Prologue

Five months later

POVMelanie

The bar was very low key on a Tuesday evening and I sat on a bar stool twirling the straw of a glass of lemonade. The bar tender was a middle aged balding man who was half asleep when he asked me, "You've been sitting here for hours. You going to finish that?"

I glanced at him and said, "There's no one here."

The bar tender looked uncomfortable for a moment before leaning over the counter and smiling sweetly, "Aren't you a bit too young to be in a bar little girl?"

I took a sip of my lemonade, "I'm eighteen."

"Sure you are sweet heart. Still not allowed to drink, though. Do you need a cab?"

"I'm not drinking anything alcoholic." I said, ignoring his offer on a cab. I did need some cash though so maybe I could use it to my advantage.

"Why are you here on a school night?"

"I'm out of school." I said, and then smiled before he could say another word. "Tell you what." I said, leaning very close to him, "I'm actually only fourteen years old, now, I can refuse to leave for the rest of the night and probably get you in to a hell of a lot of trouble and if you try to force me to leave, I'll make it look like you're hitting on me."

"Who would believe that?" The bar tender was backing away and laughing nervously.

"I think anyone would believe me over you." I smiled confidently, the guy was almost pissing in his pants and he obviously wasn't smart enough to think of how if I sent him to the police, they'd question me as well, then I'd have to explain why I was in a bar on a, ha, school night.

"What do you want kid?" The bar tender was sweating and I was smiling.

"Nothing much. Just want you to pass on a few messages to a few people."

"This going to get me into trouble, kid?"

"Nope, you can stay perfectly anonymous and I swear no one will need to know where these messages came from. We got a deal?" The bar tender was looking away possibly wandering why he had talked to me in the first place.

"Fine. After you give me these 'messages', you leave me alone and never come back?"

"Absolutely. Never have to lay your eyes on me again."

We stared at each other for a few seconds before he snapped, "Well, get on with it! What do you want, some paper?"

"Nah, I'd rather talk. Do you have a phone?"

The bar tender took out his Iphone and I smiled. "Can I have it?"

"Hell no!" I rolled my eyes.

"For like, half an hour." I say, grabbing his Iphone and scrolling through his apps. "You should really get it password protected. How do you not have a password?"

The bar tender shifted on his feet and glanced nervously at a very drunk man waving his glass in the air. "Whiskey! I need more to drink here. Girlfriend, she just…" The drunken man muttered, almost falling off his chair. I waved the bar tender off when he glanced at me. "Slow night, not much workers huh? Go help the poor guy. I won't steal your Iphone."

The bar tender looked at me and I flipped through his apps, avoiding his gaze. Thunk! The poor guy actually did fall off the rather high bar stool and the bar tender finally went over to him. I found a voice recording app and let out a sigh of relief, I thought I'd have to download it and that would definitely take a password. It didn't take a genius to figure out I was pushing my luck as it is.

The bar tender was trying to hoist the guy up and I got up with my lemonade, pointed to a small corner with a leather booth and mouthed, "Half an hour." The bar tender shook his head and I rolled my eyes. I sat down in the seat anyway.

I took a deep breath and pressed play. Suddenly, my mind went blank. What do I say to the people I'd left behind, what was I doing, giving them a message. Well, I was the one who ran away and they deserved a good-bye. Well, some of them did. With that, I knew what to say, to the people who left me scars, to the people who tried to love me, and to the people who tore me apart. I knew exactly what to say.