Page 1 of Give Me Love

Prologue

Bryce

(Twenty years earlier)

Rain falls heavy against the metal roof of the run-down Pontiac as lightning illuminates the gray sky. It’s early and my brother Jace sleeps soundlessly in the back seat. I watch as Dad grips the worn steering wheel, his knuckles turning a pale shade of white. A thin trail of smoke from the cigarette between his fingers drifts toward the cracked window and rain drips down the inside of the door, wetting the stack of papers that’s shoved into its pocket, along with the pint of whiskey that helps his hands not shake.

“You think she’s there?” I ask as I put my finger into the burnt cigarette hole in the seat, digging out the foam inside.

He turns his head in my direction. “Yeah,” he replies, giving me a worriless grin. But I’m not stupid, because his eyes betray him, showing no sign of calmness. I return the smile, only to make him feel more at ease, because I’m sick of this, wishing he would have left us at home like he normally does. This time she’s been gone for more than a few days. I take care of my brother and me when Dad’s busy looking for her or when he’s too drunk to remember we need food. But the neighbors have been growing suspicious, so Dad thought it would be best if he didn’t leave us at home so much. Hence why we’ve been coming along the last few times.

Mama likes to stick needles into her arms because it makes her forget.

Dad’s not innocent; he drinks more than he doesn’t. Sometimes I think it’s because of her that he does.

I study his face as he concentrates on the road ahead. I’m thirteen, but I don’t act like most kids my age.

Dad says I have an old soul. The school counselor worries that something is going on at home. She’s right, but I don’t tell her this.

We pass the county line and Dad turns onto a familiar bumpy road with an enormous field on one side and a single house with falling shutters and a leaning porch on the other. We near the decaying house and slowly pull into the same yard we always pull into. A large tree rests in the middle, its leaves swaying like Mama when she’s had the perfect mix of drugs and alcohol.

“Dance with me, John,” she croons, moving away

from the needle she’s placed on the spinning record.

Music flows through our tiny apartment and the downstairs’ neighbor hits the ceiling. Mama stomps back with a furrowed brow, but when she looks at Dad she smiles.

And that’s all it takes.

Dad stands, placing his bottle onto the crate used for a coffee table. I look down at my brother on the peeling

tile. He’s playing with a Hot Wheels car I swiped from the store because he had to have it and we had no money.

From our small kitchen table made out of plywood and two-by-fours, I rest my chin in the palm of my hand. My eyes focus back on my parents as they dance to The Rolling Stones’ “Wild Horses”.

They move in small circles around the living room, looking at each other as though it’s the first time.

I see love.

No, there’s no short supply of that from the two. They

smother each other in unyielding love. Their love is like a raging fire destroying everything near and around

them. Even at my young age, I can see the love they desire from each other will also annihilate them both in the end.

How can something so beautiful be so deadly?

Dogs bark viciously on their stretched chains, bringing me back to the present. There are holes around them and a makeshift doghouse rests toward the back of the house along with dead wheat fields. Dad shifts the car into park and tells me to stay put and watch my brother.

After he gets out, he pulls his jacket up, shielding his head from the thick sheet of rain falling. Looking in my side mirror, I see Jace is still asleep and I frown at the sound of yelling. Dad has Mama over his shoulder as he walks off the porch. She kicks and punches his back, but my gaze lands on the house and I narrow my eyes.

A girl stares out from a window with blinds halfway up. Even from the thick sheet of rain, I can see her expression is sad, her smile nonexistent. Her eyes move from me to my parents and she looks at them with a curious wonder.

I wonder how old she is and her name.

We’re connected because the house she lives in supplies the drugs my mom lives for. The front door of the house slams shut, and I jerk, almost opening my car door and running to the poor girl, but Dad yanks the handle.

“Get in the back, son.”

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