PROLOGUE
MATEO
“Mateo Caputo?” I glanced up from my English workbook at my name being called. All it took was one look into the eyes of Miss Redren to know why she’d come to my first class of the day. I hadn’t even been in school for an hour.
Her brows rose, the sympathy in her eyes shining bright. I hated that look. It was the reason I didn’t tell anyone what happened at home, not since that first time when I was six and they’d sent someone out to the apartment to check on me. Mom had gone into a tailspin which meant a month-long depression that she medicated with alcohol. I’d made a mistake back then, one that I wouldn’t repeat.
Without looking at any of the other students in my class, I grabbed my things, stood, and made my way to her. Whispers echoed around me, but I didn’t pay them any attention. We were a collection of sixteen-year-olds, but they’d never truly know what life was like for me at home.
I walked a pace behind Miss Redren as we headed toward the main office. She beelined for the receiver placed on her desk and sighed. “It’s your mom, she said she needs to talk to you.”
My stomach flipped as I slowly reached for it. For a millisecond, I hesitated. What would happen if I didn’t answer? What would she do if I ignored the call and did what a normal sixteen-year-old did and went to each of his classes.
I shook my head. It didn’t bear thinking about what would happen if I didn’t answer. So I took the phone, held it up to my ear, and asked, “Mom?”
“Where are you?” she slurred out.
My heart raced in my chest. She was drunk—again. “I’m at school.” I closed my eyes, feeling a tension headache coming on. She’d called the school, so she already knew where I was, but that didn’t occur to her because she was too out of her mind. Like always.
“You have to come home.” I winced as I heard the screaming baby in the background. It had been a month since my mom had given birth to my little brother, and since then I hadn’t done a full day at school. “He won’t shut the fuck up.”
I huffed out of breath and let my head drop back. I couldn’t keep going like this. I couldn’t come into school each day worried about the baby she’d had but didn’t want. I couldn’t keep trying to be like everyone else my own age because I wasn’t like them. I had responsibilities that I hadn’t asked for.
Swallowing past the lump in my throat, I stared back at Miss Redren. I knew this was the end, and from the way her brows furrowed and shoulders slumped, so did she. I had no doubt she fielded more calls from my mom than she actually told me about.
“I’ll be home in twenty,” I told my mom down the line, then handed the receiver back to Miss Redren.
“You’re leaving again?” she asked, her voice small and tentative. There was no judgment in her tone, but I knew she was disappointed. When I’d first started high school, I’d been at the top of my classes, but now, I was barely passing. It’d take too much work to catch up, and if I was honest, I knew I didn’t have the time. Add to that the fact that the weekend job I was working wasn’t enough to cover the cost of milk and diapers, I felt like I was falling into a dark hole with no flashlight to show me the way out.
My mom had brought another life into this world. A helpless baby that she wouldn’t take care of. But I wouldn’t let him have the life I’d had. If I was doing this, then I would do it properly. I would make sure he’d finish school. I’d make sure he wasn’t scared to go home each day. I’d make sure he was safe.
“Yeah.” I swallowed, getting ready to say what I knew was inevitable, but her wide eyes stopped me. She could sense it, and right then, I couldn’t think about it. I had to do what was right for my little brother, even if that meant sacrificing what I wanted. “I…” I backed away a step. “I’ll see you.” It was open ended, not giving the truth of the situation, but deep down I knew what I had to do.
As I walked out of the high school I’d attended for the last two years, I turned, taking one last look at the building. The steps leading to the main door were empty. Silence surrounded me, and for a second I wondered whether I could make it work. Maybe I could ask for help.
No.
I shook my head and spun around. I wouldn’t ask for help, not again. I could handle this. I could take care of my little brother. I could be there for my mom and make her better. I could make her see that this wasn’t the life she should live. I’d be the support she never had.
My head was a whirr of thoughts as I hightailed it home. Music was blasting as I was ten feet from our apartment on the first floor, mixed in with the wailing cries from the currently unnamed baby. She hadn’t even bothered to call him anything but “boy.” Yet another reason I was needed at home and not at school.
I pushed inside, screwing my face up at the smoke filling the room, and darted right to the baby.
Strangers filled the apartment, people I didn’t know, and I knew then that I couldn’t waver anymore. I couldn’t leave this baby alone with her while I was at school all day. I needed something else, I had to be the adult in a situation that I never should have been.
I had to drop out of school.
CHAPTER 1
LUNA
I pulled the last box from the rental car and spun around, determined to start a new chapter in my life. It wasn’t until I was halfway across the makeshift parking lot that I halted on the concrete ground littered with weeds sprouting through the cracks.
It was scary, for more reasons than I could comprehend.
I was eighteen, fresh out of high school, and with what most people would assume a limited life experience.
Most people were wrong though.
Very wrong.
I’d witnessed and been part of more things than anyone could dream of.
I’d watched my parents take so many drugs that they’d had to have their stomachs pumped.
I’d witnessed them overdosing and tried to bring them back from the brink.
I’d been both the victim and a perpetrator of theft.
I’d lied.
I’d cheated.
But it was so that I could survive. Each day had been a war I waged, not sure where my next meal would come from. And now we were all here, moving into a new apartment, taking the first step in our new lives.
My gaze drifted to the third floor and to the door in the middle of the walkway. The green paint was peeling, one of the numbers was upside down. All it needed was a missing screw, a job Dad has said he would do, but I still had my doubts.
Both Mom and Dad were on one of their clean spurts, no drugs, no alcohol, no parties in the middle of the night. It had been three months so far—the longest they’d ever gone—but that didn’t mean I was getting my hopes up. I’d done that once when I was twelve, and I’d promised myself I never would again after they relapsed.
I just hoped this time was different.
“Hey, lady!” a small voice shouted. “Why are you standing there?”
I glanced down in the direction of the voice and raised a brow as a boy stopped next to me, turning to look where I was. His dark-brown hair was a little long to suit his face, his straight nose led up to knowing eyes. Eyes that seemed to grasp me and not let go. He couldn’t have been more than seven, but the way he stood told me he didn’t live the life of a normal seven-year-old. He was wise beyond his years, something that I understood.