Every Ugly Word

  To Alan.

  You’re the handsomest guy in the room of my life, and way more important than doing the recycling.

  Thank you.

  God makes dreams come true, but He used you to fulfill mine.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  A Note from the Author

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Rebel Wing excerpt

  Imitation excerpt

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  As the psychiatrist enters the room, he offers me a patronizing smile. I return it in kind.

  He indicates for me to take a seat, then sinks into a worn leather chair, looking just like a doctor should: graying hair, well-trimmed beard, and wire-rimmed glasses I suspect he doesn’t actually need.

  We face each other over a glossy, mahogany coffee table. While he flips through my file, I scan the room. Shelves of creased paperbacks line the walls. The single window is framed by subtle drapes. There are doilies under the table lamps and two doors on opposing walls. This office resembles a living room—if I ignore the bars over the shatterproof windows. Kind of kills the good-time vibe.

  Doc clears his throat. I take a deep breath and turn back to him.

  “How are you, Ashley?” His voice is too loud for the muted tones of the room—all earthy browns and soft corners. The quietly ticking clock in the corner tells me it’s 9:34 a.m. That gives me about five hours to prove I’m normal and get out of this place once and for all. Five hours until her life goes to hell, if I don’t make it home in time. I focus on him, try to smile. It’s already been a rough morning, but I can’t tell him that, not yet.

  “I’m okay.” I shrug, then freeze. My stitches are only memory now, but searing pain lights up along the hard, pink lines spiderwebbing across most of my upper body. I breathe and wait for the jagged bolts to fade. My surgeon says I’m healing. But he forgot to mention that to the layers of mangled nerve endings beneath my fractured skin.

  “Pain?” Doc’s eyes snap to mine. The benign disinterest was an act. He is measuring me.

  “It’s fine. I just moved wrong,” I say breezily.

  My physical scars aren’t the reason I’m here. He can’t fix those. But he can help me by letting me out. As head of this facility, no one leaves without his approval.

  I mentally shake myself. He will let me out today. He must. If I can get home in time, I can fix . . . everything.

  Doc’s lips press together under his perfectly trimmed mustache. After a second he smiles again.

  “I see you brought your bag.”

  The duffel bag my mother packed before dumping me here six months ago sits on the floor like a well-trained dog, as ready to go as I am.

  “Yes.”

  “So you’re confident about today?”

  “I’m confident that I’m not crazy.”

  Doc’s smile twists up on one side. “You know we don’t use that word in here, Ashley.”

  There are a lot of words they don’t use in here. See you later, for example.

  I take another breath. Cold. Calm. Sane. “Sorry.”

  He returns my stare, face blank. “I’m glad you feel confident. However, I do have concerns.”

  “Concerns?”

  He smiles in a way I’m sure is meant to be reassuring. But when he sits that way, with the overbright anticipation in his gaze, it kind of makes him look like a pedophile.

  “Ashley . . . you’ve changed therapists three times during your stay. Do you know what I think when I hear that?”

  I think the question is rhetorical, but he waits, expectant.

  “Um . . . no?”

  He hasn’t looked away. “I think as soon as anyone gets close to the truth, you flee.”

  I can’t break my gaze without confirming his suspicions. So I swallow and wait.

  His calm is maddening.

  When he speaks next, it’s in the cool tone of a professional shrink. “I’ve read your file, spoken to your nurses, and been briefed by your therapists. Now I want to talk to you. About this.”

  He makes his way to a closet in the corner, then pulls out a massive full-length mirror. It stands taller than I am, with a wrought-iron frame that is hinged in the middle, allowing it to pivot. He rolls it in front of the shelves in the corner of the room, far enough behind me that I can’t see into it without turning my head.

  A kindness? Or a challenge?

  Doc returns to his chair and I force myself to follow him, to keep my eyes away from the glinting surface.

  “I have a hunch if we examine whatever it is you see in the mirror, we’ll find the truth about the rest, Ashley,” he says. “I’d like you to stand before it and tell me what you see.”

  Panic lights up my veins. “What? Now?”

  Doc raises a brow. “Unless you have a better idea?”

  I don’t. I’d expected this session to be like all the others—a glib exploration of my past, patronizing questions about my psyche, along with self-congratulatory compliments when I make a “breakthrough.” I was prepared to do whatever it took to get out of here by 2:30, but I can’t look in that mirror—not now.

  What if she’s there? She won’t understand why I’m ignoring her. She’s been through enough today already. We both have. And breaking her heart is breaking mine.

  “The mirror won’t make any sense without the rest of the story,” I say, trying to buy time. If I can get him talking, show him how normal I am otherwise, maybe he’ll decide I don’t need to look.

  His face remains impassive, but his head tilts to the side just a hair. He’s onto me. “I know the story you’ve fed your previous therapists. If there’s more, I’m willing to put the mirror aside for a time—”

  I slump with relief.

  But he raises a single finger. “—if you tell me everything. There’s only one route to getting my signature on your release forms, Ashley. And that’s it.”

  His patience is a marble rolling along a slim edge, precariously balanced between hearing me out and sending me back to that cell they call a bedroom.

  Swallowing again, I try to make myself pitiful. I drop my head into my hands. “Okay,” I breathe into my palms.

  “Okay, what?”

  “I’ll tell you the truth.” As much of it as I can, anyway. I’ll let him think he’s gotten through where others failed. Hell, I’ll even consider what he has to say if it means he won’t make me look in that mirror.

  “Excellent.”

  “So . . . where do you want me to begin?”

  He crosses his leg over his knee, pullin
g up his pant leg slightly. “Nothing too dramatic. Start with the night you planned to give Matt the letter.”

  I feel the grin slide off my face. Nothing too dramatic. Right. I can’t help glancing sideways at the mirror. Doc follows my gaze, and when he sees where I’m looking, he frowns. For a moment the magnitude of what I’m trying to achieve is overwhelming. I cannot breathe. But I force my muscles to loosen. I swallow my fear—and begin to speak.

  Chapter Two

  The headlights of my mom’s ancient Civic cut across the deep black of the Oregon countryside, turning the grass silver and bringing the post-and-rail fence into sharp relief. The engine whined as I downshifted and took the corner too fast into my best friend Matt’s long driveway.

  “You know, in moments like these I’m grateful I never have to actually ride with you,” a familiar female voice said.

  “Stop scowling. You’re giving me wrinkles,” I replied, adjusting my rearview mirror so I could see her better. In the small, rectangular frame, it almost looked as though she were in my backseat, arms folded across her chest, her too-long reddish hair falling limply across her shoulders. But she wasn’t there, not really.

  She appeared five years ago, the same day I lost all my friends. I’d run home from school, refusing to cry until I was alone. When I made it to my room, I caught sight of my pathetic self in the mirror. Except, it wasn’t just me staring back—Older Me was there, too.

  “Are you in the bathroom again?” I asked.

  She nodded. “My roommates are home.” She’d moved into an apartment a few months before. She didn’t seem to like her roommates much, but then, she didn’t seem to like much of anything.

  As I braked in front of Matt’s huge brick house, she frowned again, worry lines creasing her forehead.

  “I told you I don’t need you tonight,” I reminded her.

  Tonight was about me and Matt.

  If you’d asked me twelve hours earlier if tonight would be That Night for us, I would have laughed. But that was before art class this morning. Matt had grabbed my elbow as the bell rang. He’d shifted his weight and avoided my gaze.

  He was . . . nervous. Twitchy.

  Matt was never nervous with me. And I’d only ever seen him twitch when he was talking to a girl he wanted to ask out.

  “What’s up?” I said.

  “We need to talk.” He glanced over my shoulder. “But not here. Can you come over tonight, before the dance?” His Adam’s apple bobbed.

  “Of course.”

  When he left, I’d almost floated to the cafeteria.

  Matt was nervous. And he wanted to talk . . .

  Older Me’s voice yanked me back to the present. “Look, I know you like Matt, but he’s your best friend. Dating would just make everything . . . complicated.”

  I sighed heavily and killed the engine. I’d gotten used to Older Me being around, popping up in mirrors and glass surfaces, always listening, commenting, offering advice. Usually it didn’t bother me. But tonight was big.

  I’d hidden in the library after school and written Matt a letter that confessed everything—my feelings for him, and what I saw when I looked in the mirror. Then I’d tucked it deep in my purse where there was no chance she’d catch sight of it and try to talk me out of it. She’d always sworn upright and sideways that no one could know about her and me. Especially Matt, though I was pretty sure she’d said that because he was the only person I would tell. She hated it when I went to other people for advice. And she was full of advice. Always. You’d think that’d be awesome, right? Advice from your future self. A literal glimpse into the future.

  I wish.

  I’d learned years ago that asking her about my future would be met with stony silence and pursed lips. You and me . . . we’re taking different roads, Ashley. How can I tell you what your future is when it might be different from my past?

  She cleared her throat. “What about just giving it some time?” she suggested. “You don’t have to tell Matt how you feel tonight. I mean, you guys are so close now. Wouldn’t it be better not to risk the connection you have?”

  Before I could comment on the irony of my older self asking me about the future, my phone pinged with a text, no doubt Matt asking where I was. I picked up the phone from where I’d left it on the passenger seat . . . and dropped it immediately.

  HEY FATTY R U COMIN 2NITE? DONT 4GET UR BRIDLE—FINN WANTS 2 GO 4 A RIDE

  “What is it?” Older Me asked, the irritation gone from her voice.

  My cheeks burned. The caller ID said UNKNOWN, which meant it was Terese. She was the only one with a private number because her mom was the local district attorney.

  I could just picture Karyn and Brooke peering over Terese’s shoulders, cackling, telling her what to type. With shaking fingers, I deleted the message. My stomach hardened into a knot, the bitter taste of bile rising in my throat.

  How had they gotten my new number?

  “Ashley?” Older Me said cautiously.

  “It’s just Karyn and Brooke and Terese,” I muttered. “Forget it.”

  Older Me frowned. “Ashley, forget them, okay? Their cruelty says a lot more about them than it does about you.”

  Yeah. I’d heard that before. Funny how it didn’t change that they thought I was a complete loser. “I’m not talking about this now,” I said, gathering up my purse and dropping my phone into it. “Tonight is supposed to be fun.”

  Tonight was supposed to be more than fun. Tonight was supposed to be epic. The beginning of everything finally going right. A day I looked back on and said, There. That’s where it started. Because I hadn’t felt this way about a guy ever—not even Dex, the guy I’d dated last year. Kind of.

  “I’m going in now,” I said.

  She went very still. “Is his dad home?”

  “I hope not.” Matt’s dad was . . . difficult.

  “Be careful,” Older Me murmured as I opened the door.

  “Geez, he’s not an ax-murderer.”

  Silence echoed around me when I let myself into the house. The Grays’ foyer had immaculate cream walls and hardwood floors, and was so big it could have just about swallowed my entire house.

  “Hello?” I called, the word reverberating.

  “Up here.” Matt’s voice floated down the curving flight of steps.

  Downstairs the house was shiny and cold—like a showroom in a modern architect’s portfolio. But upstairs the hardwood floors gave way to carpet, the walls were dotted with family pictures, and the beds were covered with colorful quilts and surrounded by painted furniture. When the Grays had moved in, I’d told Matt it looked like they’d taken his mother’s house and sat it on top of his father’s, then linked them by a stairway.

  He hadn’t laughed.

  I found Matt sitting on his neatly made bed, head in his hands. His fingers made claws in his sandy hair. He still wore the T-shirt and jeans he’d had on at school, though there was now a rip in the right sleeve. I perched next to him on the edge of the bed and laid a tentative hand on his back.

  “What happened?”

  “I told Dad about the competition.” His deep voice was hard. Rough. Like someone had taken sandpaper to his throat.

  I dropped my head to his shoulder and let out the breath I’d been holding. Matt and I were in AP Art. Somehow we’d both qualified for National Young Artist of the Year. I mean, I’d known Matt would get in. He was incredible. But I was floored when I got the letter, too. The top twenty artists would be displayed in New York next December, and the winner would be awarded a full-ride scholarship to the College of Fine Arts in the city. But all the finalists had a shot; between the judges—who were usually professors at top schools—and the gallery opening, most ended up with scholarships somewhere.

  The problem was, according to his dad, Matt wasn’t supposed to be an artist. Last year, when he’d won a local competition with an impressionist watercolor painting of his cousin blowing bubbles on the beach, Mr. Gray took one look at it and
accused Matt of being gay. As far as his father was concerned, Matt was going to MIT to be an engineer, just like him.

  “I knew he’d get mad. But I thought he was under control. I thought I’d shown him he couldn’t hit us anymore.” A shudder rocked the length of Matt’s six-foot-two frame.

  My throat tightened and I took his hand. “Tell me.”

  I’d always known Matt’s dad had a temper, but I learned what a monster he really was when we were fourteen. Matt had gotten in trouble for sassing his mom at the breakfast table, and when we got back to his house that afternoon, Matt’s entire comic book collection was gone.

  Mr. Gray had burned it.

  I was there when Mr. Gray told Matt what he’d done. I’d watched Matt’s jaw clench and his eyes strike sparks—even though all he’d said was, “Yes, sir.”

  After his dad left, Matt put his fist through the bedroom wall.

  Later, Older Me told me to help Matt talk it through whenever things went bad—so he wouldn’t boil over that like.

  Or worse.

  “He got angry,” Matt said. He was squeezing my hand so hard the tips of his fingers had turned white. “Mom tried to get him to calm down. But he went crazy. Shoved her into a wall trying to get to me. I had to . . .” He swallowed. “I punched him. Put him on the floor.” He turned his right hand over. Two of his knuckles were split, the skin swollen and red.

  “When he got up . . . Ash, even I’ve never seen him like that before. He just screamed, and came at me.” He stopped, his face pale.

  “Matt? What happened?” I was whispering now, afraid of what he would tell me. Suddenly afraid of the awful silence in this cold house.

  He let go of my hand and stood up. “I need to change if we’re going to make it to the dance.”

  I gaped. “You can’t be serious. Matt, we can’t go to the dance after this. Let’s just watch a movie. I’ll even play that ridiculous Apocalypse game with you if you ask nice.” I tried to smile.