Prologue
A knock came at the door of my apartment as I hopped about the bedroom trying to squeeze into my jeans. I sucked in a breath, did up the button and yelled, “Come in!”
Lucy, my new neighbour, was coming over, and we were going to settle in for a night of Australian Idol and popcorn. Despite her being twenty-four to my eighteen, it was turning into a great friendship. Lucy pretended to like my singing, and I pretended to watch her Step Up movies when she played them until I almost lost the will to live.
I loved music. When I had a favourite song, I would put it on repeat and play it a thousand times. When I was young I dreamed of being a singer because music took me to another place. Growing up in the music of the nineties, I was going to be the next Destiny’s Child—a Beyoncé in the making—only white and with less hair. Reality was a bitch though because I couldn’t sing. I couldn’t even play an instrument. Lucky for me I was smart, but even smarts sometimes let you down, and according to my mother, Beth, my life was now f**ked. F-u-c-k-e-d. She spelled it out, her smirking lips taking relish in the word.
She was wrong. I didn’t care what she thought. She didn’t care what I thought either, or cared period. Any idiot could raise a child, and why my mother thought she could do a stellar job of it baffled me.
The sucky reality was that I’d been dealt a shitty hand in life, but the way I saw it I could choose to either fold my cards or raise the stakes and play on. I chose the latter, and because I didn’t do anything half measure, I played hard.
Parties, drinking, boys—those three things became my new mantra. It was almost like a three step self-help program. The touch of gentle hands on my body felt good, and I didn’t care who it was as long as I felt wanted. The results were somewhat successful because when the hard slap of my stepfather’s hand or fist came, it felt more deserved.
My stepfather David was like Charlie Sheen. Initially he appeared like a normal person, but the exterior was hiding something completely whacked. He and my mum were a matched set, except he held jobs like they were hot potatoes. One day he came home throwing around cash that had my mum upgraded from her customary chardonnay special to drinking high dollar vodka in fancy glassware. It was obvious he was caught up in bad deeds, but I kept my mouth shut because they were so busy spending it all they were never home.
Then a year ago I met Ethan at a party. He came up and wiped away a tear from my cheek that I hadn’t even noticed was there. My glazed eyes met his, and seeing concern in their depths, I forgot how to breathe. Ethan clearly didn’t belong at the party. He looked clean and sober and far too sweet for the bitter circles I ran with.
At seventeen he was a foot taller than my tiny five foot frame, all lanky muscle and shiny, dark hair. He had everything I didn’t: good friends, good grades, parents who loved him, and a home.
I was offered a mere glimpse into his world, and it was beautiful. It was like the kind of wonder you would feel if you ventured inside your wardrobe and found yourself in Narnia. My world was more like Middle-earth; angry fists and cruel taunts reigned supreme. There was no love, no beauty, and maybe I had a roof over my head, but it wasn’t a home.
Somehow Ethan and I came together, and I had a crazy thought he would be the Patrick Swayze to my Jennifer Grey. He laughed at me when I told him just that, but I didn’t care because inside I felt something blooming so large I struggled to contain it. Ethan breathed hope into my already jaded life and it changed me into the type of girl he deserved. It was a relief to drop the bad girl act. The drinking and partying stopped, I dressed more appropriately, and grew my white-blonde hair into long waves.
Just when I thought I might actually deserve a bit of special, life proved me wrong when Ethan died three months ago. My heart broke when his parents told me he went down in a rugby tackle and never got up. I almost folded my hand then and there, but fate decided to give me the chance to do something Beth could never do―be a real mum. I was having Ethan’s baby, and there was no way I’d bring something so precious into the fires of hell. In the middle of the night, I packed a suitcase and descended on Ethan’s parents’ house.
They became my new family, but I struggled under the shower of love. I wanted to stand on my own two feet, prove I was the person Ethan thought me to be. Having just finished high school, they helped me find a contract reception position in the city, loaned me money for a bond in a half-furnished townhouse in Campsie―south of the city―and after two weeks I was finally free.
That was when I met Lucy. She came over offering biscuits she’d baked that very morning, but the results were bitter, hard missiles. She confessed that she’d never baked a biscuit in her life, and I could only agree it was obvious. Lucy was nosy, crazy, and like a lioness. In the space of a week, she knew more about me than any of my so-called friends ever did, including my new dream of working in the music industry. Lucy became my first true friend. Her dream was being a dancer, but unlike me, she could actually dance. We even pushed the coffee table aside so she could show me her moves. She cried with me over Ethan, shopped with wild enthusiasm for baby outfits, and vowed retribution over my upbringing.
“Their time will come,” she’d tell me with eyes so steely she belonged in a Quentin Tarantino film.
Having finally finished squeezing my rapidly expanding belly into the too tight jeans, I hit the living room. The smile died on my lips like yesterday’s news. It slid from my face, and had it been tangible, it would have splattered on the floor.
A hand was planted on my chest and shoved, making me stumble backwards.
“‘Bout time you showed your whore face,” David slurred.
My lungs constricted in fear, and it was almost a relief because he smelled like he’d taken a dive in a dumpster. His hair was filthy, his clothes rumpled and rank, but despite his obvious stupor, he looked mean and mean usually equalled pain.
I straightened my spine and growled, “Get out.”
“You just invited me in, so f**k you,” was his reply.
I looked for my phone and saw it on the kitchen counter behind him. I’d have to get passed him to reach it.
“I’ll call the cops,” I warned, my threat as useless as it sounded if his smirk was anything to go by.
“Sure you will, Quinn, and when they get here an hour later because you’re not worth their time, I sure as shit won’t be here.”
I took a step backwards. “Why are you here?”
David followed, jabbing his finger in my chest, and my skin crawled at the touch. “Beth left me and it’s your fault. Your...” jab “...f**king...” jab “...fault.”
Beth adored David’s dirty money, why she would say goodbye to it surprised me.
I narrowed my eyes despite my stomach rolling in fear and let all the contempt I felt show through. “What’s the matter, David? Your well of cash dry up? Has she moved on to someone who can—”
My head exploded into fire when his fist made contact with the side of my face. Staggering backwards at the force, my hands made a desperate grab for the couch to hold my weight. I shuffled back a step but his fist was a blur as he came at me again. I tried to let out a shout for Lucy, but with the lack of air, it came out as a breathless moan of agony.
I made a run for the door, but he planted both hands on my back and slammed me hard into the wall. My forehead hit the plaster with a loud crack, and I fell to my knees. Then he started kicking me, and when I rolled into a ball, his foot came down on the side of my face, and he crushed it into the floor, laughing. He f**king laughed and I wanted to rip his face off.
I clawed my fingers into the carpet in an effort to get up, as his fists pounded me. When a shout came at the door, he kicked me in my side.
“This isn’t over.”
The world shifted, I heard yelling, then Lucy was there chanting, “Oh God, oh God, oh God.”
“Hurts.” I struggled to breathe. Then another pain came. The kind of pain that made everything else fade into the background. I clutched my stomach as agony ripped me apart from the inside. “Lucy,” I moaned.
I felt a brush of her hand against my hair. “Paramedics are coming, honey.”
I rolled over and swallowed, trying not to choke on the fear. “I’m losing the baby.”
Lucy’s panic stricken eyes found mine. “No.”
***
Chapter One
Three and a half years later…
My last chance of escape took off in a squeal of tyres. Were the hounds of hell on his heels? Hardly. He was a Sydney cab driver. The fact that Lucy and I arrived at our destination in one piece was proof that seatbelts did, in actual fact, save lives.
My hands trembled as they smoothed the front of my dress. It was bright yellow, short, and backless. It was also brand new. The crafty salesgirl had appealed to the inferiority complex within by telling me it made me look taller. According to her degree in Fashionista 101, it also made my brown eyes big—like Bambi—and as much as I wasn’t aiming for a deer in the headlights look, I got sucked in anyway. Not that I actually owned the dress. That honour belonged to my bank when I handed over my credit card. It sounded good in theory, but guilt for the one-off splurge was overwhelming.
I fiddled with my hair, and Lucy smacked at my hand. She’d worked hard to create the tousled waves I was busy destroying with nerves. “Stop it, Quinn. Tonight is your bitch. Act like it.”
My spine snapped straight, and I curled my fingers tightly around the borrowed clutch as my eyes fell on the front entrance of the Florence Bar—a venue renowned for featuring hot, new Australian bands. The doors opened and the heavy bass ricocheted outwards, filling the busy city street and pounding into my chest. It increased my anxiety and my breath came in little pants.
“Quinn, this is your first night out in so long. Live a little.” She frowned at me when I gifted her with my fake smile. “Now say it. Tonight is my bitch.”
I sighed. It was true. I never went out, but losing Ethan and then my baby soon after, made recovery an endless process. Every time I found something special, it was snatched away. I was afraid of that happening again. It became easy to retreat from life and simply watch from the sidelines. Special never found you when you hid yourself away, and that was how I liked it. Lucy wouldn’t give up on me though, and now here I was, unsure of myself but putting one foot in front of the other, each step bringing me closer to the bar. Maybe that meant I wasn’t ready to give up on myself just yet either. Unfortunately, admitting to that didn’t appear to be making tonight any easier.
I frowned back. “Saying it doesn’t make it true, Luce.”
“Sure it does.” She took my arm and herded me towards two bouncers who were busy guarding the bar’s inner sanctum as though God himself was inside having a few. “I don’t care if you have to lie,” she declared. “Lie. Lie your ass off. Just say it.”
“Tonight is my bitch,” I repeated dutifully.
“Say it like you mean it,” she demanded.
“Can we just get this over with?” I snapped, eyeing the long line of impatient people waiting to get in. Flash bulbs dotted my vision as people famous enough to get caught by the paparazzi paraded by. I blinked rapidly to restore my sight and eyeballed bouncer one and two, wondering whether they could scent fear. Then the fear took a new turn as the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, sending goosebumps down my spine. Breathless, I turned and scanned the street, but I couldn’t pinpoint anything that would give cause for alarm.