Prologue

Nic

Five years ago…

"M om?"

Instead of an answer, all I get is a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach.

"Mom, I have to go," I try again, this time taking a step into the darkened room. I make sure to tell her that I have to go––that I emphasize how it's not my choice to leave her.

For what feels like the hundredth time just today, I think of my dad and feel disgusted by him.

"Mom…" I swallow back the plea, the words I know she won't really hear.

When my throat starts to burn, I straighten my spine and step back. She doesn't need the burden of my emotions. She's dealing with enough of her own. So, I settle on just finishing the goodbye.

"I love you. I'll see you in a few days, okay? I'll call you. Try to answer it…" I look at her bedside table to make sure her phone is plugged in. I don't want it to die. "There's food in the freezer." No answer, no reassurance that she'll bother to actually get up and eat anything. Paulina, our next-door neighbor, has said that she'll come over once a day, and while asking for help makes me sick, it is a relief.

She'll make sure she eats something. And a demented part of me thinks that she'll be here if my mom…

I shouldn't even be leaving. She needs me here. My dad doesn't understand. He makes me leave her because he doesn't know how bad things have gotten, what kinds of damage he's done. Probably doesn't even care.

I still don't know if I'm doing the right thing by keeping quiet. But then I think of telling him, the only other person I really know who's supposed to help me, and I just know it wouldn't be good. They'd take me away—I'm only sixteen. I just have to suck it up, wait a couple more years.

But god. I'm so tired.

"Okay, Mom." I sigh. "I'll be home soon."

She doesn't move. She stays there, a lifeless lump under her covers in her dark room, and just doesn't move.

I can hear him honking as I enter the living room, and it dissolves any sorrow I was feeling. Something ugly and visceral takes its place, something hard and sharp. Something easier. I fucking hate him. And I hate them just as much. My stepmother and her son.

I know that it's my dad's fault, and I shouldn't blame them, the family he tries so hard to force on me. He was the one who had an obligation to my mom. But she knew he was married. It takes a shitty person to break up a family like that, to just take someone's husband and someone's father away. And Cade… he just pisses me off.

I don't even want my dad anymore, but it still bothers me that Cade gets him every single day. That he gets to see the parts of him that aren't absolute shit. That he gets to see my dad make his mom happy.

I used to get that. Now, I'm forced to see what's left—the after. After he's broken her.

He honks the horn again—holds it for an obnoxiously long time, and my hand stalls on the door handle. I don't feel all that well, but I don't know if it's a cold or the feeling of dread leaving typically causes. But I'm both cold and hot, so tired as I stand here in misery—the front door is all that's keeping me from seeing them. My dad's new, better family.

I drag in a heavy breath, sucking it up as I wipe a bead of sweat off my forehead before finally pulling the door open. My dad is smiling, but I'm not sure why.

Maybe because he's won. I'm old enough that I should be able to decide which parent I want to spend time with, but he's threatened more than once to take my mom to court if I don't go with him, and I know she couldn't handle that. She probably wouldn't even show.

And so here I am, walking towards him and feeling my blood thicken into something solid, something weighing me down more and more with every step I take. It's hard to breathe. It's always hard to breathe, like my lungs are operating on manual and if I don't make the conscious choice to do it, I just won't.

I have to look away from his face, not wanting to let him see just how repulsed I am by this whole situation. It's been three years of this, and it hasn't gotten any easier. Not for me and definitely not for my mom.

"Mijo, help him with his bags."

It confuses me for a split second before I realize he's talking to Cade. My hands tighten on the straps of my bags as he rushes to listen, to be the dutiful son my dad has always wanted.

"I got it, little brother," I say with a bite, using the words my father used when he introduced us to each other.

He scoffs, his stupid smile that seems to always be there in the presence of my dad disappearing, but I ignore him. It's just two bags and I'm more than capable of throwing them in the trunk myself.

"Your hair…" It's Tracey who speaks when I get in the car. "The white patch is growing. Isn't it, Anton? Doesn't it look bigger?" She turns around in her seat to look at me, and I do my best not to look daggers at her. I'll snap soon, but avoiding a fight for as long as I can is for the best.

A lot of people get fixated on my skin and what the vitiligo does to my hair, and she's no exception. She brings it up every time I see her. Every. Time. I have two patches of white hair on my head, one just at my hairline for everyone to see the split second they look at me, and the other on the back of my head—and nobody lets me forget it.

Her hand reaches out like she's going to touch me, and I recoil. I can't help it, but what the hell? What about my demeanor made her think I'd just let her, of all people, touch me like that?

"Sorry!" She holds her palm out like she just approached a skittish dog or something and it just bothers me that much more.

"Nic," my dad's voice warns. "Don't start."

My mouth opens to say something, but nothing comes out. He doesn't care, doesn't want to hear it.

"Wipe that look off your face," he tells me, but since I can't do that just yet, I turn my head and face the window.

"It was my fault." Tracey's voice is small, gnaws at me in a way that itches. She's so fucking fake . They all are.

"She didn't even do anything," Cade defends his mom, and I don't bother keeping the dirty look off of my face as I look at him. He's expressed more than once that he doesn't like how I treat his mom, but I don't care. He doesn't even know the half of it.

He just smiles all the damn time as he lives his happy life with his happy mom and my dad. So fuck him.

My dad tries to change the subject. He lightens his voice as he asks the car if they want to stop somewhere to get food. Cade is apparently excited about that, has all sorts of opinions.

"Nic?"

"I don't care." He hates when I say that, and before all of this, it's not something I would have said to him—at least not in that tone. It's disrespectful. But my dad isn't who I once believed him to be, and he doesn't deserve my respect.

"Let's go to Gino's!"

I scoff, once again looking at Cade like he's a literal piece of shit. Because he is. "That place is gross."

"You just said that you don't care where we go," he huffs.

I grit my teeth. I did just say that. "Doesn't mean I want food poisoning."

"You don't––I've never gotten food poisoning from there. Liam and I eat there all the time. Literally every time we come down here."

I roll my eyes. He's so far up his best friend's ass it's ridiculous. "Yeah, well, your boyfriend isn't here. So I say we eat somewhere else."

"He's not––" he clamps his mouth shut, face getting red. It makes me smile, which only makes his blush worse. "Not everyone is gay, Nicolas."

"That's true," I shrug, ignoring the dig at my sexuality and his use of my full name. "But you are. For Liam." I turn my head back towards the road before he can respond.

Honestly, I mean that. He likes his best friend a little too much. He talks about him obsessively and looks at him with total heart eyes. Defends him with his whole chest when I so much as mention the guy.

"Shut the fuck up," he shoves at me, the impact blunt and jarring.

"What the hell? Keep your hands to yourself," I sneer, rubbing at my shoulder like I can actually remove that touch. Guess he inherited that trait from his mom.

"Boys!" my dad snaps, and Cade stills. "Nic, don't make me turn this car back around. I'll leave you at your––"

"Fine! Do it. That's what I want." But he knows that.

"It's what everyone wants," Cade adds, and I don't even feel the need to respond.

It is what everyone wants. I don't know why my dad insists on dragging me to his house, but all it does is shove his new family down my throat. Force them to put up with me. Forces me to watch them be the kind of family mine used to be.

It hurts. It's suffocating. I can feel my heart rate quickening, the familiar feel of ants crawling all over my face. I don't want to leave my mom behind like he did. Cold and alone and drowning because that's what she's doing right now.

"I don't want to go, Anton ." My voice is shaky. I don't want that. I don't want these people to hear that. So I dig my fingers in my thigh, letting the sharp burn ground me. It clears my head almost instantly, a crutch I shouldn't be so relieved to have. "I want to stay home." I close my eyes and can't help but resume worrying about my mom, who's been alone for mere minutes.

It hasn't been long at all, but it's hard to deal with because I left her alone.

"If he wants to stay at his mom's, I don't see why––"

"Don't talk about her." My voice is low as I speak to just Cade, and I don't feel nearly as tough as I sound. But I keep my fingers pressed hard into my leg––a bead of sweat on my forehead and a coldness blanketing my skin emphasizing just how much it hurts. How much pain I'm in. I think about how much I wish I felt that pain like I used to as my breaths come faster, shallower.

Tracey turns the radio up, like that'll somehow stop my dad from ranting. But he's pissed, no longer willing to turn around. Because, of course, now that he knows that's what I actually want, he's against the idea.

"Nic," Cade whispers, but I ignore him. I stare ahead at the back of his mom's seat, trying hard to ignore all of them––him, his mom, my dad and his berating. " Nic, " his hand grips mine, and I jerk it out of his hold.

" Stop . Touching me." What even is that?

"You're bleeding." He's still whispering, and maybe that's why it takes me a second to understand him, but when I do, my eyes fall to my lap.

Oh . I should have bandaged it, but it's been a few days. There shouldn't be that much. A lot of times, they don't bleed at all. This is… it's a lot.

"Nic, maybe you should––"

"Maybe you should mind your own business." I expect him to look annoyed. Maybe mad.

But he just keeps staring at me in a way nobody has looked at me in a long time. Like he's worried. It makes me uncomfortable. I kind of want to hit him, but I don't want to draw any attention back here.

"It's fine," I rush to say, but he doesn't seem convinced. "Don't make this a thing."

He takes a beat, his thoughts loud as he considers the situation—so loud that they smother the sound of mine. I don't understand. Why does he even care?

His head nods after a bit, moving slowly and again, I'm confused. I'm relieved but also… something close to unsettled. Maybe disappointed.

Nobody ever worries about me.

He looks at my leg again, where I have a palm lying flat over the blood that's still seeping through the fabric, and this time, his head shakes.

"Nic is bleeding," he says loudly, voice steady as he looks away from me. "A lot—his leg."

I want to be pissed, but I'm just… tired. I'm so tired .

And when my dad turns his head to look at me, I take the easiest deep breath I've taken in a few years.