Prologue - Kenzie
Houston, Texas
Torn from the pages of my book, our love story was over before it ever really began. Well, that was if it was even considered one to begin with. The chapter had been so short, yet it’d also been both the best and worst time of my entire life. As I sat on the cold, hard ledge atop Courtland Hall, regret and shame filled me.
“I just can’t escape you,” I lamented as I realized who the Courtland was on this particular building. No, it wasn’t Jonas, but generation after generation of his family. I’d heard about those before him. Who hadn’t? Yet, I still deluded myself into believing that he was different. “Maybe, I’d just hoped that you were.”
He wasn’t different, though. As I recently found out, Jonas made the things his elder brother did, appear mild in comparison. Body counts aside, I’d never even heard of Logan Courtland engaging in the same deceitful activities as his younger brother. Of course, just because I hadn’t heard about it, didn’t mean it never happened. After all, he had to have learned it from someone.
Still, as the warm spring breeze lifted the loose, dark tendrils of hair framing my face, none of that counted. It’d only be a matter of time before everyone at Spencer Academy knew what Jonas had done. More importantly, they’d know what I had done, too. Despair began to fill me at that prospect. Good girls like me didn’t have premarital sex, and especially, with the captain of the football team. But I had, and it’d been the best night of my young life. Now, the pleasure I’d felt then, threatened to strangle me like a noose around my neck.
“What am I going to do?” I didn’t have any friends, and there was no one to share my despair. “If Daddy finds out…”
My thoughts drifted to my father. George Broderick, minister at Life Pointe Baptist Church, would surely have me sent off to a convent. Or worse. Thomas and Ethel Broderick had a farm in midwestern Nebraska, and the very idea of being shipped off to live with my grandparents had me looking down at the pavement below.
I scrubbed my hands down my face, the movement made easier by the dampness of my cheeks, courtesy of the tears I’d been crying for the last hour. Everyone in school had to know what he’d done to me by now, so I certainly couldn’t show my face inside those halls. Not now, and maybe not ever again. I’d been duped and would be the mockery of our entire school. God knows I’d heard about every other conquest of Jonas’s, although he’d denied most of them to me.
“People just like to talk,” he’d explained, and I’d stupidly believed it all. It hadn’t been the only lies I’d fallen for over the last couple of months. “I really like you, Kenzie.” “You’re everything I never knew I wanted.” I sarcastically laughed at those words, which now viciously taunted me. “I care about you.” Those had been the worst because they’d made me discard my values, principles, and common sense in a pile at my feet.
“They’re all going to laugh at me,” I cried out loud. Why, oh why had I’d believed Jonas Courtland!
I stood and started to pace back and forth. I’d made such a mess of things, and just the thought of having to see him for the last couple of months of school would be torture. We were even seated within arm’s reach of one another at graduation which seemed like an eternity to this, when now, it was closer than ever.
A few more errant tears rolled down my cheeks as they stubbornly refused to stop falling. I had to think of a way out of this situation I’d stupidly put myself in. If only there was a way to go back in time to the period where no one knew who I was or even cared. If I could go back there, I’d certainly make sure to steer well clear of Jonas Courtland. I couldn’t, and now I had to quickly think of a solution. Maybe it wasn’t even as bad as I thought.
After all, the only one who would possibly tell my father would be Mila.
The girl’s mother, Caroline, was the biggest busy body in the entire congregation. The woman would latch on to this gossip like a dog with a bone and spread it around to anyone and everyone she saw. The news would then reach my father. I could already see next Sunday’s sermon being directed at me, and what my father considered a sin. We’d only moved to Houston last summer, and now it didn’t look like I’d even make it here a year this time. Ever since I was ten, my family moved from one place to another for a multitude of reasons. I’d never been the cause, but this incident would certainly change all of that. I’d brought shame to my entire family, and I’d never live this down.
“Fuck!” Cursing was something else my father considered a sin, but by this time, I was too upset to care. Sirens blared off in the distance, or at least I thought they’d been far enough away, until the shrill shrieking got closer. Seconds later, I realized two police cars and an ambulance were out front of the school. Sensing the oddity here and forgetting my own problems for a moment, I peered over the ledge again just in time to see the officers and paramedics file out of their vehicles.
“Mackenzie Broderick,” one of the uniformed officers called through his megaphone.
It was then when I realized exactly why they were there. The police had been called because of me. Shocked, I stepped back. Did the authorities think I was trying to jump? Of course, they did. Why else would they be gathered floors below me while calling out my name?
Just great. If the entire student population didn’t know what Jonas had done to me, they would now. I’d be the center of every salacious story told in those halls. Everyone would want to know what I had done and why, and the rumor mill would run rampart with different variations of the truth. Most would involve them talking about how I was suicidal.
My anxiety kicked up a notch and I wobbled as a faint sense of lightheadedness passed over me. This was bad. More than that, actually. Panic welled up inside. Surely, I could just go back into the school and explain how this was all a mistake. I began to shake, knowing fully well the damage had already been done now. I had nowhere to run. Nowhere to go.
My parents had to have been called by now. Just the thought of disappointing my father made me sick with disgust. It’d only been two years since his heart attack and if this didn’t send him to an early grave, my actions—however incorrectly perceived as they were—would send him there for sure. I began to pace once more and at the sound of a familiar voice, I turned and glared at the intruder.
“Step away from the ledge, baby,” Jonas instructed as he took a step forward.
“Don’t you ever call me that again. You stay right there where I can fucking see you.” My fear over everything was replaced by my anger at the boy in front of me.
Just over six foot with an athletic build, he was physically imposing. He was also so damn striking that the mere sight of him still made my chest ache. He was a redhead, but no one would ever call him names like “Ginger” or “Carrot Top.” He was so fucking gorgeous, and a legend at school. God, I needed to quit ogling him, because it would only build up his ego even more, but it was easier said than done.
After all, it’d only been days earlier when he had stood behind me and lowered the straps of my prom dress. I could still feel the caress of his breath as he trailed kisses along my bare collarbone. His hands had lightly groped me in all the right places that night. Even now, my traitorous body still yearned for more. Thankfully, it was my head in control now. Well, maybe partially my emotions as well, but definitely not my recently awakened libido.
When Jonas ignored my request and took another few steps in my direction, I backed up instinctively. Just weeks earlier, he’d cornered me much like he was trying to do now; the only difference was that I wouldn’t be falling backward onto a soft bed, but would instead fall to my death. He must’ve realized how perilously close I was to the edge of the roof because he suddenly backed away and threw his hands up in the air.
“Whoa! I’ll back up, but please, just come back inside the school.” Even his voice did things to me as a shiver wracked my entire frame.
My chest was aching by now, the rapid pace of my heart rate causing the organ to clench painfully as it nearly beat out of my chest. It was also breaking as I looked at the boy I’d given every part of myself to. He’d never cherished it, just like my father had warned since I was twelve and developed breasts.
“Boys can never appreciate your gifts or return them. As you grow older, you’ll be faced with temptation, but you must trust in your faith and resist.” He’d gone on to tell me the importance of saving myself until marriage, but that warning and message had gone unheeded because I had bought all of Jonas’s lies and fallen into his bed, anyway.
The magnitude of that mistake weighed heavily upon me. “They think I’m crazy.” I was merely stating the obvious, and at the look of concern on his face, I laughed sarcastically, fitting the very image I was hoping to shed. “H-how could you fucking do this to me?”