"Don't you want to hurt me as much as I hurt you?"
"I want to rip your heart out."
"Do it, then. Fuck me like you hate me. And rip my heart out."
***
Everyone at Fairmont High School knows that Cleo Fitzgerald is to blame for putting her boyfriend...
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ASHWOOD RANCH is a rehab facility in The Middle of Fucking Nowhere, Utah. It's exclusive and remote. Known for their discretion, they've been catering to the rich and famous for decades. My dad owns a large tech company. Syncore Technologies. Mom was a beloved daytime soap star in her heyday. She had a starring role in As The Sun Sets. It's where parents, like mine, send their troubled offspring to avoid scandal, to keep them out of sight, out of mind, and out of the public eye until whatever shit that hit the fan can be wiped away and swept under the rug of society's radar.
My brother has always been the hell raiser in our family, and I was the boring one. Mom and Dad probably bet good money that they'd be sending Brookes to Ashwood someday. Not me. Never me.
Much to everyone's surprise, I was the one who ended up at Ashwood.
Dr. Liu was my therapist from Ashwood. When I first arrived at the facility, I told him how my classmates called me a psychopath. I asked whether or not he believed what everyone was saying about me. Dr. Liu never answered my question.
Apparently, he's not allowed to diagnose me until I'm older.
He simply explained that, as with all mental disorders, psychopathy exists on a spectrum, and people with psychopathic traits tend to display: A lack of remorse or shame. Antisocial behavior. Pathological lying. Failure to empathize. Inability to love. Among several other quirks that make them a bit repellent to the rest of society.
Do I tick all of these boxes?
Who the fuck knows.
All I know is—if you treat a sane bitch like she's crazy long enough, she'll become crazy. After only one week at Ashwood, I desperately wanted out. Three little words kept screaming in my head.
Run, bitch, run...
The staff dictated when I could sleep, when I could eat, what I could think, how I could act. They confiscated my phone. Brookes sent me a care package full of my favorite books and snacks, but they confiscated that, too. Every time I resisted in any way, they'd give me pills that I didn't want to take. The guards were mostly middle-aged men who would watch the other teenage girls and me strip down to nothing in the communal showers.
Fucking creeps.
Escape became my obsession. But I was surrounded by trees, trees, and more goddamn trees. My sense of direction was shit. I'd never been the outdoorsy type. It would probably take days to get out of the forest on foot. I couldn't build shelter or start a fire to save my life. If my dumb ass attempted to waltz out of here, I'd probably trip over a fallen branch and crack my skull within the first fifteen minutes.
I knew I needed to find another way out.
During my three months at Ashwood, I spent every single day telling Dr. Liu whatever I thought he wanted to hear, trying to convince him to sign off on my release forms.
