The Outside Series - Complete Trilogy: Books 1-3 Read online

  The Outside Series - Complete Trilogy

  Books 1-3

  Kristina Renee

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Epilogue

  On the Outside

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Epilogue

  Coming Outside

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Are you an aspiring author?

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious or used fictitiously. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher or author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Safer Outside

  Copyright 2014 Kristina Renee

  All Rights Reserved

  For Trevor, my real life superhero,

  Thank you for giving me the space to always pursue my crazy dreams.

  1

  Starting my sophomore year at a new school was bad enough but trying to pull off a whole new persona seemed a bit ridiculous. I’d grown up with a lot of the kids at this new school but in the two years since they’d seen me, I lost twenty pounds and changed my name. Stress and depression could be great motivators to start exercising, stop binging on crazy bread and cheeseburgers and to make some positive changes in my life.

  I knew it wouldn’t be easy to face former classmates again. I kept wondering if they would accept me as the new and improved “Liz” or if they’d laugh at the feeble attempt dorky “Beth” was trying to make at a new start. I’d find out in less than twenty-four hours when I stepped onto the campus of Anderson High School.

  “Beth, stop picking at your nails. You look great. Everyone’s gonna be so happy to see you.” Kim Curtner had been my best friend since kindergarten and was the biggest reason I came back to the school that most of my childhood friends were attending. Her mom agreed to let me use their address so I could enroll in the upscale school district that my family moved away from after I finished seventh grade. Getting ready in her room before the first day of school had been a tradition since first grade. High school wasn’t an exception to that.

  “Liz! You have to call me Liz.” After pouring through self-help and empowerment books all summer, I was determined to create the life that I wanted for myself. And that meant going by the ‘confident’ nickname I’d chosen to escape the images my former classmates would have of middle school Beth. I wasn’t that insecure, chubby girl anymore that was just trying to stay out of everyone’s way. I was now Liz, the girl who wasn’t afraid to speak in front of a group or put on a pair of shorts in P.E. This seemed like my best shot to reinvent myself and I wasn’t gonna blow it.

  One of the best gifts my mother ever gave me was a name that had seventeen thousand nickname variations. If Liz didn’t work out, I was prepared to try Bette next. That had a certain Hollywood glamour to it. Or even Betsy. I could get behind becoming the girl-next-door. If nothing else, I could find a farmer and raise cattle or something.

  “Sorry. You know how hard that’s gonna be for me. How ‘bout I just call you Blue? I think that’ll be easier since it’s all I see when I look at you.” My blue eyes were often the first and only thing people mentioned when they described me. They were the most distinguishing feature of my entire body. Sadly. With longish brown hair and a roundish face, I wasn’t particularly memorable. That had always worked to Beth’s advantage. But Liz wanted to be seen. Not necessarily stand out in a group but not be hidden in the shadows. We’d see how it worked out.

  “Whatever. Just don’t remind people that I’m the same Beth Martin from seventh grade. God, it’s bad enough that they all have yearbooks to refer to once they make the connection.” The last year I was in a classroom with those kids wasn’t pretty. I had a boy cut that was more mullet than movie star and a perpetual case of the sniffles. I was going through a rough patch. It happens to thirteen-year-olds. Well, maybe not all but it definitely happened to me.

  “Are you sure you can’t sleep over tonight? It’ll be so much easier if we can walk to school together from here.” Kim was reorganizing the tabs in her binder for the eighth time while we sat on the floor of her room. She was forced to be a neat freak by her OCD parents. I wasn’t sure what her college dorm would look like once she was finally out of their house but, for now, she played the part of a perfectly put together angel very well. Never a hair out of place or a scuff on her Miu Mius.

  “I would but Billy starts school tomorrow too, and I want to make sure he has everything he needs. I might need to get him a new lunch box if we can’t find his from last year.”

  “You’re not his mother, you know.” This was Kim’s mantra to me. It was true that I was only his big sister, but our mom didn’t always have her priorities straight so I was more of a mom to him than a sibling.

  “I know, I know. Maybe tomorrow night if I end up working late. I don’t want to take the bus home if Mrs. Jameson needs me after seven.”

  “Okay, then meet me at the back benches in the morning.”

  “Definitely. And make sure you wear your black boots because I’m wearing mine. I don’t want to look stupid if no one else does.”

  “You’re gorgeous in anything you wear. Now get out of here before you miss the bus.”

  Grabbing my backpack and purse, I glanced at my watch. If I ran, I’d make it to the bus stop with about three minutes to spare. More than enough time.

  The county transit system was my primary mode of transportation. Since moving to a new town, fifteen miles away from where I grew up, I practically lived on that thing. As dirty and smelly as it could be, I actually relished the solitude it afforded me. It was the only time I could lose myself in a book or do homework in peace or just prepare myself for the nightmare I was going home to.

  My time on the bus was like my transition period. If I was leaving my house, I used the time to clear my mind of the chaos and get into the right mindset to be around normal people. Happy people. Sober people. If I was on my way home, it was the opposite. I had to mentally steel myself to be ready for anything. Be prepared to walk into a quiet storm that was brewing, or a raging war that I had to either avoid or confront. As much as I tried to anticipate the worst, I was never actually prepared for
how bad things could be until they happened. And they always did.

  2

  The bus stop was only three blocks from my house. I got off in front of a strip mall with a mini mart to my right and an auto parts store to my left. I was tempted to walk in either place just as a stalling mechanism. I was never anxious to get home.

  The door to the house felt like a prison every time I walked through it. That house held so many tears and secrets that I never wanted to return. But it was also the house where my mom, little brother, and baby sister were held captive.

  They weren’t literally prisoners in the sense that they weren’t allowed to come and go, but they couldn’t truly leave. Not ever. My stepdad, Jesse, had a hold on them that would keep them under his thumb for as long as he lived. And every day he lived, I prayed it was his last.

  I took a deep breath and counted to ten before opening the door and walking in. The house was quiet, which always left me hopeful that he wasn’t home. Or that he was dead. But as soon as I took a few steps into the kitchen, all hope was lost.

  “Hey, princess. You’re just in time for dinner.” His greasy hair was slicked back on his head and his eyes slowly traveled the length of my body. I wished I’d worn longer shorts so I didn’t have as much skin showing.

  “Hey. Where’s Mom?” I tried to avoid him as much as possible but also needed to be polite. It was the safest thing for all of us.

  “She’s giving the baby a bath. Come sit with me.”

  I’d rather starve. “Yeah, I’ll be back in a second. Just gotta put my stuff away.” The smile I wore as I walked away was only in place to hide the cringe I felt on the inside. Every minute I was in that house took me one step closer to… Well, I tried not to think about what would eventually happen. What he’d eventually do.

  “Bethy, come look.” As soon as I opened the door to the bedroom I shared with Billy, he flew off the bottom bunk and shoved a box of markers at me. “I found the colors Grandma gave me for my birthday.”

  “Nice, buddy. Those are perfect for third grade. Do you have your clothes and backpack ready for tomorrow?” I picked up his backpack and poked through it to make sure he had the rest of the supplies we picked out the previous week. “What about your lunch box? Did you find it or do we need to get you a new one?”

  “Found it. It was under my bed.” He pulled the vinyl case out from his shelf in the closet. It was blue with dirt bikes painted across the front. “There was still a Capri Sun in it.”

  “Score!” I high fived him as I hung his backpack on the door knob. “Let’s go eat dinner. Your daddy is waiting and then you need a shower so you can get to bed early tonight.” I tossed my bags up to the top bunk and followed Billy into the kitchen.

  “Hey, baby.” Mom was filling plates with hamburger helper when we got to the table.

  “Hi. Just a little for me. I ate at Kim’s.” It was a lie but eating the food that my mom put in front of me earned the nickname of Beefy Bethy for most of my childhood. I’d just managed to lose the weight and wasn’t about to put it back on to soothe her guilt-ridden conscience. I would never be Beefy Bethy again.

  “Are you sure you want to go to Anderson? It’s so far. Miller is a good school and you can walk.”

  “I’m sure, Mom. And I have to work for the Jamesons so it’ll be fine.” One of our old neighbors hired me to walk her kids home from school and do homework with them every day. It was an easy gig that paid well and it gave me an excuse to stay with Kim—often.

  Dinner was less eventful than usual. Jesse and Billy sat in front of the TV while I sat with Mom at the table. Macy fed herself while Mom sloshed some boxed wine around in a glass of ice. She wasn’t tipsy yet so there was hope for a quiet night. Although, hope and expectations are very different things. I never expected quiet.

  As soon as we were done, I put Billy in the shower and played a shape matching game with Macy. If all went well, I wouldn’t be spending much time at home once school started. I planned to leave early every day and come home late every night, if I had to come home at all. Ideally, I’d stay at Kim’s at least half the time.

  When Billy came out, he wanted to play Monopoly. It’s one of my least favorite games because it lasts forever but he loves being the banker so I agreed, my own guilt-ridden conscience getting the better of me. I hated to abandon Billy and Macy in that hellhole but I couldn’t do much for them. They were 100% trapped. I, on the other hand, was only half-trapped because Jesse wasn’t my biological dad and I could always get my grandma to bail me out when things got really bad. I just tried not to play that card more often than absolutely necessary. I had to wait until things were over ninety on the hundred-point scale of hell. That night was looking to be more like a fifty so I had to deal with it.

  Sitting on the floor, my back was to Jesse while he sat on the couch watching TV. I wasn’t paying attention to what was on but when I heard Jesse laugh, I glanced up at the screen. Some stupid cartoon was on so I looked away, but not before catching a glimpse in the mirrored TV stand. Jesse was staring at me. He’d been doing a lot more of that since I’d lost weight. I only caught his eyes for a second before getting creeped out. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the creepiest thing I would witness that night. As I looked back down to the game, I realized there was something strange about the rest of the reflection in the TV stand.

  It took me a second to notice that the pink skin hanging out of the leg hole in Jesse’s loose basketball shorts were his testicles. He had his legs spread wide and knew exactly what he was doing. His sick smile was proof that he wanted me to see him. Wanted to freak me out. Success. The night had officially been ratcheted up a notch.

  “How about you count the money now and see who won? I’m getting tired and you need to be up early tomorrow,” I said to Billy, quickly collecting each of our piles and handing them to him. “If you go lay down now, I’ll read to you for a while.” He hated going to bed unless we read a Gooosebumps book beforehand. I kept a stack of them in the shelf of my headboard for just such occasions.

  “For how long?” His negotiation skills only worked on me.

  “It’s almost eight, so how about twenty minutes?”

  “An hour?”

  Just as I pretended to consider his offer, the doorbell rang.

  “Customer,” Jesse sang as he hefted his ass off the couch. “Tell your mom to get my bag.”

  God, I hated him. “Uh huh. Come on, Billy. Let’s go read.” I picked up the game board and dumped it into the box without organizing any of the cards or cash.

  “But, I wasn’t done counting,” he whined as I tugged him by the arm to his feet.

  “You won, as usual. Let’s go.” I dragged him back to the room and barricaded us inside as the revolving door of customers began their nightly descent on our house. It’d been going on for as long as I could remember. If I didn’t think my mom would be arrested too, I’d have called the narcs on him a long time ago.

  3

  When I stepped off the bus, there were three other kids my age that got off with me. I didn’t recognize any of them but they obviously knew each other because they quickly grouped up and started talking. I pretended to look for something in my bag to put some space between us. Walking alone was better than tagging along behind them like I was trying to butt into their conversation.

  “Liz,” Kim called out as soon as I stepped past the gym building. God bless her for remembering not to call me Beth.

  “Hey.” I walked up to her and scoped out the area. “So, have you seen anyone else yet?”

  “I saw Jen and Allie but they’re at their lockers. I’d say we should find them but there are too many hot guys to be seen right here. Do you remember Austin Walker? He’s like six foot now and gorgeous.”

  “Wasn’t he kinda scrawny? The guy with the weird hair?” As if I was one to talk about looks in middle school. But Austin always had big, blond curls that looked like a loose afro. It was kinda cute in a way but he was always the class clown so
it was hard to imagine him as anything but dorky.

  “Well, ma’am, he’s all growed up and lookin’ fine.” She shifted her body so she could see everyone coming in from the parking lot. “He was by his car earlier. You’ll notice him when you see him. Trust me.”

  The people watching lasted another fifteen minutes before the warning bell rang and we separated for our first period classes. “Meet me at my locker at break. I’m D75,” Kim said as she headed to class.

  I was less enthusiastic as I walked straight to geometry without stopping at my locker. When I got into the classroom, there were only a few other students inside. I took a seat toward the back, hoping to keep a low profile until I could feel out the reaction to my new look. As the room filled up, I noticed several familiar faces. Kids I’d known since kindergarten as well as others I saw in middle school but didn’t really know well. Of the thirty students in the room, only four or five were new to me.

  The balding man at the front of the room stood up and waited for the chatter to die down before speaking. As everyone settled in, he introduced himself and began taking roll. After about ten names, I knew I was coming up. It was the first test of my pretend confidence in taking on a new identity.