Chapter One

Prologue

"Stop! Stop!" Beatrice screamed, "I can't take it anymore!"

The sound of Beatrice's voice echoed through the small bedroom. She was currently sitting with her boyfriend, Al, who was trying to push her back onto his bed.

"I have told you so many times, I don't want to have sex when I'm only 17. I want it to actually mean something to me, to the person I'm with, I don't want to just be doing it for the sake of doing it."

Beatrice Prior, the 17 year old from Chicago, had been dating Al Jackson for 5 months now, and almost every time they hung out alone they had this fight. Al didn't share the same views on intimacy as Beatrice, and it was a large problem in their relationship.

Beatrice had been raised a Catholic, she went to church almost every Sunday, and although the Church was very close-minded when it came to some of their morals and beliefs, their view on sex and intimacy made sense to Beatrice. The idea of opening one's self up to someone in the most vulnerable way wasn't exactly what Beatrice saw herself doing in a high school relationship, where she didn't know where they would be in a month, let alone the rest of their lives.

"Babe, come on. You know I love you, and it will mean something to me, to the both of us. Having sex isn't going to ruin what we have, it's only going to make it stronger. Please, I love you so much, and I want to be with you." Al sounded very convincing to Beatrice, and she almost let herself believe that she could do it; she could share her body with her boyfriend, whom she loved dearly, but then, reality hit her.

"No."

"No? Baby, how do you expect us to have a trusting relationship when you can't even trust me enough to sleep with me?"

"I knew it." She stood up from the bed and started to grab her bag when Al's strong hand grasped her arm.

"Knew what?" He asked, with a certain emotion behind his words that Beatrice couldn't quite place. Was it anger, malice, sadness, or just confusion? She couldn't tell.

"That you just want to 'sleep with me' for the sake of getting laid. You don't understand what a big deal it is to me, and you don't respect me enough to not try to have sex with me every time I'm at your house, even though I've told you that I want to wait until I'm married. God, you're such a pig." Her words hit Al in a soft spot, and all of a sudden, it was like a light switched in his head.

"You know what? Maybe I'm tired of having a prude for a girlfriend! My god, it's like you don't even care enough about me to consider how I feel about your stupid waiting till marriage thing. I have needs too, and I can't keep pretending like its fine when you constantly turn me down."

Beatrice stood there for a second, not sure how to respond to the hurtful words that came out of her boyfriend's mouth, and then she snapped.

"You have needs? Are you fucking kidding me? Last time I checked this entire relationship didn't revolve around your fucking penis! It takes two people to have sex, and according to the law, if one person doesn't want it, it's called rape! Do you want to rape me? Do you really want to fucking rape me you asshole?" Beatrice surprised herself with the vulgarity that was coming through her lips, but she couldn't help herself. She was just so fed up of Al not treating her values with respect.

"I don't need to rape you, you bitch, because you know Lauren? Your so-called best friend? Yeah, well we've been hooking up for the past three months. At least she knows how to keep a man satisfied." The secret that Al had been keeping for months had finally slipped out. Beatrice just stood there with her mouth open. She knew when she told Al that she wanted to wait that he would have a hard time with it, she just didn't think that he would actually cheat on her, and with her best friend nonetheless.

"If you think I'm going to drop my pants for you now, you're crazy." Her voice was weak, and she was fighting back tears as she grabbed her bag and headed for the bedroom door. "Have a nice life asshole."

Present Day

It was now three months since that night. When Beatrice walked out that door, she vowed to herself to change. She would no longer be the good girl, always doing what she was told, and instead, she decided she would live her life the way she wanted to, no matter what anyone else said. She also threw the whole 'waiting till marriage' thing out the window, deciding that it wasn't a realistic way to keep a guy, even though she swore off boyfriends as well.

Beatrice Prior, former good girl, virgin, and church-goer, was now Beatrice Prior, partyer, drinker, and class whore.

It didn't matter who started feeling her up at a party, she would almost always end up passed out naked in some bedroom with a guy beside her. She didn't care that everyone always talked about her, it numbed the pain of the scars that Al left her with. He and Lauren started dating almost immediately after him and Beatrice broke up, and she not only lost a boyfriend, she also lost the one person she thought would always be there for her, no matter what.

Now, when they see each other in the halls, they avoid each other's eyes, not wanting to remember the pain they caused each other.

Beatrice didn't make many new friends, she mostly stayed by herself, preferring not to draw more attention to herself than she already had. She didn't speak in class, or hang out with people at lunch, she saved all her socializing for parties, where she downed a few drinks and let go, hoping that one day she'd finally stop hurting.

It was the last day of school before summer break. Beatrice arrived to school like she always did, with her head down and her mouth shut, when all of a sudden everyone started rushing outside to the gardens. She couldn't see what was going on, so she followed the crowd, confused.

Once she was outside, she saw that her classmates were gathered around the large tree that grew in the centre of the gardens. Something was hanging from one of the branches from a rope, but since she was only 5'2, she couldn't see over all of the heads to tell what it was. She started pushing her way through the crowd, and slowly but surely, she made it to a place where she could see what was on the rope, but when she did, she wished she didn't have eyes to see with at all. Hanging by their neck was Al Jackson, her ex-boyfriend, and on the ground beneath his feet was Lauren, crying her eyes out.

Beatrice wanted to run. She wanted to run so bad, but she couldn't. She couldn't move. It felt like time had stopped and all she could focus on was how pale his face was, the face that was once full of life, that she once looked at with such love, now dull and lifeless.

All of a sudden, she felt her feet start to move, but it wasn't away from the scene. She was walking towards the crying girl on the ground. She knelt down beside her, and placed a comforting hand on her back. Even though they had been through so much and were no longer on speaking terms, at one point, they shared everything, and Beatrice couldn't overlook that.

"Lauren, I-I'm so sorry." Beatrice's voice was shaky, and when Lauren looked up, she almost felt her heart break. Even though this was the girl Al cheated on her with, Beatrice could tell that she really did love Al with all of her heart, and that meant something.

"I just don't understand why he would do something this. I though he was happy." Lauren's voice broke when she spoke, and it took all Beatrice had not to start crying with her.

"Everyone has their own little demon. I do, and Al probably did too. You can't blame yourself for anything that happened, you could not have stopped this, no one could have. Al chose this for himself, and now we have to live with his choice." Beatrice stood up , feeling very claustrophobic suddenly.

"Where are you going?" Lauren asked.

"I'm sorry, I just can't be here right now. I know that we've been through a lot, but if you need to talk about it, please, call me." And with that, Beatrice took off into the school. She made her way to her locker, and once it was opened, a small piece of paper fell to the ground. She picked it up, and upon reading it, felt her world stop.

This was all your fault. You fucked my life up, and I hope you can live with the guilt of knowing that I killed myself because of you.

Beatrice knew exactly who wrote this, and she couldn't stop herself now. The tears were flowing freely down her face, ruining her makeup that she had put on perfectly that morning. She felt sick, and in a panic, she slammed her locker shut and ran out of the school, not bothering to look behind her as she began to freak out.

Al was dead because of her. She was the reason he felt the need to take his own life. Her breathing became rapid, and she sat down at the nearest tree she could find and let it all out. She couldn't see through the wave of tears coming from her eyes, and she was sure if anyone saw her they would assume she was crazy.

A million thoughts rushed through her mind, and she couldn't focus on just one to pay attention to. She was overwhelmed with so many emotions, and she didn't know which one she should feel. Should she be mad at herself that Al considered her the reason for killing himself? Or should she be angry that could have prevented it but she didn't? Maybe she should feel sad that the boy she once loved was dead, or happy that he was finally out of her life.

"Excuse me, are you okay?"

A voice spoke to her through the whirlwind of things going through her mind and she wiped the tears out of her eyes and looked up at the stranger who was standing a few feet away from her. He was tall, with dark hair, and he looked very mysterious.

"Do I look alright to you?" Even though she was having one of the worst moments of her life, she still managed to keep the attitude she had developed over the past months.

The man chuckled and said, "I guess that was a dumb thing to ask when you're clearly not fine. The better question is what's wrong?"

Beatrice hesitated. Here she was, alone and vulnerable, and a strange man was talking to her.

"I promise I'm not going to kidnap you or sell your organs on the black market," the man joked, which got a small laugh out of Beatrice.

"That's the type of thing someone would say if they were going to do that."

"Well, it's really your call."

Beatrice took a long, hard look at the man in front of her, and noticed his eyes. They were a spectacular shade of blue, wait, more like a mix of many shades of blue. The pulled her in, and she had a hard time pulling her eyes away from his gaze.

"I guess you don't seem like a criminal."

The man laughed, and it almost made Beatrice forget about everything going on in her life.

"Tell me what happened, please. I hate seeing pretty girls cry." The way this man called Beatrice pretty stood out to her. She had been called pretty before, but the way he said made her believe for the first time since the breakup that she really was pretty. She could feel her cheeks start to warm up, and she looked at the ground.

"Are you sure you want to know? It's pretty messed up." The man got a faraway look in his eyes, and said something that chilled Beatrice to her core.

"I know about messed up. Trust me, I can handle it."

So Beatrice agreed, and poured her heart out to this stranger in the middle of a park. He sat quietly, and listened intently to every word she had to say. She didn't bother leaving anything out, from her relationship with Al to her late night party experiences to what happened that morning, because hey, it's not like she'll ever see him again.

When Beatrice finally returned home, it was 4:25. She opened the door to her house and her brother, Caleb, immediately started bombarding her with questions about where she'd been.

"Relax Caleb, after what happened this morning at school I just went to the park to cool down. I really couldn't handle being around people, and besides, today was the last day, it's not like we were going to do anything besides watch movies all day."

She didn't bother telling Caleb about the note she found, or her heart-to-heart with a stranger in the park because she didn't want him to freak out more than he already had. They were only 10 months apart, and even though he wasn't a full year older than her, he still acted like she was so young and reckless, and that he needed to make sure he was responsible enough for the both of them. He seemed to accept her answer, and Beatrice climbed up the stairs to her room.

She flopped herself down on her bed, the stress of the day finally taking its toll on her body. Before she passed out, there was only one thing on her mind.

I need to get out of this place.