The Unloved
Title Page
PROLOGUE
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 THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
CHAPTER SIXTY
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
EPILOGUE
The Unloved
The Unloved
JENNIFER SNYDER
The Unloved copyright © 2012 Jennifer Snyder
Cover art by Stephanie Mooney of Mooney Designs.
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For my husband, Brandon.
PROLOGUE
JULIE
There was a place on the lot of the abandoned, dilapidated house that rested across the street from mine, a place I used to hide in when I was little. A white shed with peeling paint and a dented green door. It wasn’t just my place—it was Nick’s place, too.
That white shed was the only place we could run to and never be found. It was the only place where my mother’s alcoholism and groping boyfriend of the week couldn’t reach me. The only place where Nick’s father’s fists couldn’t find him and his mother’s sobs couldn’t touch his ears. It was our escape, our hideout from our horrible home lives.
A secret place for only Nick and me.
Until one day, it just became mine. I was almost fifteen when my best friend, my secret keeper, my protector, moved away, leaving me alone to fend for myself with the things that happened in my house behind closed doors. The things that my oldest brother had moved away from a year and a half ago, leaving me and our younger brother behind to deal with it on our own—the pills, the empty fridge, and worst of all—for me at least—the old men with groping hands and hungry eyes that my mother bought home nightly who made me wish my bedroom door had a lock.
My mom was a sex-crazed stripper and my brothers and I were her little bastard babies. This was what the uppity churchgoers in Harper, North Carolina—where trailer trash and white trash were interchangeable descriptions for my family and me—whispered about. And just like the trailer trash comment, it was true. Charlotte Porter, or as I called her, mom, by all definitions was a sex-crazed stripper who danced seven nights a week from 9 p.m. until 4 a.m. at the Luscious Lizard, which was about a forty-five minute drive out of town. And my brothers and me? Well, we were little bastard babies, considering she’d never married any of our fathers and didn’t even know who our dads were.
These little truths about my life bothered me, but not nearly as much as Nick being gone. After a while I’d stopped wondering when or if he’d ever come back and accepted his absence in my life.
CHAPTER ONE
NICK
I sauntered back to the tan ‘97 Ford Taurus and heaved out another large box. My eyes darted to the house across the street from mine and then shifted to the one beside it—the house with the faded brown siding, falling gutters, and tall grass in the front yard. The house used to be Jules’ back before I’d been shipped off to live with my aunt and uncle in Southern Georgia until my mom and dad could work things out. I frowned at the thought of how long I’d been gone—two years.
It had taken my mom two years to finally kick my S.O.B. father to the curb and tell me I could come home. I was glad she’d finally done it. Shit, who was I kidding, I was freaking ecstatic she’d finally seen the light and realized she deserved better than someone who beat her for letting the fridge run low on beer.
I knew it had only been four days since he’d been gone, but four days was better than none.
“Better hurry up and bring that box in here before it starts raining!” mom shouted from the front door, snapping me from my thoughts. I shifted the box I’d been holding around in my arms and started up the three concrete steps at our front door. “That girl still lives there, you know? The one you used to play with when you were little.”
“I wouldn’t call it playing, Mom.” I scoffed as I squeezed past her through the door and back toward my room down the hall.
“Well then, what would you call it?” she asked, following me.
I sat the box down on my rickety twin bed and turned to face her. The bruises my dad had left in his wake had begun to fade from her face, but the sight of them—past and present, hers and my own—would forever be scars on my soul.
Jules and I had never played together. No. We’d hidden together from the monsters in our lives and prayed they wouldn’t find us. Even as little kids we’d known how cruel the world could be. How hateful some grown-ups were. How sick and perverse.
“Surviving,” I said and turned to unpack my things.
CHAPTER TWO
JULIE
I wasn’t sure why I expected this year to be any better. Maybe it was because I was under the spell of senioritis. That sickness that seemed to take over your mind the summer between junior and senior year, the one that gave you a false sense of freedom, one I was sure wouldn’t let up until after graduation.
Who was I kidding? For me, it wasn’t just that sense of freedom from scho
ol, it was a sense of freedom from my home life. By the end of this year I’d be eighteen, a high school graduate, and hopefully, finally able to move out and get my own place.
A tiny pinprick of guilt stabbed me in the heart. Could I really leave Cole behind? Could I really be as selfish as Logan had been when he’d left both of us with that woman we were supposed to call mom to move in with his girlfriend? I wasn’t sure that I could. Granted, Cole would be turning fifteen soon and it wasn’t like things at home were as bad for him as they were for me, but I still felt like I’d let him down somehow if I left.
“Julie! Hey, wait up!” a voice called from behind me, forcing me from my thoughts. I spun around, knowing exactly who I would find—Tiffany.
I paused and waited for her to catch up to me, then smiled when I saw her bright pink stripe of hair in the front that had replaced the lavender I’d seen just the other day.
“Did you get a locker yet?” she asked.
I dangled the combination lock from my index finger. “Sure did.”
“Awesome, I think I would die of boredom waiting in that long ass line.” She sighed dramatically.
“It was gruesome; I’m not gonna lie. So what’s up with the new color? When did you do that?” I smirked.
“Last night, like it?” Tiffany held out the streaked strand of hair so I could get a better look.
I nodded and continued toward locker number 205. “Looks good.”
“Want me to do one for you? I have some stuff left.” She grinned.
I frowned. On Tiffany a pink streak of color looked cute, fun, and non-scanky. On me, I was positive it would look none of those things. In fact I was sure it would make me look like a strawberry tart or something in contrast with my auburn hair. Besides, I wasn’t as attention hungry as Tiffany. I preferred not to draw too much attention to myself, and colored streaks in my hair were too attention drawing for me.
“I don’t think so,” I said, stopping in front of locker number 205 and opening it to toss in my backpack. I got out one notepad and one pen before stepping to the side to let Tiffany do her thing.
“I really wish you’d let me do something to your hair. Even if you don’t want bright pink like mine, I could do something a little bit suppler…like a pale pink or a green,” she said, as she pulled a magnetic mirror from inside her messenger bag and attached it to the inside of our locker door.
I clasped my notebook to my chest and tuned her out. Tiffany was always trying to get me to do something more to myself. Since the sixth grade she’d been begging me to let her put some kind of bright, funky color in my hair, the same way she’d been pestering me to wear more than black eyeliner for years, too.
Tiffany just didn’t get it. The more I made myself up, the more my mother’s boyfriend’s hands would find their way to me. My philosophy was: If I kept my looks simple and wore baggy clothes or at least ones that covered me up, then I would be undesirable. The perverts couldn’t want what they couldn’t see. It worked most of the time, but not always.
“Oh my God, please tell me we can all share lockers again this year. Have you seen the freakin’ line at the office for sign ups? You’d think they’re giving out Valium’s or something!” Emily Moore said as she bounded toward us.
I met Emily’s stare—she was another ‘outcast’ in my little group of misfit friends—and smiled.
“Sure!” Tiffany answered for me.
Emily rolled her eyes dramatically and let out a long huff of air. “Oh, thank God!”
Something on her nose caught the florescent light and shimmered. “No way,” I said, my mouth hanging open, its corners twisted into a slight smile. “When did you get your nose pierced?”
“You like it?” Emily asked, tilting her head to the side so I could get a better look. “Blake’s cousin is working down at Magnum as their new piercing person. She did it for ten bucks for me because she’s trying to get in some more practice.”
“I love it! When can I get mine done? Oh, we should all get ours done!” Tiffany shouted a little too enthusiastically.
I’d always wanted to get my nose pierced, but never could go through with it. An image of bits and pieces of toilet paper stuck to it during allergy season was always the deciding factor as to why.
“Eh, I’m not sure,” I said scrunching up my nose.
“Come on, it would look cute,” Emily pressed.
“So cute,” Tiffany agreed.
I rolled my eyes and smiled. They weren’t going to let this one go and I’d never find a cheaper price.
“All right, I’ll do it,” I said.
“Whoo-hoo!” Tiffany shouted, startling a few freshman girls standing nearby. “So, when do we go?”
“I’ll see if Jess is free tomorrow afternoon,” Emily said.
I sucked in a deep breath. I couldn’t believe I was actually going to go through with this. A little shiver of excitement slid through me as a smile sprang to my face. Tomorrow afternoon I was getting my nose pierced.
CHAPTER THREE
NICK
High school and jail, the two seemed eerily similar to me right about now. In both places you followed the rules, did your time, and then you got out. This was the thought that swept through my mind during the first few minutes of my day. I couldn’t see this place getting any better any time soon. There was one good thing though; no one seemed to remember me yet.
This was fine by me. In fact, it was downright comical.
Maybe it should have bothered me, the way no one seemed to remember little Nick Owen from Hilton Street, but it didn’t. Because I wasn’t that frightened, wimpy little boy anymore who came to school with bruises on his face and busted lips. I’d managed to bulk up while I was away for when mom finally decided to let me come home, that way I could protect her, because I knew there was no way my piece-of-shit father would stay gone forever. And when he decided to come back, I would be ready.
I walked through the hallways with a permanent scowl on my face. I hated being here. No, that wasn’t it, not if I was being honest with myself. The reason for the scowl was that I hadn’t seen Jules yet. That girl had never left my mind while I was away. I’d worried about her every single day. I wondered what she looked like now, after two years had passed. Would she have changed at all? Would I even recognize her? Shit, who was I kidding? I’d know those big green eyes anywhere.
I smirked and rounded the corner, headed toward my locker on the main floor—number 317. A high-pitched laugh caught my attention as I hooked my combination on the door; I glanced a few lockers down from mine to a group of girls. The laugh came from one with brown hair streaked with pink and skinny jeans on. Her back was to me and all I could see was her shaking with laughter. I slugged my book bag into my locker, keeping out a notepad, and glanced once more in her direction. She had a nice ass. It was then that she stepped aside and revealed a petite, redheaded girl swallowed by a sweater.
My heart thumped wildly at the sight of her. The redhead was talking, though I couldn’t hear about what. I noticed how alive her face seemed as she rambled, but there was something off about her. Even while she smiled and continued to talk, sadness seemed to ooze from her.
She closed her locker and the three girls started in my direction. I turned slightly so I could watch them somewhat as they walked past me without seeming like a pervert. Just as they reached me the redhead shifted her gaze toward me like she could feel my eyes on her and drew her eyebrows together. She shot daggers at me with her piercing green eyes, obviously knowing what I was doing. She was very observant this one. I smirked at her and then it hit me. Big green eyes. Relief trickled through my veins.
I’d finally found her—I’d found Jules.
The moment I realized who she was, it was too late, she’d already rounded the corner and the warning bell had begun to ring.
CHAPTER FOUR
JULIE
He looked familiar, the muscular guy staring at me a little too hard in the hallway this morning, but I cou
ldn’t figure out why. I didn’t know any meatheads and they sure as heck never checked me out. There was something about his hazel eyes that tugged and pulled at my memory like I should know them, like I should remember them from somewhere, but I couldn’t place them.
“So Luke is in one of my classes, first period to be exact.” Tiffany smiled smugly. “For a sophomore, the kid is pretty cute.”
Luke Preston was my little brother Cole’s best friend. I’d known him since he was like five. It just seemed wrong hearing Tiffany say he was cute and not mean it in a baby-cute way. “Well, go for it, cradle robber,” I teased as we continued toward the cafeteria.
Tiffany shoved me playfully and smiled wide. “Cradle robber my ass! The age difference can still be counted on one hand.”
“I’m sure most pedophiles think that way, too,” I said with mock seriousness. “If that’s what you have to tell yourself to make you feel better about your little crush, then go for it.”
“You’re horrible,” Tiffany muttered, shaking her head.
“Kidding, I’m only kidding,” I said just as we entered the cafeteria and the scent of cheeseburgers wafted to my nose, making my stomach rumble loudly.
“Geez, hungry much?” Tiffany asked.
“Starved, I was in such a rush this morning I didn’t get a chance to eat breakfast,” I lied.
The truth was there wasn’t any food in my house to be eaten. My mom’s tips from stripping went to buy her alcohol and pills. Every now and then we’d get lucky and there’d be enough for one meal in the cabinets or fridge. Most of the time though, that food wasn’t for us, it was for one of her boyfriends. So she could cook and play house.
No, Cole and I were old enough to fend for ourselves. My mother’s exact words whenever either one of us complained about there being nothing to eat. It was hard to fend for yourself when you didn’t have any money. This was why I had found myself a part-time job at a little frozen yogurt and ice cream shop within walking distance from my house. Minimum wage four nights a week wasn’t much, but it was more than what I had before I got hired so it counted as something.
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