Lucinda never expected to spend her 18th birthday driving across the country in a stolen pickup truck. But what she found along the way was even more unexpected. Enter Dalton, the mysterious hitchhiker with piercing blue eyes and a chip on his shoul...
***TRIGGER WARNING: Scenes of violence and abuse are depicted in this chapter.***
Lucinda peered at herself in the mirror as she pressed her index finger against the bruise stretched across her upper left arm. She winced at the slight burning sensation. This one was fresh. She carefully examined the purple splotch and traced her finger along the blue outline. Each bruise was a different color. Her body was covered in splashes of green, yellow, blue, and purple. There was only one patch of red. It had happened yesterday. Lucinda blamed herself, as usual. It wasn't his fault that she was irresponsible and forgot to close the garage door before going to bed. She'd gotten what she deserved.
"Well, as of 7:22 tomorrow morning, you'll be 18," she said, gazing into the pair of glassy hazel eyes in her mirror's reflection. "Lucky you. You have no job, no money, no car, no boyfriend and no acceptance letters."
Lucinda huffed and plopped down on her bed. She sprawled out on her back, lying diagonally with her feet hanging off and her arms outstretched above her head. That was her thinking position. She stared at the plastic glow-in-the-dark stars on her ceiling that her mom had helped her stick up there when she was 5. God, she missed her.
Lucinda's phone buzzed. She grabbed it off the nightstand next to her bed and swiped her finger across the screen.
"Where are you?" the text message read. Lucinda rolled her eyes and let out a sigh.
"Home," she replied.
"I'll come get you," the next text read.
"No," Lucinda quickly replied. "Don't. My dad will freak out. I'm supposed to make him dinner soon."
"Tomorrow?"
"I don't know. I have a lot to do. And I still need to find a job since I'm not going to school."
"I miss you, Luce."
Lucinda angrily slammed her phone face down on the nightstand. Kyle was never going to let her go.
"Lucinda, get your ass down here!" a loud voice echoed down the hallway outside her room.
Great, she thought. Time to find out why I'm getting wailed on tonight.
She made her way downstairs and walked over to her father who was sitting in his old beat up arm chair in the living room with a can of Budweiser in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Lucinda always found that to be such a cliché: the abusive dad who drinks and smokes and spends his time in front of the TV in an ugly armchair. Straight out of a bad movie, she thought.
"What are you makin' me?" her dad asked gruffly in his deep southern drawl. "I'm starvin'."
"Spaghetti and meatballs," Lucinda answered.
"Again? Didn't I just have that the other night?"
"Do you want something else?" she asked meakly, nervously twirling a strand of her long chestnut hair around her index finger.
"Just make me a goddamn sandwich," he snapped. "Turkey and mayo. And go easy on the mayo, will ya? You always put too damn much."
"Okay, Dad," Lucinda softly muttered as she made her way into the kitchen.
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