It turned out, Lucinda didn't really cook.

I guess she was the type of mom who only pretended to cook. Her pantry was filled with food, her cupboards had spices, and flour and baking soda. Her fridge had all the green vegetables they tell you you'll rot without eating.

But, she didn't use them.

And when she bought take out, it wasn't the type of takeout that comes in plastic wrappers and paper bags. It was the kind of takeout that's transferred onto expensive plates, and served on a fully set dining room table.

It was a quiet dinner. Lucinda made small talk. I acted as best I could. I answered her questions with what I thought was the right answer. I tried to smile as I did it. She could tell something was off, though. I guess my acting wasn't as good as I thought.

"You'll get used to this new schedule soon," Lucinda said sincerely, as she cleared my almost full plate from in front of me.

It wasn't that the food was bad. My body just didn't seem to want anything else inside of it.

"Yeah," I said carefully, leaning directly into the lie she had provided me. "I guess I'm just not used to school anymore."

Of course I wasn't, but for a different reason that I was implying. After working 50 hours a week for the last year, summer school was a breeze.

"The important thing is that you're trying," Lucinda smiled back down at me, although in the moment it felt a tad condescending, I couldn't quite blame her for it. I was trying.

But again, my reasons for trying were entirely different than she knew. Right now, I wasn't trying to assimilate into this bizarre new world of mine. I was just trying to find any oxygen that I could.

My lungs felt empty with each and every breath. As if I had just finished running for hours. I just couldn't catch it. There was no oxygen left for me.

I stood from the table, intending to follow Lucinda into the kitchen to help clean up. She stopped me before I could get very far, with a gentle hand on my arm.

"You don't worry about this," she said gently, "go rest. You deserve it."

I plastered a smile on my face as I received her words, nodding quickly. I didn't attempt to trade more nice words with her. My jaw was beginning to tense at her statement, my teeth clenching together.

I turned quickly, walking through the rooms and out of the back door. I didn't allow myself to look into the pool like I wanted, I immediately went into the pool house.

Go rest, you deserve it.

I didn't. I didn't deserve rest and I didn't deserve any of this. What would they do if they ever found out what I did? What would they do if they ever found out what I allowed to happen?

I rubbed my hands against my face as I stood in the middle of the room, just trying to force oxygen into my body. Although Lucinda was wrong, she was also right. I didn't deserve rest, but I needed it.

I needed to sleep for as long as I could, and pray that when I woke up, my mind would co-operate with my body. Maybe, it was a stretch to suggest I could forget what happened between me and Erik.

But, maybe I could make peace with it.

I brushed my teeth without looking at myself in the mirror. I didn't want to see my body, or my face. Of course, I had to put my turtle neck sweater back on before having dinner with Lucinda. I certainly couldn't allow her to see the bruises that happened last night.

I didn't look down at myself as I changed into something more comfortable. I chose a pair of sweatpants and another long sleeve shirt. Even though it was just me here, I wanted those bruises to remain covered.

I walked over to the bed. Mentally, I was talking myself up. I didn't want to lay there. A bad thing had happened there. I didn't want to sleep there. Bad things happened when I slept there. I did things I wasn't suppose to do when I slept there.

When I reached it, I wanted to push myself into it. Of course, I physically couldn't do that, but it seemed I mentally couldn't, either. So I stood. And I stared. I stared at the white bedding. For minutes, until my vision became blurry.

In my mind, I imagined pulling the sheets back and climbing into it. I pictured doing the actions. I pictured the way my hands would grab the blanket, pulling it down to reveal the white sheets inside. But my mind betrayed me.

As I pictured doing the action, the sheets were stained with blood. A large pool of bright red blood. The blood I had metaphorically lost.

I jumped, shaking my head quickly to rid myself of the mental image that I had created. I felt my breathing begin to quicken, my chest muscles tightening against my already strained lungs. With each breath I tried to pull, my mind became blurred.

I couldn't be here. I couldn't sleep here. I couldn't exist here.

As though my body knew better than my mind, I walked quickly towards my closet, reaching towards the torn duffle bag I had came to Sapphire Cove with. I opened it hastily, routing around until I found what I needed.

I pulled it from the inside pocket I had stashed it in. I had almost gotten rid of it. I was thankful now, that I hadn't.

It was my most expensive belonging. My own dead eyes looked back at me. Though, maybe they hadn't been dead, when I took the fraudulent picture two years ago. Maybe, just dying.

I had needed this fake ID for a few reasons. To rent an apartment. To get a serving job at the restaurant. I had never used it for what I was about to use it for, now.

I didn't change as I shoved it into my pocket, along with the only twenty dollars I had left to my name. I just pushed my feet into my shoes.

My mind had begun to calm down. Maybe, because it had a purpose, now. Something to focus on.

Darkness had fallen in the time I had spent in the pool house. That was great. I doubted Lucinda would be able to see me sneak around the large house, or push open the side gate. She couldn't have been able to see me disappear down the driveway.

Once I was down it, I didn't slow. I walked quickly down the posh neighbourhood. I wasn't alone on the sidewalks. There was an odd loner, every couple of minutes, walking their expensive and well groomed dogs. They looked at me with suspicion, but they left me alone.

I played with the fake ID in my pocket until I reached the centre of town. It was close to the school, filled with shops that didn't have chain names. I chose my destination wisely. Not the expensive, artisan grocery store with hundred dollar wine. The gas station, of course.

The bright lights slightly stunned me as I stepped into the store. It was empty, only the cashier at the front to keep me company. I nodded in that direction, but already, my eyes were scanning the back cooler.

This would help, I nodded as I spoke to myself in my head. I've seen proof that it would help.
This would take most of my thoughts away. And the ones it couldn't take away, the loudest ones— well, this would certainly quiet them.

Enough. Enough that I could sleep.

Once I reached the cooler, I debated my choices. Performing the math in my head, I knew I didn't have many of those choices. There was beer, I could afford beer. That didn't seem like it would be enough. Wine, maybe. Vodka.

But then I saw it. Gordon's Gin. I remembered the label instantly. It's what my mom used to drink.

And it was only $15.99. And if it could quiet the thoughts in my mom's fucked up brain, it surely could work on mine.

I grabbed it without a second thought. I was calm as I walked back towards the cashier. I wasn't worried about him finding out my ID was fake. I wasn't a immature jock trying to buy beer for the first time. Even though I hadn't done this before, buying alcohol underage, I had done this before.

I stared straight at the cashier, who I took in finally, for the first time, as I landed the bottle of booze on the counter. He was younger than I expected. Maybe a year or two older than me. Maybe not. He had shaggy brown hair, and a grey beanie covering most of it.

He looked back at me, tilting his head as he did so. He smiled. I had no idea why. I stared back at him. I didn't smile. I didn't care about him. I just wanted the booze. I just wanted my thoughts to be quiet.

"You 21?" He asked, a hint of humor in his voice.

"Yeah," I said carelessly, and before he could ask, I flung my fake ID onto the counter.

He smiled even wider, cooly reaching across and grabbing it. He brought it up to his eye-line, like he was comparing it to me.

"Dolly Woods," he chuckled, as he spoke my fraudulent name. A single shock of pain hit me as he did, though it was a weak shock.

Dolly was my mom's nickname for me, after all.

"Dolly Woods, aged 22, from..." he paused, raising one of his eyebrows, "Ohio."

"Can I just pay you so I can get the hell out of here?" I spoke before thinking, my voice coming out ruder than it should have.

He chuckled, again. Like my entire essence amused him. He didn't break eye contact as he punched numbers into the register. "$17.03, Miss. Woods."

I threw the twenty onto the counter, snatching my ID from his hands. I took my bottle of gin, and I turned and left, without waiting for him to give me my change.

I sighed a breath of relief as I exited the store, feeling calmer now that I had unfettered access to the alcohol. Though, as far as my plan went— this was it. I had no where else to go. I looked around me, shrugging as I walked to the far corner of the parking lot.

I sat on the curb, eagerly twisting the cap off the gin. I didn't hesitate as I brought it to my mouth, and though it tasted like fire I gulped it down any way. I wanted my thoughts to be quiet.

So— I sat. And I drank. In the dirty asphalt, exactly like the degenerate everyone here had expected from me. And though cars past by, no one bothered me.

For a while, anyway.

By the time the cashier from the store approached me, I was already drunk.

He didn't say anything as he sat beside me. He didn't seem to care that he would get dirty, or that it was just gross behaviour. He just sat.

"You're not from around here, huh Dolly?" He asked me, bringing his arms around his knees.

I didn't look at him, I just took another drink. I didn't have any alarm bells ringing. I wasn't sure it was because I wasn't in any danger, or because the alcohol in my blood had disabled those alarms completely.

"What gave it away? My ID from Ohio?" I retorted, blankly.

"You ain't never been to Ohio a day in your life,  have you?" He asked me, and I could hear the humor in his voice.

"I live here," I told the guy. I wasn't lying, was I?

"You haven't lived here for long," he stated, as though he knew it was a fact.

"And how would you know?" I asked him, finally turning to look at him.

He was watching me with an amused look in his eyes. Like I was a kind of story he had never heard before. He looked younger than he had when we standing beneath the harsh lights. He was definitely around my age. But I could tell something about him, too. He didn't look like he was from around here, either.

"I can just tell," he shrugged, smiling at me. "You might look the part," he looked down at the clothes Daisy had bought for me. "Partially. Expensive clothes. Expensive shoes. Your eyes are kinda dead though."

His bluntness startled me, enough that I felt my facial expression change.

He laughed at that, again. "The kids around here— they haven't lived enough to have dead eyes, yet."

I didn't speak. I was still stunned by his candid, rude words.

"I'm Colt," he continued, raising his hand in a fist towards me, "don't worry. My eyes are kinda dead, too."

I let a pause grow, enough that Colt dropped his hand without making contact with mine. I said the first thing I could think of.

"Colt? Like a gun?"

Colt's eyebrows raising again, his wide smile re-emerging. He opened his mouth, about to speak, but the bright lights of a car pulling up directly in front of us caused him to stop.

"Dahlia?" I heard his voice, and of course, I knew who it was. "Are you fucking joking me?"

Sterling stepped out of the car, leaving the door wide open. I looked at his face, unable to read the weird expression on his face. It looked a bit like panic.

"Are you okay?" He asked me, before his eyes turned to Colt. "And what the hell you doing with her?"