Rush Too Far
Rosemary Beach - 1. 1
Abbi Glines
To Natasha Tomic, who first used the phrase “Rush Crush. ” You’ve stood behind me, made me laugh, listened to me worry, and enjoyed more than one glass of red wine with me. Over this past year you went from being a supportive blogger to a real friend.
PROLOGUE
They say a lot of bullshit like that, because it helps them sleep at night. It makes for good, heartwarming sayings to hang on their walls and smile at as they pass by.
I know differently. Children love like no one else. They have the capacity to love more fiercely than anyone. That much is true. That much I know. Because I lived it. By the age of ten, I knew hate, and I knew love. Both all-consuming. Both life-altering. And both completely blinding.
Looking back now, I wish someone had been there to see how my mother had sown the seed of hate inside me. Inside my sister. If someone had been there to save us from the lies and bitterness she allowed to fester within us, then maybe things would have been different. For everyone involved.
I never would have acted so foolishly. It wouldn’t have been my fault that a girl was left alone to take care of her ailing mother. It wouldn’t have been my fault that the same girl stood at her mother’s graveside, believing that the last person on earth who loved her was dead. It wouldn’t have been my fault that a man had destroyed himself, his life becoming a broken, hollow shell.
But no one saved me.
No one saved us.
We believed the lies. We held on to our hate. Yet I alone destroyed an innocent girl’s life.
They say you reap what you sew. That’s bullshit, too. Because I should be burning in hell for my sins. I shouldn’t be allowed to wake up every morning with this beautiful woman in my arms, who loves me unconditionally. I shouldn’t get to hold my son and know such a pure joy.
But I do.
Because eventually, someone did save me. I didn’t deserve it. Hell, more than anyone, it was my sister who needed saving. She hadn’t acted on her hate. She hadn’t manipulated the fate of another family, not caring about the outcome. But her bitterness still controls her, while I’ve been delivered. By a girl . . .
But she isn’t just a girl. She is an angel. My angel. A beautiful, strong, fierce, loyal angel who entered my life in a pickup truck, carrying a gun.
CHAPTER ONE
There are so many places where I could start this story. In my bedroom, as I held my sister while she cried from the pain of our mother’s cruel words. At the front door, as she watched, with tears streaming down her face, while my father came to take me away for the weekend, leaving her alone. Both of those things happened often, marking me forever. I hated to see her cry. Yet it was a part of my life.