PROLOGUE
Fourteen.
It was the summer I turned fourteen.
For a few more weeks, I was thirteen — still a child in every way. Then, just after my late summer birthday, life shifted in ways I wouldn’t understand for decades. That summer would change us all.
My friends and I filled the days with pools and bike rides, sleepovers and craft projects, mall trips and whispered talk about boys. That was small-town Arkansas in the summer — simple, ordinary, everything. We were happy.
We were innocent, standing on the edge of high school, trading middle school games for whispered secrets. A trio of quiet girls, convinced we were ready. Ignorance really was bliss.
We thought we knew everything. A game of M.A.S.H. could map out our futures — husbands, careers, mansions on hills. We already had lists of baby names. Prince Charming was waiting, smart and handsome, loyal and romantic. We believed in fairytales and thought the world was ours for the taking.
What we didn’t know was that summer would set the course for everything that came after. The dominoes had already begun to fall, and the weight of those years would scar us in ways we couldn’t yet imagine.
We were children. Clay waiting to be shaped. And the hands we trusted most — parents, teachers, pastors, neighbors, even friends — would fail us. Some by what they did. Some by what they didn’t.
Life was just beginning.
We were on our own.
We were fourteen.