Page 1 of Forever my Love

Prologue

“Harper, wait up!” Fourteen-year-old Hailey Davis rushed after her sister, Harper. She knew full well there was no way she could catch her. Harper’s legs were a lot longer and her older sister was better at running than Hailey was.

When Harper finally did stop in the middle of the field that sat somewhere between their home and the stream that the sisters spent most of their time at, Hailey was finally able to catch up.

“Are you okay?” Hailey asked, seeing the red marks on Harper’s face from their mother’s slaps.

“Sure, no biggie,” Harper said, lifting her chin to the sky and closing her eyes as the warm Georgia wind blew over them.

Hailey wasn’t surprised that her sister’s eyes were dry. Harper never cried. Like, never.

When Hailey got slapped or hit, she always cried. Always.

“Your lip is bleeding.” Hailey reached up and wiped her sister’s lip. Harper brushed her sleeve across her lip and then smiled down at her.

“Hey, I’ll bet you anything that we caught some fish in our trap.” She smiled, the cut on her lip opening a little more. “Wanna go see? We can grill it over a fire.”

The thought of food made Hailey’s stomach growl loudly. They’d gotten out of school a few hours earlier. The only thing Hailey had eaten that day was a banana and some milk that the school had given her out of obligation. She’d used up all of the weekly lunch coupons that the school gave her and Harper two days before.

It was the last day of school for the year, and she knew that there wouldn’t be any food in the house for the next few months during summer break. There never was. Their mother didn’t really eat. They never went shopping for food. Instead, their mother traded all of the food that she’d bought with the SNAP card the government gave her for drugs.

Most weekends, the only thing they had to eat were some apples from a few trees near the stream and any fish that the sisters caught in the homemade traps they’d learned how to build with sticks and string.

“Sure.” She smiled and took her sister’s hand as they strolled towards the stream.

She didn’t know what had caused their mother to slap Harper that day, but the sad truth was that it didn’t really matter. There were always reasons.

She’d once been smacked halfway across the room for stepping on a piece of trash, which had made a crinkling sound. She’d bumped her head on the floor and had burst into tears. Her mother had jumped on her and held her down, slapping her until Harper shoved her off. They’d run to the stream and had hid until after dark.

She couldn’t remember a day in her life not being afraid of the woman who was supposed to care for them. The only one in her life who really did care was Harper.

Hailey knew that Harper was the stronger of the two of them. Not only did she never cry, but sometimes she fought back. At least against their mother.

That night, when they returned home, was the first time that Fred Leeroy spent the night at their house. Fred was their mother’s drug dealer. He’d been coming around the house for a few weeks, usually leaving sometime before dark.

That night, everything changed. That night, Harper and Hailey learned there were things far worse than dealing with a drug-addicted mother. That night, they learned that there was nothing in the world to protect them from the real monsters.