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CHAPTER ONE

Amber

Regret pressed down on ; I couldn’t let lance at Dad It wasn’t only my happiness on the line if I failed His hands clutched the steering wheel as if it was the only thing keeping him rooted He didn’t look my way He alht sos were easier, in a time when I was still myself, when I kne to be happy

I turned back to theCars and houses were a streak of color as we drove by Motion sickness led with nerves in my stomach

Why had I ever thought this was a good idea?

Because after three years of hiding at ho in on ht of my room And yet it was a safe place for me, possibly the only safe place A place where nobody ever bothered me, where I could be alone – except for the few hours I spent with Dad after he came home from work

But I couldn’t go on like this, or I'd never learn to live again

Learning to live again

That's all Dad wantedtoo much about me for the last three years, and for entirely different reasons than e children But I never truly got the chance to be a teenager The incident prevented that, and though I' down onalready

I feel old, worn out, drained

The happy young girl froone, replaced by a shadow of my former self

Souess how much worse it was for Dad and ed; how I'd slowly h the motions of the day because I had to, not because I wanted to

I kneas time to leave my shell and socialize I wished it was as easy as it sounded, but if one thing wasn’t easy forinto contact with other people Closeness was pure torture for me It made my skin crawl People scared me Sometimes I wondered if it would always be like that

I hated it when people watched me as if I was a freak because of the way I acted I tried so hard to be like them, tried to act normal

But nor closeness re I feared evenreminded of what had happened and what I'd lost – were too much for me to bear They reminded me of what could never be

I was broken

Broken with no chance to ever be mended