moves it out of the way before rubbing a finger mindlessly over her lips.
Mama is pretty in her own way. She’s younger than all the other moms I see at school, but there’s something about her that makes her seem older. She doesn’t wear makeup or do anything with her hair. She just doesn’t seem to care.
Her eyes jump to me. “Stop staring and get your shoes,” she says as she grabs the dishtowel and swats it at me. I giggle at her playfulness and run to my room. I dash in excitedly and lift my shoes before running back to the kitchen. She puts the butt out and blows smoke away from me and into the air, swatting it with her hand.
I hate the way it smells.
“Sit down. I’ll put them on for you.”
“I can do it,” I say.
“You’re growing up too fast,” she says dolefully.
I hate that look she gives me when I don’t let her treat me like a little girl, so I sit down. “It’s okay. You can do it.”
She smiles. The bones in her knees creak when she bends them. “They’re having a special showing at the movies. Would you like to go see one with me?”
Excitement bubbles in my stomach. “Yes,” I say. I love going to the movies with her. It’s a chance to get out of this gloomy house and a sure way we won’t be around him. Plus, she always takes me to see fairy tales.
Her eyes shoot up to mine. “Would you like to know what we’re going to see?”
I nod my head enthusiastically.
“Cinderella.” She smiles magically when she says it, like the word itself is a dream. Mama pats my leg for me to put my shoe down and reaches for my other.
“What’s that one about?” I ask.
“It’s about a beautiful girl who falls in love with a prince.”
“A prince?” I ask excitedly.
“Yes, a prince.” She lifts her brows. “But she has one problem.”
“What’s that?” I question, eager to know.
“She has an evil stepmother and mean stepsisters. You see, they don’t want her to be happy.”
“Why?” I ask as she loops my string and pulls tight.
“Because they’re jealous of her beauty.” Her hair falls loosely around her heart-shaped face, and tiny creases line her gray eyes. Mama is always daydreaming; sometimes I wonder which one of us is the child.
I hear footsteps on the front porch and the dreamer’s whole mood shifts, but she always does that when he’s around.
He’s not nice. I wish she’d take us away from him.
She puts my little white shoes down. “Go to your room.” I do as she asks, but I leave the door cracked.
“The fuck you think you’re going?” I hear him say. Cigarette smoke can be smelled from here and I picture the cigarette between his nicotine-stained fingers.
“I’m taking our daughter to see a movie.”
“Your daughter,” he throws back.
“Why do you always say that?” Her tone is filled with bitterness.
I close my eyes and mind
lessly pick the pink fingernail polish she painted on my nails last week.
“Don’t pretend like you weren’t still seeing that sorry piece of shit when we started dating.” The monster who lives with us likes to remind both my mom and me that I’m not his.
Like we don’t know.
Like we aren’t glad.
He’s been around since I was born, so he’s all I know, but I hate him.
“You wish you were half the man he was,” she fires back. I hear a slap, and then something crashes to the floor. My eyes pop open, and my heart rate accelerates, causing me to jump up and run in there.
“What do you think you’re doing?” He looks to me. “Get back in your room, you annoying little shit.”
“Don’t hit my mama!” I say, trying to sound brave, but the shake in my legs betrays me and he sees it.
He laughs and walks over to me, bending a knee so he’s at my eye level. He runs his finger down the side of my face and trembles of terror chase each other to the ends of my toes. “You’ll be a big girl one day,” he says. “That’s the only reason you’re still here. Eventually, you’ll be useful, but right now, I can’t stand the sight of you.”
“Go back in your room, Kathrine,” Mama says as she lifts herself from the floor. Tears fill her eyes, and I already see her face turning a shade of purple. Red-hot anger percolates in my veins, but terror at the way he’s looking at me wins and I spin so fast I almost trip over my feet.
I run back to my room and shut the door before sliding my dresser in front of it. My chest expands rapidly, and I shut my eyes and try to control my breathing.
I’m not sure if he said anything else before the front door slammed shut because my ears are ringing and I’m shaking. I don’t know what he meant by I’ll be of some use when I get older, but I know it can’t be good.
I wrap my arms around my bent knees and count. Mama says counting slows our heart rhythm. If we just focus on one thing, it’ll calm us down, and right now my heart could use some slowing.
I look toward my sun-splintered blinds, and on shaky legs I stand up and crawl over my iron bed. Peeking through the small cracks, I see the man we could do without as he tilts up a bottle of amber liquor.
Flakes of snow fall around him as he puffs his cigarette and then flicks it away. Smoke blows from mean and nasty’s nose as he hops into the car.
He has black hair that’s too long, and I look nothing like him. Because like he said, I’m not his.
Mama was in love with someone else at one time. Maybe that’s who she thinks about when she looks off like she does. He’s just as bad as the man I don’t belong to, though, just in a different way. Because where has he been the last eight years?
I gaze out at the only thing that’s left of Mama’s choice. White smoke emits from his tailpipe.
I wonder if other parents act the way mine do? I’ve spent the night with a few friends from time to time, and their parents seemed to get along better, or maybe it’s just because I was there.
People tend to hide their true selves around others.
My eyes wander to the edge of the window on the outside. I watch as individual flakes land on it.
They say that every snowflake is different, that no two are the same. But just like Mama says everything does, the snowflakes disappear.
Chapter Two
Kathrine
Ten years later
I didn’t go see the movie that day, and my mama left six months later. She herself turned into a snowflake and my nightmare deepened.
I was only eight years old.
How she got away still baffles me. She didn’t have a job that I knew of and no money. I woke up one morning, and she was gone. My stepdad was sitting in his chair with his hand wrapped around a bottle and a burning smoke hanging between his lips.
And all that anger he had for her has turned toward me. As I grew from a little girl to a teenager, I discovered who he really was. He sells drugs, and the house that was once bearable when Mama was here has become horrific.
The older I get, the worse it gets. As soon as I was able, I knew I needed to make money so I could leave just like she did.
I’m devastated that she left me, but then I get angry and that gives me a drive like no other. I’ve gotten a job at the local diner, and no one has questioned the fact I should be in school while I’m serving them coffee at ten in the morning. I skip class a lot, but I still manage to make the grades.
The thing about a poor, small town is everybody has their own bad problems, so they don’t meddle in yours. They may talk about it, but that’s all they’ll do because they know their life is shit, too.
Small-town living also means no one pays attention, especially to my bruises. Hell, I’m not the only one with them.
I quickly learned those fairy-tale movies my mama took me to see were full of shit.
Life is hard, and the only person who’s going to rescue you, is you. Sometimes, we have no choice but to grow up even when we’re too young to do so.
I cling on to turning eighteen and disappearing. My stash of money is a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. It helps me sleep at night and gets me up the next day so I can add to it.
I’m just getting off work, tired and wishing I could go anywhere but here. Old wood sticks to old paint when I twist the knob with my apron in my hands and tonight’s earnings in its pockets. I hit my shoulder against the door, almost falling face-first when it gives, stumbling into the house. A quarter falls from my apron and rolls across the worn wooden floors, spinning until it settles heads down. I bend to get it, but midway I realize I’m not alone.
And then my eyes land on him. I freeze. My heart fissures and my mouth waters from the threat of vomit.
No.
No, no, no.
“Planning on going somewhere?” he asks as he leans back in his chair, a joint between his fingers and my money spread out across the particleboard.
I can’t speak. I’m too angry with myself.
Dumb girl.
You really thought he wouldn’t go searching? Why didn’t I hide it better? I want to throw myself onto the floor and bang it with my fist. I want to scream and run over and grab my money from his filthy hands.
“You know, I had a feeling you were saving up. I mean, what else have you been doing with the money you make at that dump? Definitely not helping me with the fucking bills.”
I feel my eyes tighten.
“What?” The monster smiles mischievously. “You thought I didn’t know?” His eyes narrow and he rakes a hand through his long bourbon hair. He takes a drag from the weed. “Cat got your tongue?” He holds smoke in his lungs as he says it, causing his voice to sound raspy.
Needles prick my spine as a tremble vibrates my bones. My eyes dart from him to the money. My body’s coiled tightly like thread on a spindle. I slowly ease up from my bending position. My heart runs behind my backbone and hides with shaky knees.
He quickly jumps up, the chair slides, cracking drywall behind him. Adrenaline mixes with dread and I twist back toward the door, about to bolt when he grips me by my hair.
I feel it when strands rip from my screaming scalp and a small whimper leaves my throat involuntarily. My head snaps back and a stark pain shoots down my spine as he slams me against the door, causing the side of my face to throb from the impact. A tang of copper on my tongue confirms my teeth and cheek collided.
He wraps his big hand around my neck and his hot liquored-up breath feathers against my ear. His body reeks of dank weed and disgust.
I struggle to get out from under his hold, gritting my teeth.
“You’re just like her,” he says, his body flush with mine as he cages me in. I squeeze my eyes closed. My breath rushes out in spurts. “All I do for you, and you want to leave? Ungrateful bitch.” He presses into me, crushing the side of my face into the door harder. I wince at the pain that reverberates through my skull.
The bones in my cheek shriek, causing my eyes to wat
er.
He’s going to break my face. Just a little harder and I’m sure I’ll feel the break in my bones.
How is this my life? What did I do to deserve this fucked-up horror?
It’s not fair. Hot tears spill, puddling on top of my squished skin, rolling over and trickling down the back of my neck.
I breathe in hard, smelling amber liquid from the person behind me and the door my face is smashed into.
“You get runaway thoughts out of your head, pretty girl. I own you. You wouldn’t know how to live outside of this house.”
I’m saved by a knock on the door. One of his customers. Thank God.
He grips my hair again and shoves me back toward the kitchen. I get ahold of my footing and hurry back to my room, shutting the door and pushing my dresser in front of it. I mourn the loss of my money. All that hard work for nothing. God, when will I get out of here?
______________
It’s late when I sneak out of my window to sleep under the stars, too afraid to sleep inside that house. My face is bruised, but I got my crap together. He thinks he can win, but he’s wrong. I came up with a new plan.
I will be patient.
I won’t antagonize him.
I’ll be as invisible as humanly possible, and then the day will come when I can vanish.
I’ll work, save (hide it in a different spot, of course), do my schoolwork, and count the days until graduation.
____________
Months come and go. I’ve stuck with my plan. I’ve been diligent, and it’s time for graduation. He’s seen my cap and gown. He looked at them like he could burn them, and I was scared he would, so I took them to school and left them in my locker, but today is the day.
No one is here to cheer me on. There’s no smiling face who’s proud that I’m their kid and I did it, but my life is my life. I’ve accepted that, so I walk across the stage with my head held high, even though my chin is bruised and my throat is sore from a fight the night before. I don’t smile on the outside, but on the inside my heart thumps a little harder than normal, rubbing its hands together happily, because I’m eighteen now.
Give Me Perfect Love (Give Me Series Book 2) Page 1
