Page 78 of Pieces of Ash

It’s not really about a specific person, is it? It’s about protection. It’s about protecting someone who needs you.

Staring at the ceiling, I wonder about the girl upstairs, returning to the original questions that plagued me when she arrived: Why is she here? Why does she have no one else? And why do I have the persistent feeling that she’s in hiding?

Except, instead of like they did before, when these questions made me want to put distance between us, now I feel just the opposite. I lean into them.

She’s young and all alone in the world.

Who the hell could mean her harm?

I ask myself this question again and again, until it’s deeply embedded, until it’s an unexpected mission, and I promise myself…

I will find out who or what is hunting her.

And whoever or whatever it is, I will protect her.

I swear on my life—on the wasted chances I have squandered before today—this time I will do it right.

I will keep her safe.

Day #22 of THE NEW YOU!

I don’t know where else to write this.

Where else I can share it.

And I HAVE to share it.

Where to begin… Oh, god, I don’t even know. I can tell you that my cheeks are hot and my legs are weak and my stomach… God, I want to throw up. But I also want to—I don’tfuckingknow… laugh or something.

Laugh.

Oh my god, for the first time in two years, maybe I don’t want to die.

How is that possible? How is it remotely possible that I can live in a nightmare and—right here RIGHT NOW—feel…good? Is that what this is? I mean, I don’t trust it.I almost hate it. No. I don’t. I take that back. I don’t hate it. I don’t—my god, I just don’t know what to do with it.

I thought I was dead.

But I’m not. I’m not dead. How can that be? Who the hell am I now?

I was Teagan, the daughter. Then Mam, the teen mother. Then Tig, the model. Then Tig, the bad bitch. Then Tig, the junkie. And then back to Teagan, the sad sack wife ofa fucking monster.

So who am I now?

(Fuck knows.)

(Mae’r diafol yn gwybod.)

I didn’t mean for it to happen.

I didn’t see it coming.

It was an accident.

I know that for sure.

Over soup, Mosier reached to his right, grabbing the back of Damon’s neck and slamming his face into the full tureen of borscht. He was pissed about something. I don’t know what.

It doesn’t matter.