Chapter 1

"I can't imagine that at one point in my life I actually loved the rain." I grumbled loudly, staring gloomily out the window.

Back home I had loved stormy days and thunderstorms, looked forward to them even. But now, after spending the last four days in the pouring rain, having to deal with frizzy hair, and non-stop soggy tennis shoes, I decided that my past rain-loving-self was a complete moron.

I had decided a long time ago that this move was completely retarded. I was happy living in our tiny apartment on the outskirts of San Francisco with its windy, salty air and clear blue skies.

But, no, that just wasn't good enough for mother. She wanted a house. She wanted a white picket fenceand a backyard. She wanted a freakin' dog.

Don't even get me started on that one. We're apparently 'adopting' once we get 'settled in.' She claims it's supposed to be my present for being such a good sport about the move. Bullshit. I want a cat. I've always wanted a cat. But does it matter what I want? Pfft, of course not.

Seems like it should be the other way around, right? I should be the one wanting a nice spacious house, a room that isn't the size of a closet, a backyard I can play in with a cute, fluffy puppy.

But I simply don't, a concept, which is apparently lost on my mother.

See, I was happy before, yeah? I had my decorated room, I had my friends, I had my favorite hang outs, I had my routine; I had made peace with it all.

And she just had to take it all away from me to live out her own freakin' dreams.

Okay, so I'm aware of the fact that I'm being melodramatic and selfish, but it's simply not fair. Couldn't she wait, I don't know, one more freakin' year until she goes off and decides to move to the middle of nowhere Washington? I could have been in college, having had been completely satisfied with my high school years and she could have been happy with her big spacious house, her adorable puppy and white picket fence.

Now, if only I hadn't felt so damn guilty when she broke down, sobbing on the kitchen floor.

It had been a pretty average, vague Friday-nothing special, nothing out of the ordinary. But I guess everything had been building steadily over the last few weeks, months even, and it had reached breaking point.

It all had begun with my stupid friend Michael and his steroid muscles and our poor excuse for a front door. The piece of wood had been on its last legs of life for two years then. The wood was peeling, holes were growing, and the hinges were literally decaying. My mother and I had been painfully aware of this fact. And, therefore, we had complained ourselves blue to the landlord to replace the stupid thing, but the little prick had always blown us off with the vague excuse that he had been just too busy that week and the promise that he would get right to it next week. The proverbial 'next week' had never come.

And, so, our pathetic front door and Michael's over-sized biceps had been set on a crash course for disaster.

It had been a nondescript Friday. We had been running late for some talent show event taking place at the coffee house down the street. We had been literally walking out the door when a glance in the hallway mirror showed me that I had only put eyeliner on one eye and that an emergency trip to the bathroom was needed to correct this immediately. And that is how Michael had ended up making it to the front door first and how my life as I had known it had ended forever.

All because of some eyeliner.

Michael with his too-large-muscles (he was a wrestler, as if that's any justification) had pulled open the pathetic, rotting piece of wood just a little too hard, successfully ripping it right off its hinges.

I had watched the entire thing happen in slow motion, and I swear I had seen my life flash before my eyes. For as that decaying hunk of door fell it had made contact with nearby, innocent, uninvolved coffee table. But this hadn't been just any old coffee table; this had been mother's-sacred-off-limits-no-touchy-coffee-table-that-housed-grandmother's-antique-china-vase-that-mother-loved-more-than-her-own-daughter-and-required-at-all-times-three-feet-of-breathing-room.

Guess what happened next.

CRASH. Shatter.

The door falling and breaking the love of my mother's life had been the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back-or in this case, my mother's.

I don't think I have ever been so scared in my entire life as I had been when I had seen her simply collapse behind the kitchen table. As a daughter, I don't think it's ever a good thing to see your respective parent break down like that. I mean, they're supposed to be our rocks, our lifelines. They comfort us; not the other way around.

But, after awkwardly shuffling Michael out the door, I had been forced to do just that in clumsiest way possible, feeling like her sobs would never stop and my personal hell would never end.

Just for the record, I have found a completely new respect for those people who are inherently good with saying just the right thing or that inspirational piece of comforting advice, or simply just knowing when to offer that hug or backrub of reassurance. Because in those long minutes spent on the floor of the kitchen of our colorless, dingy apartment, I had never felt so incompetent and utterly useless.

And, in a moment of weakness, I had agreed with everything my mother had said and had promised to do whatever I could to make life better for her, thinking along the lines of taking a second after-school job or selling some old books to raise money to fix the door. In all honesty, that promise has turned out to be one of the stupidest mistakes of my life.

"Alexis, look!"

I jerked my head up in time to catch sight of a rain-slicked highway sign.

Forks, Washington; population: 3,275.

Whoopdee-fucking-doo.