Cassie is self-sabotaging, a dry sense of humour, a sultry melody, a sarcastic remark. She's a dead gaze, smudged eyeliner, a garden of withering red tulips, and... an addict. 

Etienne is indecisive, anxious, classically handsome, a teller of great stories. He's a smile that doesn't reach the eyes, a lit cigarette, an alternative rock song, and a bad friend.  

It all started when they were only six years old. And it hasn't stopped. It keeps happening. They weave in and out of each other's lives, with their strange connection to blame. Their bond is both strengthened and weakened by their shared traumas. Their relationship is a ballad about codependency and the electricity of first love. 

Their lives are an unmanageable mess that sees them dwell in the world of drugs, depression, and the multitude of young women being found dead in the Merseyside Area. They each must confront their faith in second chances, fate, and circumstance. 

                                                         ― ― ― ― ― 

 And he's somewhere in the middle. But you can also find him at the beginning, and he'll be waiting for you by the end. He's everywhere. He is good with ropes, great at sketching, addicted to pornographic content. He hates his wife, hates his son, knows how to avoid leaving fingerprints on his victims.

ON MOUNT EVEREST WITH YOU.

"Never trust the storyteller. Only trust the story." 


TIME was relative and I could never positively connect it. I didn't know how it was that I got to this moment. I could've sworn I had blinked once. That only a brief time had passed. Just one instant that had stretched into the next in one swift undemanding motion. But when I opened my eyes everything had changed. 


And I knew, in my heart, that I had lost everything. That the normalcy of a life poorly lived had evaporated, and I now found myself right in the middle of something else. Something worse. Something that had no discernible beginning and that I feared would never have an end. 


My trembling hands placed the dirty dishes down on the sink. I considered washing them but thought the act would be too insulting to the little dignity I had left after what had happened that night. Instead, I began picking up the remnants of an unsuccessful dinner. 


Chapter Twenty-Five.