Full Page Image

Dedication

To everyone who has supported my writing so far.

You are the reason this book exists.

Prologue

Find beauty in the broken pieces. That’s what my mother used to tell me. My father would scoff and say life is about accomplishments, not beauty.

Given the fundamental difference in those two ideologies, it’s probably not a massive surprise their marriage crashed spectacularly, but my five-year-old self was not expecting to leave for my first soccer game with two parents and come home to one.

Maybe I should have hated the sport after that; resented it for the loss that took place during the hour I kicked the black and white ball into the goal for the first time, clueless to the fact that my mother was speeding out of the town limits at that very same moment.

I did the opposite.

I shut out everything besides soccer.

After we became a family of three, my older sister Hallie retreated into normal things like friends, boys, and school.

My father retreated into destructive things like alcohol, insane work hours, and a series of flings with women half his age.

I played soccer.

If my teachers had gotten ahold of my father, they probably would have passed on their concerns that my obsession with soccer was unhealthy. That I sketched passing drills on the sides of my worksheets and read biographies about legends in the sport during class.

If my coaches had been able to get ahold of my father, they probably would have informed him I had heaps of natural talent and a work ethic that put the Energizer Bunny to shame.

Instead, I shrugged at my teachers and informed my coaches of all the things I still needed to work on.

Before she left, my mother would say she named me Saylor because it sounded bold.

Fearless.

Brave.

It was the only thing she left me with that I took to heart.

To Hallie’s credit, she tried to fill the gaping hole left by our mother’s literal departure and our father’s metaphorical one. Even so, we were never close, due to both our six-year age gap and our polar opposite personalities.

And it wasn’t just Hallie. I didn’t let anyone in. Not my many friends, not my soccer teammates, not any of the boys I’d kiss under the bleachers.

I never wanted to.

Until him.

Chapter One

I tend not to think before I speak.

“Yellow is really not your color, Anne,” I inform my redheaded housemate as she enters the kitchen through the opening to my right. “Red and yellow should only be combined on a hot dog.”

Anne rolls her eyes as she grabs a hard seltzer from the fridge.

“Don’t be a bitch, Saylor,” Cressida chastises. She doesn’t look up from the chocolate cake she’s icing as she scolds me. Multitasking at its finest.