"I'll talk to my boss again, but..."

I start to shake as I sit down at the dining room table. I'm cracking already. I can't even stand up to him from almost four hundred miles away.

"You're coming down here. No buts!" he shouts over the line. "In case you don't remember, you and I've got a score to settle, boy."

All I can do is shake in silence and listen. What score? I wasn't even home for most of that last summer! I worked at three jobs all summer long just to stay out of the house, and then I got on the bus to Cornell the first chance I had. There was never a chance for me to do anything wrong!

He's insane. He's completely insane.

"I know when your break starts, and if you ain't home by then, you're gonna be getting a visit from me," he hisses, and then he slams down the receiver before I can say anything else.

I lean my head on the table as my heart pounds in my chest. Terrible thoughts and memories I can't escape from start crawling out from dark places inside me.

"Come on... calm down," I whisper, trying as hard as I can to relax. It isn't working.

I'm back home in the bas.e.m.e.nt office, and I'm seventeen again.

"Are you crying?" he screams as he slaps me across the face again and again. "Did I raise a son or a f.u.c.king pansy? Shut the f.u.c.k up, you worthless..."

He's so angry that he can't even finish his sentence to keep swearing at me. He grabs me by the back of the neck and slams me hard against the slate chalkboard hanging from the wall. Something cracks-I don't know if it's the chalkboard or my face-and then he throws me down on the floor.

As I try to get back up, I see the deep red pool forming on the white tile beneath me. I reach up to my nose and my hand comes back covered in blood.

"Get the f.u.c.k up, boy!" he snarls, and he kicks me in the chest.

The sound of my pencil snapping between my teeth pulls me out of the nightmare and back to the dining room. I spit out the fragments of wood and look down in disgust at the broken pencil. My hands shake with pent-up anger and frustration, and it's all I can do not to cry.

"I can't even break a filthy childhood habit," I whisper, my voice seething with self-hatred. "What f.u.c.king good am I?"

I slam down my fist hard against the wooden table in a rage, and the table creaks as searing pain shoots through my arm.

"Oh d.a.m.n it!" I gasp in pain as I cradle my injured hand. What is wrong with me?

I can't hold it back anymore. My head drops to the table and I start to cry. The pain is horrible, but even worse is that all it took was one phone call for Dad to crush me. All he had to do was pick up the phone and he pulled me straight back into h.e.l.l again.

I've been running from myself for years, never going home, trying to forget my life even existed before college started, and it just doesn't work.

Waves of agony keep shooting up my arm, and when I finally calm down enough to stop crying and wipe away the tears, I realize that my hand is starting to turn black. I'm definitely going to need an ice pack. I try to move my thumb and bite my lip against the unbearable pain that surges through me. I really hurt myself this time.

This is why I need to stay away from Maria. Dad's not the only nutcase in my family... what if I lose control and hit her? I could never forgive myself.

Besides, why would a girl like Maria want to deal with a mess like me?

I wrap my hand in an ice pack and sit back down on the couch, trying to put myself back together again. Humpty Dumpty's got nothing on me.

"I'm not always a spineless wimp," I think as I lie back on the couch and stare at the ceiling again. I knocked that s...o...b..arder on his a.s.s for hara.s.sing Maria, after all. That has to count for something, right?

Samantha's angelic smile flits across my mind, a memory from so very long ago. Somehow, I think she'd be proud of me.

Friday, March 1 2:30 AM.

Maria.

My pulse pounds in my skull as I bolt upright in bed, screaming in terror. I'm covered in sweat, and my heart races at a million miles an hour.

I'm in my own room. I'm in college.

"Oh thank G.o.d," I think, taking a deep breath of relief.

I reach under the pillow and retrieve my green notebook. I have to write this nightmare down. It's probably in the book a hundred times already, but one of these days, it'll stay there.

I hear Tina's light footsteps running down the hall and the sound of my doork.n.o.b turning, but I pay no attention to her. I have to write.

Darren won't stop staring at me. I'm so uncomfortable, but he keeps looking at me.

"You're sure your brother isn't coming home until tonight?" he asks, and a chill runs through my body. Something about his voice terrifies me even more than usual.

"Um... maybe he'll be back earlier," I lie. I know he won't. He said five o'clock at the earliest.

Darren sits down on the couch and the cushion shifts beneath me. I feel as if I'm going to slide into him. I focus very hard on my book, trying to pretend that my heart isn't racing and that he's not staring at me as if I'm his favorite food.

"How long are you here?" he asks. I can still feel him staring at me.

"Just until tomorrow," I say and then add, "That's okay, right? Micah didn't mention that you lived with him. I didn't know he had a roommate."

I'd never have come if I'd known he lived here.

"Hey, no problem by me," he says, putting his boots up on the table and spreading out on the couch. "Cute girls are always welcome here."

If he meant that as a compliment, it didn't work. All it does is creep me out even more. I'm acutely aware of one of his arms runs along the back of the couch behind my head. I'm starting to sweat, and my chest tightens as he yawns, stretches his arms, and brushes a hand through my hair.

I glance at him out of the corner of my eye, trying not to shake. If he meant to touch my hair, he's sure not giving any sign of it. Maybe I'm being too nervous. It could have been accidental.

No sooner do I start to believe myself than he pulls his arms back and touches his fingers against my leg, just below the bottom of my skirt. His fingers barely lift the base of my skirt as he runs them ticklishly up my leg.

"Oops, sorry," he apologizes, s.n.a.t.c.hing his hand back. He doesn't sound convincing at all.

My hands start to tremble so much that I can't focus on my book anymore. There's no way that he just accidentally ran his hand up my thigh. A touch? Maybe. Lifting my skirt? I don't believe him for a second.

I look up at the clock-it's not even noon yet.

"I think I'm going to go upstairs for a bit," I tell him, my voice wavering as I get up from the couch. "It's been nice talking to you."

Without a word, he gets up as well.

I hurry up the stairs, but with each step, I hear the deep 'thud' of his boots coming up behind me. Why is he following me? Oh Jesus... Micah! Please, dear G.o.d make him come home early!

I look over my shoulder at him, my legs shaking so much that I can barely walk, and see him following me down the hall. He's still staring at me in the same disgusting, dehumanizing way he always used to-like I'm not a fifteen-year-old girl, but instead a delicious cut of meat he can't wait to dig into.

I fumble nervously with the doork.n.o.b to Micah's room for just a second too long, and I can't get it closed before he reaches it. He pushes the door open, comes in after me, and closes the door.

My heart feels like it's going to explode in sheer, abject terror as he locks the door behind him and turns back to me with that horrible smile of his.

I'm trapped in here with him.

Tina hugs me as I close the book, and I start to cry.

"Talk to me, sweetie," she whispers, squeezing me tightly.

"f.u.c.k you, Darren," I sob, shaking and burying my face in her shoulder as she holds me. "f.u.c.k you!"

"Darren's gone, Maria," she whispers in my ear as tears pour down my face. "He was horrible, but he's gone forever now. You're safe again."

I shake my head, still unable to stop crying long enough to get a word out, but Tina already knows what I was going to say.

"Owen's not like Darren," she tells me, her voice calm and soothing as she runs a hand slowly through my hair. "You can trust him. I know you feel like you can't, but please believe me!"

Darren still dominates my life seven years later, and I hate him for it. I hate him more than anyone else in the world.

"I was a little girl!" I sob. My voice is hoa.r.s.e and ragged from crying. "What the h.e.l.l did he even want with me?"

"It's all about power," answers Tina calmly, still holding me tightly. "He wanted to feel strong by hurting you."

She runs a hand through my hair as she embraces me, and her touch starts to calm me down as the nightmare fades.

"He hurt you just so he could feel like he controlled you, and I hope he rots in h.e.l.l for it," whispers Tina.

Her voice is calm and quiet, but behind the whisper is a sharp, angry glint. I don't doubt for a second that, if Darren were here right now, she'd tear him to pieces.

I don't know when I fell asleep, but suddenly my alarm clock goes off and I wake up with a terribly stiff neck. I'm leaning back against the bed frame, Tina's arm still around me and my head on her shoulder, and she's stroking my hair as if I'm her daughter.

"You okay, Maria?" she whispers, and I nod awkwardly and get up to silence the alarm.

"Tina... did you stay up all night?"

"You needed the company," she answers.

I feel even worse now.

"How are you going to stay awake through cla.s.s?" I ask in horror and humiliation. "You shouldn't have done that!"

She smiles at me before answering.

"Hmm... do I settle for one miserable day of cla.s.ses, or do I let you suffer all night? Not a tough decision."

I hang my head out of shame. I can't believe she still stands by me after all these years.

"I don't deserve you, Tina. You're an angel."

"You did it for me," she answers weakly, her voice cracking. "You were there for me when Mom went away."

My eyes start to tear up and my throat tightens. She's talking about the day her mother's Alzheimer's finally got so bad that she stopped recognizing her.

"And I'd do it again if you needed me," I croak, and then I turn and run to the bathroom.

I need to shower before cla.s.s, and more urgently, I need to get away before I start crying. If I start, she'll start, and then we'll both be miserable in cla.s.s all day.

I worried earlier in the day that I would fall asleep in cla.s.s after such a miserable night-and admittedly, my eyes did drift shut during lunch-but now that I'm in my statistics cla.s.s, I have a very different worry.

I'm worried about Owen.

"So, um... we're going to be taking the positive hypothesis in this one as the null. Wait... um... yeah, that's it," he stammers, scribbling illegibly on the board. "No... that's wrong. Ignore that. We're going to..."

This is the worst lecture I've ever seen him give. I can't read his writing, he's stumbling over nearly every word, and he looks like he hasn't slept in days! Not a single thing he's saying makes sense, and I can tell, from the faces of the students around me, that it's not just me.

"Why is he writing with his left hand?"

Just as the thought registers in my mind, he turns away from the board and looks right at me. He cradles his right hand-crudely wrapped in bandages-against his chest with an ice pack balanced precariously on top of it. His eyes are dark, and he grits his teeth as he adjusts the ice. It hurts me to see him in so much pain.

I'm not even pretending to pay attention to the lecture anymore. My eyes lock onto Owen, watching as he stammers awkwardly and tries to write with his left hand. He gets so fl.u.s.tered that he has to stop and go look at his notes, and I feel terrible for him. I can't pay attention to my notes, to the board, to anything at all except for the terrible misery radiating from him.

What on earth happened to him?

Our eyes keep finding each other every time he turns to face the cla.s.s, and I feel my neck tense up each time. Strange, awkward feelings bubble up inside my chest, and I don't know what to make of them.

"Okay... I don't know what's wrong with me today," he sputters to the cla.s.s, tossing down his marker in frustration. "How about I just take questions about the homework, and I'll schedule an extra section and more office hours for anyone who wants the lecture material later this week?"

An irritating, blond-haired girl chewing loudly on a wad of gum raises her hand on the far side of the room, and Owen points to her.

"Like... umm, what happened to your hand?"

Owen turns and looks directly at me without answering the girl, and I'm blown away by the look in his eyes.

It's as if I'm fifteen again, looking in the mirror at myself the next morning after Darren finished with me, trying to tell myself that I'll be okay. I feel cold as I gaze back into the black pit of misery in his eyes.

Something is horribly wrong with Owen, and I'm scared now.

"I think we're done for the day," he says quietly, and he grabs his notebook and bolts out of the room.

"Wait, what about the homework?" calls out a boy on the other side of the room. The rest of the cla.s.s bursts into a confused uproar, blabbing back and forth with each other while I leap to my feet, grab my backpack, and chase after Owen.