Page 1 of Live for Me

Prologue

Abbie

Twenty Years Ago. Hayden, CO.

“What do you want me to say?” he bellowed, his powerful voice shaking the walls of our trailer.

“I want you to tell me you love me, dammit,” Mom shouted back at him.

I never understood it, the way Mom always craved love as if mine wasn’t good enough. She tried explaining it to me once. Love between two adults was different than love between a mother and child. She never thought I was good enough, even when she had love from one of her boyfriends.

Max was the fourth one after Daddy.

The silence was too much for me, and I found myself poking my head out of my small bedroom, the smell of smoke and sweat filling my nostrils. “Sheri, you want too much from a guy like me,” Max said. His back was to me, his hands in his hair. I knew if he turned, I would see his beer gut hanging over his belt.

Mom was standing on the other side of the living room, her makeup running down her cheeks. She’d just gotten that mascara from the drug store two days ago with money I’d found in the couch. She was so proud of me for finding it, said we would go into town for a treat.

I thought the treat was for me.

It wasn’t.

“Max, please,” she begged, her voice cracking as she fisted her dress at her sides. It was the same dress she always wore when he came over. It was the only one she had.

He shook his head. “I can’t be here with you every fucking day, Sheri. I have work to do.”

Mom shook her head. “You don’t have work! You’re lying!”

Max dropped his hands and shook his head. “You always think everything is about you, huh?”

I didn’t blink as all the emotion in my mother’s face melted away, revealing the cold, distant side of her I didn’t like. It scared me. She could go from one mood to the next, and it didn’tmatter what I did to try and stop it. Last time she got cold, she slapped me in the face.

“Tell me where you’re working, Max. Did you finally get a new fucking job?” she asked, ice in her voice.

“As a matter of fact, Sheri, I did. Down at Hallow Ranch.”

My eyes widened.

Hallow Ranch was Mr. Langston’s ranch.

Mr. Langston wasn’t nice to anyone in town, not since his wife died in the fire. Everyone at school knew the story, and his two sons, Denver and Mason, mainly kept to themselves. They were a few grades above me.

“John Langston would never hire a fuck up like you,” Mom sneered.

Sadness hit me then, and I quickly ducked back into my bedroom, shutting the door and putting my back against it as another round of screaming started. Eventually, the screaming got louder, and I could hear Mom throwing things. Usually, it was the TV remote, then her ash tray, and if things got really bad, she would flip the coffee table.

It was always the same.

Mom would fall in love with a new man, they’d be nice for awhile, and then they would leave. None of them ever stayed, including Daddy. He left on my fifth birthday.

That was five years ago.

As Mom and Max continued to fight, I kept my back against the door. You know, just in case Max left and Mom needed someone else to yell at. I still had some math homework to do, but that would have to wait until tomorrow morning. I would wake up extra early, walk to school, find a bench at the playground, and—

“Abigail!”

I sucked in a breath, feeling goosebumps spread over my arms at the anger in my mother’s voice. Quickly, I flipped offthe light, praying she would think I was already asleep. She shouted my name again, sounding closer this time. I felt a lump grow in my throat, and I bit down on my bottom lip as hard as I could, forcing my whimpers to quiet.

“Girl, you have five seconds to get into the living room,” she screeched.

---