Chapter 1

Four years earlier, the escape

Lately, I’ve been looking at myself in the mirror and I wonder who is that young woman looking back at me. What happened to her?

There’s a glazed look in her eyes and tiredness and yet she is alert all at the same time. She appears to be sad and depressed when he isn’t here.

With a sigh, I plaster on a smile. Dean loves you; it’s going to a good day.

“Yeah, keep telling yourself that”, the woman in the mirror smirks at me, “It may be a different day, but it’ll end the same as every other day, and it’s your fault” she points her finger at me, blaming me. I look away from the mirror. I can’t stand the bitch telling me how stupid I am; I know it’s my fault. I don’t need her to point it out.

I should have cooked something different. Maybe that would have made a difference.

Last night was a bad one. I’m surprised I can even walk straight with what he did to me last night. I feel so damn tender, and when I use the restroom, the burning and stinging sensation makes me grit my teeth in pain. I don’t know what it is he used; I stop that train of thought. I don’t want to know what he used.

Sliding down the bathroom wall, I curl into a ball, “What am I going to do?” I whisper aloud. I can’t live like this anymore.

I feel like I’m at a precipice, a figurative fork in the road. When I look at a future with Dean, it’s bleak and dark. When I look at getting away from him and his torture, I see my family and friends murdered at his hands.

But I have another option, one that looks like blissful peace. The only thing that’s stopping me from taking that last option is my family.

But wouldn’t they want me to finally be at peace?

I pick myself up off the floor and finish my make-up. I need to look reasonably good for when I see mum today. Every time I see her these days, I have to put makeup on, dress well and a fake smile so that she won’t notice the sickly paleness of my complexion or the glassy look in my eyes. All of this is a mask that helps me prepare for the lies I always have to spill when I see my family and friends. 

Today I will be asking a lot of my mother. I stare at the paperwork sitting on the edge of the sink. I have to make her sign them, a glance at the clock and I realise I’m late. I check myself in the mirror; my make up is flawless, my hair is as good as it’s going to get with my wild curls, it always looks untamed, I shrug what can I do, I snap the papers up and carefully place them in my bag.

I have to take the bus to mums. Dean’s a mechanic and loves his cars. We have four of them, but I’m not allowed to drive any of them. Dean says they’re too precious for a woman to be behind the wheel. I get it. He built all four of them from the ground up, I don’t want to mess with any of them up, but I do wish I could take one of them right now, especially the shiny cherry red beast.

With a last glance at the beautiful car, I walk to the bus stop and start reminiscing. How the hell did I get here?

I was Sixteen years old when Dean and I met for the first time. Sixteen is nothing; what do Sixteen-year old’s care about in this world?

Usually, it’s when you start to think about whether you will continue with your schooling or you head into the workforce. That’s about as serious as things could get at that age. I mean gossip is everything.

“Did you hear the teachers caught Reggie kissing Chrissy under the stairs in D Block!”

“I heard he touched her boob!”

A small laugh escapes me as I reach the bus stop, those were the days when girls gossiped, and the boys flexed to impress.

I used to be a playful, flirty teen. I preferred to live in the moment, carefree and foot loose as Gran would say. I was too young to really care about anyone’s feelings. I mean I had zero responsibilities at sixteen. All I was thinking about was boys and my friends.  But mostly boys, boys, and more boys.

I was never much for school. I always loved reading; that was my escape from all realities of my world. 

I wanted so desperately to be the girl from one of my books that is rescued by the bad boy who would make me feel protected, safe, and understood. I wanted to be happy. I knew at that age that my ultimate dream was to have my own little family in my own tiny home with my perfect obsessive husband. Obsessive in that good sexy way.

But marriage and family was so far into the future that right in that moment at sixteen, I just wanted to have fun and boy did I have fun.

The day came when I woke, and boom, I had boobs. Yep, any prior warnings against boys given by my mother went out the window when the hormones flew in, and my boobs grew overnight. I was one of the unfortunate girls who developed quickly and far earlier than most girls my age. I had the boys lining up around the block.

I didn’t realise that the boys only saw my boobs and not my face. That they didn’t want to get to know me for me. They only wanted to touch my boobs and would fall over themselves to get that touch. When it finally dawned on me, I understood that I could get what I wanted from a boy as long as they could cop a feel every now and then.

What I would also do for a boy is mould myself into what they wanted, and it was easy for me to discover what that was because I always got along with the boys more than the girls, and the boys didn’t mind me hanging out with them.

It didn’t always go so smoothly. High school girls can be fiercely competitive, especially around boys they like. I had my fair share of girls cornering me, thinking I was after someone that wasn’t even on my radar.  

The ones that were on my radar, I would discover what they wanted and became the girl of their sixteen-year-old wet dreams. If he was into football, so was I. If he liked R&B music – (yuk!) So, did I. If he loved cars, heck yeah, I was into cars too.

I would barrack for their football team. I would make a music playlist for these boys. Shit, I would go to the rally’s, the speedway, and the drag racers. I was 100% your ride or die girl totally devoted to you and not in that psycho clingy way either, because I knew boys didn’t like the clingers, that they liked the cool girls, and I was relaxed non clinger cool girl.

But that didn’t mean the boy would get off scot-free. He had to keep me interested; otherwise, I got bored, and I moved on with another boy I already had prepped and ready to go. Boys are so predictable they just love the chase; they don’t even realise the girl is in control the entire time.

I’m aware now this isn’t good behaviour and it isn’t a behaviour I learned from anyone. I stumbled into it, and as a teen, I had no idea the power I had claimed or that I was hurting people in the process.

I certainly did not get this behaviour from my mother, father or any other family or friend for that matter. I mean, my mother and sister are beautiful kind people. Mum worked multiple jobs to keep a roof over our head and feed our belly’s. My sister Abby had her hands full with their sweet baby girl named Lucy. She just got engaged to her fiancé Quinn. Everyone all had far too much on their plate to pay any attention to what I was doing.

My father has consistently been in and out of my life. All he has ever cared about is himself.

All I know is I desired to be desired, to be wanted and needed to have the attention of one person. Total round the clock devotion of all of their time and attention solely on me.

For the most part, I got it. I had lots of boyfriends, it didn’t mean that I had sex with any of them, I would grow tired and bored, or my boyfriend would get clingy, and I would move on to the next guy. Although a lot of them did tell their friends that we did ‘do it’.

I didn’t worry about the rumours that inevitably spread from it. I fooled myself into thinking that they must have cared because they had a hard time letting me go by telling me he was in love with me and when I wouldn’t take them back, they would tell everyone we had sex. I never denied it; I also never confirmed it either. People made their minds up about me, and it was like water off a duck’s back because, in the end, I was getting what I wanted.

Love.

Love always amused me. I so desperately wanted love, but I didn’t love any of them back. I liked them, of course. I mean, you never kissed a guy you didn’t like. I had a couple of favourites that I still think about now and then, wondering what they’re up to with their life. Are they married? Do they have kids? Are they happy?

Still, the rumours were rumours, and I didn’t care that I gained an unsavoury reputation for myself. I knew the truth and I was having fun, and that’s all that mattered to me. I was young and naïve and didn’t realize that my behaviour was so destructive to myself and everyone in my path.

Then it happened, he came into my life; he was a couple of years older than me, eighteen. The adults in my life called him a boy attempting to play a man, but he was a man to me, he wasn’t like the boys I went to school with. He wasn’t in school anymore. He had opted to go straight to work and worked full time as an apprentice mechanic, and he worked damn hard. He had heard about me through some mutual friends and wanted to meet.

Our friend set up the meeting and that’s when I saw Dean for the first time. I was gobsmacked. He’s so tall, muscular; I mean, you can see the definition of his muscles through his tight white t-shirt. I swear the cotton was going to rip in two if he so much as flexed. His hair is a beautiful chocolate brown, layered to rest on his shoulders and those smoldering dark brown almost black eyes. I swear a bit of drool just slipped from my mouth when I saw him strolling towards me.

I look away, embarrassed by my wayward thoughts; he gives me a warm smile when I look back at him. Tim chuckles: I poke my tongue at him, “Dean, this is Lilly, my friend from school.” Dean scowls at Tim for some reason, and Tim takes a wary step back.

“Hi, Lilly”, the way he says my name makes my stomach do little flip flops.

“Hi”, I responded shyly, unsure what to do; I’ve never had someone like him interested in someone like me. I’m just an inexperienced kid from high school. What could he possibly want from me?   

He turns to Tim, “Didn’t you say you had somewhere to be?”

Tim looks at me with concern as another boy walks towards us, “Yeah, sure, are you okay with that, Lilly?”, Dean scowls pissed at the insinuation.

“I’m fine, Tim. I promise.” I smile reassuringly

He nods but doesn’t look too convinced, “If, you’re sure.”

“I am. I don’t have much time anyway” I check my watch, “I have to be home shortly” Tim nods and waves, leaving me alone with Dean and a tall, skinny kid with similar dark eyes and dark hair.

“Lilly, this is my brother Reed. Reed, this is Lilly”

Reed holds out his hand, grinning, “Nice to meet you, Lilly” he blushes when I shake his hand.

“Go inside, Reed. Lilly, and I are just catching up.”

He looks to his brother and then back to me, disappointment etched on his face. He turns and goes straight into what I assume is their home.

He takes my hand, twining our fingers together. Looking into my eyes, he says, “I’m going to make you mine, Lilly.”

I giggle, blushing a shade of red that I don’t think they’ve named yet. “Have you ever been in love, Lilly?” he asks

I shake my head, “No, never. I’m too young to be in love.”

He smirks, “I’m going to make you fall in love with me, Lilly. My beautiful, sweet Lilly.”

I think I swooned right there. I’ve read this shit in books but never in real life had someone say these beautiful dominating words to me so fiercely. That’s when I understood the term swoon. I just thought it was some old-timey movie bs, where the woman presses the back of her hand to her head and faints. No, it’s so much more than that, a feeling that I can barely describe but swoon, almost like melting into a puddle of heat and desire.

The bus arrives, bringing me out of my revere; the driver opens the doors, allowing me onto the bus; I tap my card and take a seat quickly, ignoring the other passengers on the bus. I look out the window, watching the houses pass me by and head back into my daydream.

Dean made me feel like I was the only girl in the universe; every single day from that first meeting, he devoted himself to me; he loved me, adored me, told me how much he needed and wanted me. He was perfection. He made me feel special, worthy of him and no one else, and I didn’t want or need anyone else. There was only Dean. He was my rock and my world. I would do anything for him, and as he predicted, I fell completely and utterly in love with him.

And like all good things, soon even that came to an end.