FOR KEEPS. FOR ALWAYS.
HALEY JENNER
Copyright
Copyright © 2021 by Haley Jenner
All rights reserved.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Cover Design: Haley Jenner
Cover Image: Shutterstock
Editing: Ellie McLove @ My Brother’s Editor
Editing: Jenny Sims @ Editing4Indies
Proofreading: Michelle Clay @ Book Nerd Services
This book is intended for those 18 years and older. It contains content of an adult nature.
Dedication
To the stories that kept us company throughout the mayhem of 2020. The fictional worlds that offered us all a sliver of escape in a time of uncertainty. And to every one of the authors that gifted us that refuge.
Contents
Introduction
1. HENLEY
2. BROOKS
3. HENLEY
4. BROOKS
5. HENLEY
6. BROOKS
7. HENLEY
8. BROOKS
9. HENLEY
10. BROOKS
11. HENLEY
12. BROOKS
13. HENLEY
14. BROOKS
15. HENLEY
16. BROOKS
17. HENLEY
18. BROOKS
19. HENLEY
20. BROOKS
21. HENLEY
22. HENLEY
23. BROOKS
24. HENLEY
25. BROOKS
26. HENLEY
27. BROOKS
28. HENLEY
29. BROOKS
30. HENLEY
31. BROOKS
32. HENLEY
33. HENLEY
34. BROOKS
Epilogue
Brooks and Henley’s Playlist
About the Author
Also by HALEY JENNER
Some beautiful paths can’t be discovered without getting lost.
~ Erol Ozan
HENLEY
AGE 15
Lips pinched together, I concentrate on the heavy thrum of my heart.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
Thick enough I can feel it hit my chest bone, loud enough to drown out the sounds echoing from upstairs.
The walls shake with their disdain. Their screaming and their anger now etched into the very foundations of our home. A place that should be built on love, crafted with unrivaled hate.
My body shakes, preparing itself to crumble away. To break apart into the million and one pieces my mother and father are determined to pull me in.
I will my body to do it. I beg it to disappear into nothing. Forever free from this world of scorn I’m forced to survive within.
It’s been this way forever. I don’t know how they ever tolerated one another long enough to conceive. Children are meant to be created through love, yet Derrick and Jacinta Wright bore me in hate.
I feel it every day.
My heart doesn’t beat with love and affection. It stutters through longing and despair.
I’m caught between the desire to know what real love feels like and the overwhelming need to encase my heart in an impenetrable box. Numbness seems far more preferable to heartache, which, from my lack of experience and internet searches on the topic, seems to be the sole ending to every love story; be it great or pitiful. I’ve never known love in any form. It’s as foreign to me as the world I’m so eager to lose myself in. Love as an emotion is as fictional to me as the stories I’ve read about it in. People die. People leave. And the ones who loved them are left crying over the remnants of a heart shattered beyond repair. In the end, maybe being devoid of love is the greatest gift a person can be given.
My parents fight over who loves me more and who knows what's best for me. I’m a commodity. A slice of property they each want to claim ownership over. There is no love or affection in their desire for my loyalty.
My mother’s voice rises, forming a screech that forces my hands over my ears. I’m shaking, my whole body quaking with tremors I can’t settle.
I just wish they’d stop.
No. Not that.
I wish they’d separate.
Divorce is commonplace. But that’s a reality neither one is ready to give in to. That would mean they’d have to admit defeat.
Their screams grow louder, the fire in their argument hitting new lows. Unable to take any more, I jack my window upward, grateful they allowed me to claim the only first-floor bedroom in the house.
Feet dropping to the soft grass, I run. I welcome the wind as it whips through my long hair and crisscrosses it over my face like a mask. The wind whooshes through my ears the faster I run, drowning out everything but its song.
I run until my lungs hurt.
I run until my chest heaves.
I run until my legs feel like jelly and my feet feel like stone. Until my lungs struggle to take in air, and I can no longer hear even the faintest echoes of my parents' voices as they shout over one another to be heard.
Only then do I stop to breathe.
I move past the playground, past the other children playing and laughing while their parents watch on with tenderness and devotion.
No one pays me any mind as my legs carry me past them in haste.
Disappearing from sight, I move toward my personal refuge. A place beyond the trees where parents who spend more time watching their kids than arguing about them don’t allow them to breach.
A place of stillness. A quiet not often gifted to me, found here, in my own personal sanctuary.
Twigs crack under my bare feet as I make my way through the trees. It used to hurt when the crack of a broken stick pierced my skin. Now it just feels like home. Like freedom.
The light from the sun dims into a damp darkness the closer I get to the water. I can hear it from here, flowing calmly, welcoming me.
I found this place six months ago on an afternoon not unlike today. My parents were fighting, arguing over what to buy me for my birthday, about what would impress me more. If only they knew the one thing I wanted in this world was peace, was freedom from them, together.
My fingers brush against the rough bark of the trees as I zig-zag between them, my skin catching on their coarse surface. I breathe in the fresh air; the scent of the dirt and last night's raindrops my favorite perfume. I let my heart beat in rhythm to the birds' song and the river's melody.
Breaking
