PROLOGUE

Six years ago,

It’s official, I’m in love.

Is it a little cliché, yes but that’s the only way to describe the way I feel about him. He’s so dreamy and I get to call him mine. I was resigned to the fact that I would never fall in love and I’m glad to have been wrong.

The past six months have brought me so much joy and satisfaction and Carter has been at the helm of it, he’s made me deliriously happy and has exceeded all that I thought that I knew about love. I can finally say that I am living the w*****d life.

My alarm rings and I flinch in surprise, I can’t believe that I am daydreaming again but truthfully since I started dating Carter, this has been my life. I check the time and it’s 6:40, barely 30 minutes before my best friend gets here and that girl is overtly punctual so she’s going to be here on time.

I run into the bathroom, brush my teeth and take the fastest shower known to man and I’m out in record time. I pull on my favorite pair of jeans and a nice jumper, while I’m brushing my hair I hear the loud horn of my best friend’s car and I hurry downstairs to grab an apple.

I find my aunt by the fridge and I kiss her goodbye as I grab an apple and my lunch and head out to meet Janet, I get into her car and she immediately speeds off, I swear you’d think Janet has an important thing that she’s rushing to meet but she’s just a weird driver.

We pull into our favorite coffee shop and order for coffee, I always get a caramel macchiato, an iced Americano for Carter and Janet always gets hot chocolate.

She only drinks coffee during exams, I don’t know what weird tradition that is but she swears by it and I’ll never judge my best friend. She does not talk until she gets her drink and takes a huge sip, then she sighs, takes a deep breath and then smiles so big while telling the barista that he’d be invited to her wedding.

Then she turns and hugs me tight and immediately starts chattering away about how much she’s going to miss the coffee in our hometown when she goes to college.

I don’t think she remembers that we have two years before we are off to college. But I don’t remind her as I’m a little worried because Carter will be leaving for college by next year and I don’t know how to feel about that, primarily because he doesn’t seem worried about it and he’s told me severally that he’s happy with me but he’s not an insecure girl like me and I’m not sure he’d want to stick with me when he could choose from the various girls outside.

We get to school and I get out of the car in search of Carter, he likes his ice present in his coffee and I love seeing him smile so I put in effort to make that happen. I get to the hallways and everybody is looking at me weird, I would be bothered but this has been the norm since I started dating Carter.

When I get to class, I put my bag down but the stares are a little more concerning. Some are looking at me with pity and others are murmuring. At this point I am already a little worried, I walk out of class and run into Janet, and when she asks me if there’s any problem, I’m convinced that something is wrong. I practically skip to the football locker room to avoid the stares and also see my boyfriend.

When I get to the locker room there is a crowd forming right outside, the last time there was a gathering like this, Stanley (a boy in our set) was forced to come out as gay, he was utterly humiliated to find out that the person he was in love with was using him to pass time as he was fully in a relationship.

Stanley was forced to drop out of school and the last I heard of him was that he relocated to another city. Since then school relationships scared me but that was before Carter.

Walking closer, the crowd started to part ways and the whispers get worse, I am having a weird feeling and as I get to the front of the locker room the reason for the strange feeling is clear.

I’m on the monitor, I see pictures, so many pictures, I’m half naked in these pictures. I took some of them, they’re all pictures of me, but these pictures are private. I took these pictures for Carter.

Why are they here? How did they get here? Where is Carter? Has he seen this? What do I do? I can’t breathe properly, My head is spinning, how is this happening to me? I can’t believe this, this shouldn’t be happening. I look around frantically for Carter and I spot him by the dispenser.

I try to run to him but the look on his face stops me, that’s not Carter, he never looks at me like that. This person is looking at me like I’m nothing, like I’m scum, it’s almost like he hates me, that would be wrong though because Carter loves me.

I mean he tells me every day. I’m sure he’s not looking at me like that, I continue walking towards him and the next thing I see is something that I will never forget. I see Camila walking towards him, she’s his ex-girlfriend and the resident mean girl.

He hates her, he has said it a thousand times so why is he opening his arms to her? Why is he kissing her? I don’t understand anything that’s going on right now. I walk towards him and he stops me with a raised palm,

“Carter, baby what’s happening”? “Why are these pictures here”? “Please do something about it, did you get hacked”? His face remains stoic until a small smirk starts right around his mouth and I watch as it slowly turns into a malicious grin. He laughs darkly and raises one brow up

“How does it feel”? “Do you like my surprise”? “You should like it, I took a lot of time to prepare it”. “Look at you, this is who you truly are under all that controlled poise and armor”. “A pathetic little girl who is so desperate for attention that you will become a puppet for anybody who gives you a bit of attention". “Did you actually think that I loved you?" “That I Carter Cole would be satisfied with a frumpy little thing like you”? “You’re supposed to be smart, it’s a pity that you are just another troubled youth”. “You were a fun time and now it’s time to get serious”.

He sneered at me while he shot the final nail into the coffin “your virginity was a nice bonus though, something worthwhile to bring excitement to your otherwise boring life”.

Then he turned around to walk away and in hindsight I wasn’t doing good which is probably why I did the dumbest thing I have ever tried, I threw his ice coffee at his back and the cup hit him square in the back and it’s contents poured all over his uniform.

I didn’t even realize what I had done until the various gasps reached my crazy state of mind. He turned around and laughed and his reply was so scathing, he looked straight at me and said

“What would I expect from someone with a crazy mother”? “Your mum is in a mental home, there’s still space there”. “Maybe you can even have a family reunion and you can cross it out of your little diary”. “I never want to see you again”. Then he angrily took off his shirt, threw it at me and walked out.

I couldn’t breathe anymore, I’d forgotten how to. I started hyperventilating, I couldn’t see straight, things started becoming blurry and I felt myself slipping out of consciousness.

I could just about make out a voice calling me before my head touched the ground, my only thoughts were that dying didn’t sound so bad and that I am truly better off dead.

I remember begging God to take my life because I was such a disappointment to him. My last thought was that if I miraculously survived this ordeal, I would never fall in love again. The screams were getting louder and then I slipped into darkness.