Stay With Me (Stay With Me Series Book 1) Read online

  stay with me

  Nicole Fiorina

  stay with me

  Copyright © 2019 by Nicole Fiorina Books

  All right reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Editing by Murphy Rae

  Cover by Nicole Fiorina Books

  Formatting by Stephanie Anderson

  eBook Edition

  Publication Date: August 3, 2019

  ASIN: B07TH9WHYR

  ** WARNING: Mature content, adult language, graphic sexual content, and disturbing matters may trigger an emotional response. Read at your own risk. **

  For the souls who feel lost or misunderstood, this is for you.

  You are not alone.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Epilogue

  Thank You

  About the Author

  Prologue

  “You stood before me, a memory,

  but I was a stranger in your eyes.

  Did you forget to remember

  or remember to forget?”

  —Oliver Masters

  mia

  I WOULD NEVER FORGET the day you slipped away. A small lift of your chin and our eyes met. I only saw emptiness in a place where a wistful vulnerability used to collide with wonder. Now, a hollowness of a bottomless pit. In your eyes, I’d never seen your shade of green so dim. It caused my stomach to fall into the same somber eclipse, spiraling faster and faster with no end, no walls, only darkness.

  And then you averted your gaze.

  The flesh from my bones, the blood in my veins, the oxygen in my lungs, all of it crumbled, breaking into small pieces yet still holding on by a thread—the thread was my heart. It pumped on auto-pilot as if it couldn’t associate with the rest of my body. It’s thumping sounded in my ears, and I wished it would stop, but my heart was not ready to let go. It continued with the same steady beat, refusing to give up what was right in front of me. Maybe your eyes will return to mine, I thought—well, prayed.

  And I waited.

  Two seconds passed.

  Then three—waiting as my body weakened from your disconnection, and my heart continued to pump.

  Four.

  And then your back was to me.

  Whatever we’d had no longer existed, but I remembered everything clearly, and it wasn’t fair. Could I have accepted the hollow look in your eyes over the wonder? Surely, anything you had to offer would be better than nothing. If only you had turned back around. Had you even noticed me?

  And then you took a step in the opposite direction.

  You were gone, left in obscurity and I couldn’t bring you back, but my heart still maintained a steady beat, pumping along to a rhythm of crimson hope. “Stay with me,” you had said over and over. Who would have thought you would be the one to take a step into oblivion? I’m screaming now, can you hear me? Why didn’t you stay with me?

  I didn’t get to kiss you goodbye. You were gone, and even though you were only twenty feet away, I missed you. It was entirely possible you’d wake up and turn back around, or I’d wake up.

  Either way, it was a nightmare.

  I forced my eyes closed. I couldn’t watch you walk away, each step drawing more distance and less of a chance of you coming back. The darkness was better, anyway, and if I held my lids closed tight, I could see stars. I focused on the yellow and orange horizon behind my eyelids, pretending it was a sunset through the bitterness. The only warmth was the water gathering in the corners of my eyes. The tears struggled for a moment, fighting the same lie as my beating heart.

  I wished I could switch places with you, because I didn’t deserve a world once blessed by your light, and you didn’t deserve this at all.

  But this is what I deserved.

  In the beginning, I’d thought you’d be fun, and I’d thought I could leave you effortlessly. It was me who ripped hearts out, but now mine was the one bleeding. The walls surrounding me had been durable, indestructible, before you.

  And with no more walls, and no more you, I was slowly suffocating.

  When it came down to you and me, I’d never thought you’d be the one to slip away.

  Chapter One

  “Falling down, through the darkness.

  She doesn’t scream, or cry for help,

  lost her mind a long time ago.

  She prefers falling down.”

  —Oliver Masters

  I NEVER TOOK my stepmother seriously when she said I would one day be sent away for my reckless behavior after she found a boy in my closet, and I never really cared. It only fueled my actions.

  So, one day, I stole the keys to her precious BMW 3 Series and drove it straight through the garage door.

  Diane had grown tired of my acting out and blamed it on my father’s increasing abandonment of the belief I could be cured. My father, the simple and passive-aggressive man he was, took each harsh word that poured from her perfectly made-up lips as he sat at the dining room table, staring blankly.

  I didn’t even like the boy, either. All I’d wanted was to feel something. Anything.

  On the edge of nineteen, and at my stepmother’s final straw and my father’s last nerve, they both agreed to call the law after my BMW incident. Since it was my last warning, I would have been thrown into a mental institution, but my father pleaded with the judge to send me away to Dolor—the farthest reformatory college for people like me.

  Don’t get me wrong, I knew I wasn’t normal, but I never thought there would be anyone else like me, especially not a school dedicated to my … kind—if there was such a thing.

  At what point had I taken a turn for the worst? I assumed I had always been this way. Allowing boys to use me had never been for their benefit.

  It had been for mine.

  I wanted to feel their hands on me, their mouths on mine, and the eagerness and lust as if it would rub
off on me. It never did, but maybe, just maybe, it would light a fire inside me long enough to burn. Pain, lust, anger, passion, I would take anything at this point. My heart was stiff. Rigor mortis had already set in my soul, if I even had a soul. I could no longer be sure.

  My suitcase lay half empty at the edge of my bed as I stood over it. Even with a brief list of acceptable items, I had nothing I desired to bring. No pictures, no attachment to a pillow or blanket. No interest in anything aside from my headphones that I was sure they would confiscate upon my arrival. I opened my nightstand to retrieve a box of condoms, because it wasn’t on the list of “unacceptable items,” and stuffed it into a secret pocket at the bottom of the suitcase.

  Satisfied, I reached for the top of the suitcase, slammed it shut, and closed the zipper without an afterthought. I wasn’t mad at Diane. If I had been, that would have meant I had feelings. Honestly, I didn’t blame her. If I had a stepdaughter like myself, I’d call the police as well.

  “Mia, you ready?” my father called out from the bottom of the stairs.

  I didn’t answer.

  “Mia Rose Jett!”

  “Two minutes!” I set the lightly packed suitcase beside my bedroom door and took one last look around at the bare walls of an old prison before I entered a new one. My walls were always empty, just like my bed, my dresser, and my desk. No personality. Once I walked out the door, it would be like I had never lived here. This space could quickly become a guest bedroom, and I bet Diane already had a Pinterest board dedicated to it.

  “Oh, no. You can’t wear that.” Diane scrunched her face from the bottom of the stairs. Her short bleach-blonde bob didn’t move as she shook her head slightly from side to side. She always wore too much hairspray. Come to think of it, I don’t believe I’d ever seen her without her hair blown out, straightened, and sprayed in place. Even when she did her fifteen-minute workout videos after dinner in her room with the door cracked, I’d never seen her hair move.

  “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” My chin dropped as I straightened my oversized black t-shirt that read “cute but psycho” over my destroyed jean shorts, revealing my chicken legs. One would think I was naked underneath, the shirt was so big, but I wasn’t. I was covered. Promise, Dad.

  “Nothing’s wrong. Let’s move. We’re already late for the airport,” my father said, waving me down. He always avoided confrontation at all cost, and sometimes I wondered who he was more scared of—Diane or me? At this angle, I finally noticed the bald spot he’d been complaining about on the top of his head. I never believed him before, but now I didn’t care enough to point out he was correct. He’d been a handsome man, but even with Diane around, loneliness had sucked the life out of him. Bags scalloped under his brown eyes and his cheeks were sunken.

  Marriage would do that to you.

  The suitcase banged against each stair as I stepped down. “She could have, at the very least, brushed her hair,” Diane said under her breath as she walked out the door ahead of my father and me. I pressed my lips together at the hypocrisy of her statement. At least I could run a brush through my hair if I wanted to.

  “Not too much longer now,” my father said as he gripped the handle of the suitcase and brought it behind him. He was right. Only eleven and a half hours longer, and I would be 3,447 miles away from both of them, give or take. He was choosing a perfect life, and I wasn’t a part of perfect, and that was okay. I’d done my research. I knew what was waiting for me on the opposite side of the plane ride.

  Dolor University was a reformatory college—prison—specifically designed for troubled souls and delinquents who suffered from mental illnesses, addictions, and a poor parental guidance that led one to a career in crime. Apparently, the best in the world, located in none other than the United Kingdom. I couldn’t help but think the reason for the location was so they wouldn’t feel pressured to visit, and I was okay with that. They could ship me wherever. I didn’t want to be around people who didn’t want to be around me, anyway. Isolation was my paradise.

  I kept my attention out the window, twirling my dirty brown hair around my finger the entire way to the airport while my father went on about the curriculum.

  “With Mia Rose’s history, we should have chosen an all-girl reformatory,” Diane scoffed.

  “Mia Rose needs diversity,” my father reminded her.

  “Mia Rose is right here and can speak for herself,” I informed both of them.

  Diane conveniently stayed in the car as my father escorted me through baggage check-in and to the end of the line at security. He couldn’t go any farther, and I was surprised he had made it this far.

  I stood before him as his eyes glossed over. “I’m sorry, Mia.”

  He had never been good with words, but neither had I. Seconds passed, and he still couldn’t look me in the eyes. He never could. Even when I talked to him, he’d look past me as if I were a ghost.

  Look at me, Dad.

  But, after a single nod, he turned and left me without so much as a second glance as I clutched my passport and plane ticket in my hand.

  Chapter Two

  “It was instantaneous, the mutual agreement between

  her mind, heart, body, and soul. All at once they left her,

  replaced by four walls. Though inside, she’s screaming,

  the darkness was inevitable. It was instantaneous.”

  —Oliver Masters

  THE FLIGHT WASN’T so bad. No obnoxious crying children or Chatty Kathy’s. Though, I didn’t look like the type to entertain a conversation. People tended to stay away from me. Resting bitch face was real, and I wore my venom on my sleeve, not my heart—I didn’t have one. Well, yes, I had the organ that was continuously flowing blood through my body. It did its job, unfortunately.

  I spent the entire flight leaned against the window, looking out into the different shades of blue with my wireless headphones over my head, listening to playlists most would criticize. As the color of the ocean blurred into the sky, it was hard to tell where the water stopped and where the sky began.

  Surprisingly, my father had arranged for a limousine to transport me from the airport to the university. It was nothing more than a guilt trip—literally.

  The sky was now shades of gray on the verge of a rainstorm. As we approached the tall iron gates of the school, the letter “D” was monogrammed front and center before they slowly opened, splitting the “D” in half. A tall brick wall wrapped around the entire campus. No way to escape once the gates closed. If it weren’t for the security guard who was sent by Dolor’s finest, I would have jumped out at the first opportunity, more than happy to leave my suitcase behind. Even my condoms. I could find my way around the United Kingdom, beg for food, sleep in alleyways. The thought of my dad receiving that call made me smile to myself. I would love to be a fly on the wall for that conversation.

  The large German man sneered over at me as the idea crossed my mind, or at least I assumed he was German by the looks of him. He was tall with a shaved head, muscular build, square jaw, and light eyes. He didn’t speak but looked like the kind of man vocal during a game of rugby. Did he know what I was planning? Inevitably, someone had to have attempted the great escape before. I could only imagine at least a dozen escape attempts, each one ending worse than the next.

  I fell back into the black leather and averted my eyes from the silent German man and looked out the tinted window toward the castle before me.

  The lawn was perfectly manicured with the lawnmower stripes still visible. Vines snaked vertically up the sides of the stone castle walls. A tall tower protruded on the left-hand side, and on the right sat a separate building wholly detached and made of concrete. Victorian windows covered the majority of the front of the castle with the addition of black bars across them.

  No way out.

  The limousine came to a stop, and a one-man welcoming committee
greeted me as soon as the driver opened the door.

  “Thank you, Stanley,” the older gentleman said, greeting the Silent German as I exited the vehicle. “Hello, Ms. Jett, welcome to Dolor. I’m Dean Lynch. Now, follow me.” Lynch didn’t bother extending a hand for a formal shake, which filled me with relief. I followed behind him with my luggage in hand and my headphones around the back of my neck. We walked through the tall wooden double doors and a security checkpoint conveniently waited for me. Stanley took my suitcase and laid it across a revolving belt before it entered the scanner for the second time within the last twenty-four hours.

  “Arms up,” Stanley insisted with a wave of a stick. He speaks.

  I raised my arms to my sides as my face found the ceiling. “Is this all really necessary?”

  Stanley ran the detector down each side of my waist, and as soon as it met my hip, the beeper went off.

  “Hand it over,” Lynch said with a palm in the air. “Cell phones aren’t permitted.”

  “You got to be kidding me. I can’t even listen to my music?” Screw talking to anyone. I didn’t care if I never spoke with my father or Diane again.

  “I will need your earphones and any other valuables as well.”

  I unwrapped my headphones from around my neck and dropped them into his palm. “Would you like blood and a pap smear while you’re at it?” I sneered.

  Lynch relaxed his shoulders. “That will come after our brief meeting.”

  My brows snapped together. I had been kidding, but he was serious.

  After Dean Lynch collected the only items to keep me sane, I walked through the security checkpoint without any beeps. Lynch ushered me down the hall across the shiny white and gray swirled marbled floor.

  I took in my surroundings as I followed close behind. Natural colored board and batten spread over the walls on each side of me. “We are two weeks into the new school year, so you’re already behind. I understand this is your first year in a university?” Lynch asked as he quickly shuffled ahead of me. He was skinny, breakable, and I hoped if he turned to his side, he would vanish into thin air.