Stay with me

Chapter One

“Falling down, through the darkness.

She doesn’t scream, or cry for help,

lost her mind a long time ago.

She prefers falling down.”

—Oliver Masters

I NEVER TOOK my stepmother seriously when she said I would one day be sent away for my reckless behavior after she found a boy in my closet, and I never really cared. It only fueled my actions.

So, one day, I stole the keys to her precious BMW 3 Series and drove it straight through the garage door.

Diane had grown tired of my acting out and blamed it on my father’s increasing abandonment of the belief I could be cured. My father, the simple and passive-aggressive man he was, took each harsh word that poured from her perfectly made-up lips as he sat at the dining room table, staring blankly.

I didn’t even like the boy, either. All I’d wanted was to feel something. Anything.

On the edge of nineteen, and at my stepmother’s final straw and my father’s last nerve, they both agreed to call the law after my BMW incident. Since it was my last warning, I would have been thrown into a mental institution, but my father pleaded with the judge to send me away to Dolor—the farthest reformatory college for people like me.

Don’t get me wrong, I knew I wasn’t normal, but I never thought there would be anyone else like me, especially not a school dedicated to my … kind—if there was such a thing.

At what point had I taken a turn for the worst? I assumed I had always been this way. Allowing boys to use me had never been for their benefit.

It had been for mine.

I wanted to feel their hands on me, their mouths on mine, and the eagerness and lust as if it would rub off on me. It never did, but maybe, just maybe, it would light a fire inside me long enough to burn. Pain, lust, anger, passion, I would take anything at this point. My heart was stiff. Rigor mortis had already set in my soul, if I even had a soul. I could no longer be sure.

My suitcase lay half empty at the edge of my bed as I stood over it. Even with a brief list of acceptable items, I had nothing I desired to bring. No pictures, no attachment to a pillow or blanket. No interest in anything aside from my headphones that I was sure they would confiscate upon my arrival. I opened my nightstand to retrieve a box of condoms, because it wasn’t on the list of “unacceptable items,” and stuffed it into a secret pocket at the bottom of the suitcase.

Satisfied, I reached for the top of the suitcase, slammed it shut, and closed the zipper without an afterthought. I wasn’t mad at Diane. If I had been, that would have meant I had feelings. Honestly, I didn’t blame her. If I had a stepdaughter like myself, I’d call the police as well.

“Mia, you ready?” my father called out from the bottom of the stairs.

I didn’t answer.

“Mia Rose Jett!”

“Two minutes!” I set the lightly packed suitcase beside my bedroom door and took one last look around at the bare walls of an old prison before I entered a new one. My walls were always empty, just like my bed, my dresser, and my desk. No personality. Once I walked out the door, it would be like I had never lived here. This space could quickly become a guest bedroom, and I bet Diane already had a Pinterest board dedicated to it.

“Oh, no. You can’t wear that.” Diane scrunched her face from the bottom of the stairs. Her short bleach-blonde bob didn’t move as she shook her head slightly from side to side. She always wore too much hairspray. Come to think of it, I don’t believe I’d ever seen her without her hair blown out, straightened, and sprayed in place. Even when she did her fifteen-minute workout videos after di

“What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” My chin dropped as I straightened my oversized black t-shirt that read “cute but psycho” over my destroyed jean shorts, revealing my chicken legs. One would think I was naked underneath, the shirt was so big, but I wasn’t. I was covered. Promise, Dad.

“Nothing’s wrong. Let’s move. We’re already late for the airport,” my father said, waving me down. He always avoided confrontation at all cost, and sometimes I wondered who he was more scared of—Diane or me? At this angle, I finally noticed the bald spot he’d been complaining about on the top of his head. I never believed him before, but now I didn’t care enough to point out he was correct. He’d been a handsome man, but even with Diane around, loneliness had sucked the life out of him. Bags scalloped under his brown eyes and his cheeks were sunken.

Marriage would do that to you.

The suitcase banged against each stair as I stepped down. “She could have, at the very least, brushed her hair,” Diane said under her breath as she walked out the door ahead of my father and me. I pressed my lips together at the hypocrisy of her statement. At least I could run a brush through my hair if I wanted to.

“Not too much longer now,” my father said as he gripped the handle of the suitcase and brought it behind him. He was right. Only eleven and a half hours longer, and I would be 3,447 miles away from both of them, give or take. He was choosing a perfect life, and I wasn’t a part of perfect, and that was okay. I’d done my research. I knew what was waiting for me on the opposite side of the plane ride.

Dolor University was a reformatory college—prison—specifically designed for troubled souls and delinquents who suffered from mental illnesses, addictions, and a poor parental guidance that led one to a career in crime. Apparently, the best in the world, located in none other than the United Kingdom. I couldn’t help but think the reason for the location was so they wouldn’t feel pressured to visit, and I was okay with that. They could ship me wherever. I didn’t want to be around people who didn’t want to be around me, anyway. Isolation was my paradise.

I kept my attention out the window, twirling my dirty brown hair around my finger the entire way to the airport while my father went on about the curriculum.

“With Mia Rose’s history, we should have chosen an all-girl reformatory,” Diane scoffed.

“Mia Rose needs diversity,” my father reminded her.

“Mia Rose is right here and can speak for herself,” I informed both of them.

Diane conveniently stayed in the car as my father escorted me through baggage check-in and to the end of the line at security. He couldn’t go any farther, and I was surprised he had made it this far.

I stood before him as his eyes glossed over. “I’m sorry, Mia.”

He had never been good with words, but neither had I. Seconds passed, and he still couldn’t look me in the eyes. He never could. Even when I talked to him, he’d look past me as if I were a ghost.

Look at me, Dad.

But, after a single nod, he turned and left me without so much as a second glance as I clutched my passport and plane ticket in my hand.