After stuffing the clothes back into the cupboard, Shalin dropped the backpack containing the illegal outfit out of the window and into the flower bed below. Casey felt a tingle of excitement mixed with guilt at the prospect of deceiving one of her parents but she didn't think any serious harm would come from it.

The two girls left the bedroom looking like a bull had been through it and made their way to the front door. Just as Shalin reached out to turn the doorknob, a voice came from the kitchen.

"Casey?" Is that you?" Taylor Marlin, Casey's mom asked.

"Uh, yeah it's me, mom." She answered nervously, remembering the backpack. Shalin rolled her eyes impatiently.

"Where are you two off to in such a hurry?" Taylor asked as she appeared in the living room doorway.

"Uh... just down to the beachfront for a milkshake." She answered quickly, realizing that she actually had no idea where or what Shalin had planned for the day.

"Don't forget you have an appointment with the pageant director at 3 pm sharp," Taylor instructed and then turned her attention to Shalin.

"How is your dad doing Shalin? Taylor asked carefully. Shalin's father Greg was Taylor's younger brother.

"Same as always, skunk drunk. Come on Casey, let's go." Shalin yanked the door open and stepped outside. Casey shrugged uncomfortably before following her cousin into the sunlit garden.

When Shalin was two weeks old, her mother left to buy a pack of Marlboros and simply never came back. Greg, who was recovering alcoholic, buckled under the pressure of having to look after a newborn and fell head first into the bottle. Fearing for her niece's young life, Taylor and her husband Mike raised Shalin for the first ten years of her life.

When Shalin turned eleven, Greg seemed to have gotten himself back together and wanted his daughter to come home. Reluctantly, Taylor packed her nieces things and told her to call if there were any problems. An angry and confused Shalin had no choice but to return home with her estranged father.

Greg fell off of the wagon regularly, leaving a very young Shalin to clean up his vomit and empty bottles of whiskey. At the tender age of twelve, when other girls her age were playing dolls and dreaming of prince charming, Shalin was cleaning up after her father and juggling school work with housework. She often longed for her life with Casey and her family but then she would remember the day that her Aunt packed her up and sent her off with her dad. 

That was the day Shalin exchanged the sweet smell of coffee and toast in the morning for whiskey, puke, and cheap aftershave. She visited her cousin regularly but always gave Taylor a wide berth. Deep down she silently wished that her Aunt would come to her rescue and ask her to come back. She imagined them going to pack her few measly belongings, leaving her drunk father behind. This did not happen though and Shalin felt as if Taylor and the world had turned a blind eye to what was happening. A strong sense of resentment began to build within her, the mother /daughter relationship between Casey and Taylor only serving to stoke the glowing coals of animosity.

Shalin did not have many school friends except for Casey but then again, she was also her cousin so that didn't count. On one of the few days that she was at school, a new boy with curly brown hair resembling a bird's nest, and eyes as dark as diesel took a seat in the desk next to hers.

James was thirteen when his dad opted out of this life, leaving his young son to discover him, and what little was left of his head after a single shotgun blast ripped through the roof of his mouth. James' mother Ruth slowly turned in on herself, shutting out the world with enough sleeping pills and booze to bring down an elephant.

Her older sister Sarah suggested that Ruth and James move in with her for fear of what would happen to the young boy if he remained in his drugged up mothers care.

Now five years later, James and Shalin shared a deep bond based on their traumatic childhood experiences. Bound together by a mutual hurt and suffering, taking turns to stir and feed off of each other's destructive and negative natures.