>>prologue (the past)

She was broken.

If there was one thing that was clear to Evelyn, it was the fact that she was utterly and hopelessly broken.

As she sat, slumped, on the cold, wooden floor of her living room, all she could do was watch as the blood trickled endlessly from the gash in her arm. It slid down her ashen skin, over the creases of her limp hand, and off the edge of her fingers onto the ground below her.

After living this way for so long, it was easy to block out all the bubbling emotions mounting up inside the volcano of her mind.

It was easy to pretend that this was how life should've been.

It was easy to act like all of this meant nothing.

But she also knew that her idea of easy was like comparing mountains to hills. And that to any other person, what she went through would've been their idea of a personal hell.

Maybe that should've made her strong— someone to look up to, someone to revere.

But it didn't.

Because strong people knew how to fight, whether they rose up against their enemies or fell a few inches short. But all she ever did was endure. And people who endured were like dams in a river, waiting to burst, or unexploded grenades, begging to be triggered, or someone who was wearing a damn life vest but just couldn't float.

She didn't own a life vest though— she couldn't afford it.

And she didn't know how to swim either.

But did that mean she deserved to drown?