Find You in the Dark by A. Meredith Walters
Prologue
How did I get here? When was it that my life took this insane detour into the gigantic mess that I now saw when I looked in the mirror? Sure, everything had started so simply. A look, a touch, a kiss. Your first love is supposed to be beautiful, right?
And maybe it still is. I don't know. All I do know is that I'm kneeling on this nasty bathroom floor in a dingy motel room in bum fuck Egypt, wiping my boyfriend's blood off the gritty tiles. The skin of my knees raw from my morbidly methodical task. The stinging of tears burns my vision and I feel like I'm about to follow him off the edge.
Wipe, scrub, sweep. That's what I'm doing. Wiping up the turmoil of our relationship. Sweeping away the anger, the hurt, the fear. Scrubbing it all away as I try to figure out how to piece myself back together.
But then I remember those elusive moments. The tiny slivers of time that help me recognize that it wasn't all bad. Because I love him. And he loves me, in the only way he can. Perhaps my only failing was not seeing that I wasn't able to hold it together on my own.
But I'm not one to give up - or forget. As much as they wanted me to. Because he had, for a moment in time, been my world. My focus, my entire being. And it's hard to think I am now without that. And maybe what we had, for those few blissful months, had truly been beautiful. Crazy beautiful. Or maybe just crazy.
Who knows. I was scared, tired and alone and missing that vital part of myself that had once felt whole and complete and now felt sad and empty. Wipe, scrub, sweep.
The holes would close up. The ripping seams would come together. But I would never be as I was before. Before him. My crazy beautiful love.
Chapter 1
“You have got to be kidding me.” I groaned, kicking the tire of my piece of crap Toyota Corolla that had conveniently refused to start. Standing in my driveway, I unleashed every curse word imaginable as the minutes slowly ticked toward my inevitable tardiness. “Won't start again, Maggie girl?” My father had poked his head out of the screen door. He had most likely been made aware of my predicament by my sailor worthy tirade.
Sighing, I slammed my car door shut and picked up my messenger bag. “Nooo...” I drug out the word in tired defeat. My dad held the door open for me as I made my way back into the house. “Didn't you just have it in the shop two weeks ago?” My dad asked as I slammed my bag down on the kitchen table and threw myself into a chair.
I blew my bangs out of my eyes in frustration. I didn't bother answering. Everything was going so spectacularly wrong today. I shouldn't have bothered to get out of bed. Maybe I should fake a cough or something and try to convince my dad to let me stay home.
My father took a bite of toast, crumbs falling into his neatly trimmed beard. “Well, I'll drive you to school. Can't have you missing that big chemistry test.” He smirked at me, as if reading my inner plot to skip school.
I groaned for the millionth time that morning. I'd completely forgotten about the test but of course my dad, with his iron trap brain, remembered. Well, that thoroughly screwed up any chance of a good day. Merry freaking Monday.
“Maggie May, what are you still doing here? The tardy bell rings in T minus ten minutes.” My mother breezed into the kitchen, pouring herself a cup of coffee and conferring with her watch to make sure she wasn't mistaken of the time. Looking at my super serious, all business, pretty fantastic looking mother, I wondered, and not for the first time, how I could have been made from her DNA. She was my opposite in every possible way. Where her hair was blonde and shampoo commercial perfect, mine was a dull, mousy brown that refused to be managed into anything resembling a fashionable style. My mom had a perfect figure. She didn't look anywhere near her age. Where I had the misfortune of being dubbed a “late bloomer.” My underwhelming cup size and non-existent hips were hardly anything to write home about.
But I did have her eyes. And I will say, allowing myself zero modesty, they were pretty awesome. I loved that I shared the same sparkly green and dark lashes. They were my best trait- (well aside from my astounding wit and amazing personality, of course-) and I received my fair share of compliments because of them. So, no, you couldn't compare me to the back end of a dog or anything but, like most teenagers, I was anything but pleased with myself.
“Her car wouldn't start. I'm just getting ready to take her to school.” My dad filled in before I could answer. My mom gave me a sympathetic smile before giving her husband a rather obnoxiously sweet kiss good morning. They were really nauseating at times, the way they were still so in love with each other. Though, deep down, I just wanted the same thing and I spent a lot of time freaking out that I would never find it. But that was a panic attack for another time.
“We can help you with it this time, you know. You worked really hard over the summer to buy it and it's been nothing but trouble since you parked it in the driveway.” My mom, despite her Barbie perfect appearance, and a no-nonsense accountant personality, was pretty awesome. I took the bagel she handed to me and licked the cream cheese from the top.