And it was only when I stood in the doorway, feeling all sorts of weird and sick butterflies in my stomach, that my mom came to the entryway. I was told by Claude, our butler, when to be ready to leave. I wasn’t altogether shocked when my dad’s secretary told me the next day to start packing. I’d laid back down after a few moments when no other sound followed, feeling and hearing my heart pounding in my chest. I’d been over in my wing, having given up on trying to be near them, but I’d bolted upright in my bed. I hadn’t even been in my parents’ hallway when I heard it. It would never match the shouts, the yelling, the sound of walls being hit, and especially not that last thing I’d heard two nights ago: a bloodcurdling scream. On the day I moved in, there’d been some shrieks, some giggling, music playing, and a mom who’d shouted at a little boy who darted under my legs and took off down the hallway, but none of that was really noise. I also had the insight that while I loved my mother, I loathed the battlefront that was in our home, and my shoulders sagged in relief at the quiet in Hillcrest Academy. Maybe not all twelve year olds have that insight, but I did. It was hard not to when I snuck up to sleep in the hallway adjacent to theirs. The fighting between my parents was at an all-time high, and even though we lived in a mansion and they kept to their wing, I could still hear them. I’d been shipped to Hillcrest Academy slightly against my wishes-but also not. That’d been the only pause for me, because I was not this type of girl. When I first walked into our room, I took in her bedding, which looked like a cloud with crystal lights surrounding it, the massive amount of photographs she’d taped to her wall in the shape of a heart, and the framed canvas with a quote in glittering font that read, Fairytales Happen.

Our beginning six months went by without a hiccup. My boarding school roommate was a mafia princess.Īlthough I didn’t learn that at first. I needed to fictionalize this area for the purposes of this book. To my knowledge, there is no Lakeshore Wharf.

Proofread by Paige Smith, Kara Hildebrand, Chris O’Neil Parece, and Amy Englishįormatted by Elaine York, Allusion Graphics, LLC The characters and story lines are created by the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, or any events or occurrences, is purely coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission of the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes only.

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