Love, Hate, Repeat.

CHAPTER ONE

So you know how people say play stupid games win stupid prizes. Well that's what my mother always said at least. If she was here right now she would've beat the living hell out of me for being so stupid to be friends with someone like Marie-Beth. Now I'm standing in the rain the raindrops felt like pinpricks on my skin, but they couldn't wash away the stinging salt of my tears. I hunched my shoulders, trying to hide the shallow, trembling breaths that racked my chest.
and the old scars, a roadmap of past failures etched into my arm, ached with a phantom pain. But it was the fresh ones that really burned—a reminder that falling for Marie-Beth wasn't just stupid; it was destructive.
I heard a car door slam shut—not just closed, but slammed—and I finally stopped staring at the rain pooling on the ground. A car, Laney's beat-up sedan, had skidded to a stop next to the curb. Laney didn't even put the car in park. She threw her own door open, splashing water onto the curb, and ran toward me. Her frantic eyes, usually so calm, went wide and then narrowed as they landed on my arm, or maybe just the general wreckage of me. Laney gasps "LILLY, WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU? WHO DO I NEED TO KILL?" she screamed, her voice cutting through the downpour like a siren.
But I hear a second car door shut.
It wasn't a frantic slam like Laney's; it was a solid, deliberate thunk from the passenger side, much closer than the sedan. I froze. My heart, which had been hammering against my ribs, suddenly hitched. I stopped breathing, straining my ears past the noise of the rain, willing myself not to turn around. It's just someone else looking for shelter, I told myself. A stranger.
The voice was low, laced with a familiar roughness that I hadn't heard in a long time. It cut through the downpour and struck me like a physical blow, wiping away every bit of warmth Laney's presence had momentarily offered.
"What happened, Lilly?"
I took a shallow, painful gasp of air. The name, the tone, the calm authority—it was all wrong, a ghost from a past I thought I'd outrun. My legs felt like ice. I finally forced my head to turn, the motion slow and agonizing.
Is it?
No, it couldn't be.
She's still friends with him?