Prologue

Thinking about how I would get out of town wasn't doing me any good. That's what I realized on a Wednesday in October, lying on the hood of my car and watching the smoke disappear into the air. It was nearly the same color, the sky, as the smoke that I puffed out every once in a while.

Really, thinking about leaving a town, that's what everyone did. And how many people actually moved away? People got stuck here, without realizing, like trees they rooted and were unable to move without dying. And I was a tree as well, my feet firmly planted into the soil of this godforsaken town nobody could find on the map, and if I dared to take a step away from this town I would die. Wither, and die.

Maybe a bit morbid to think so, but that's what happened. My dad loved to talk about my cousin Nora, to warn my siblings and me about the dangers of the outside world. Dear Nora went to Los Angeles to fulfill her big dream of becoming an actress. In a way she did make her dream come true, although I doubt she wanted to become an average porn actress with a love for coke snorting.

Dad acted as if it had been devastating to lose Nora to the outside world, but in reality this only proved him right. And the fucker loved to be right.

I didn't want him to be, but proving your parent wrong was something you did when you're in your rebellious phase. Something every kid did because that's what kids do, only to realize your parents weren't so wrong after all.

Well, screw that, I didn't want to be a tree. Didn't want to get stuck. Yet where did dreaming of going away get me? Nowhere, but on the hood of a car, exhaling grey smoke into the grey sky.

You're supposed to be at the start of your life when you're seventeen, but I felt as if I could already see the end. I would go to a college nearby, then settle in town, marry and have children young, grow old and die. That would be life for me. Easy, quiet, not disturbing anyone.

Maybe I wanted to leave behind some chaos, not know what was going to happen the next day. Maybe I wanted to opt for the other route.

Maybe I would.

AN: Okay so honestly I still have to figure out where I'm going with this because it suddenly popped up, but I'm just going to figure it out and write the next chapter as soon as I can. I'm posting this so soon just to see if people like it or not. I'm sorry if there are grammer mistakes, I'm Dutch and it isn't Beta-ed.

Thanks for reading!