Prologue
“Your love was fake, but the pain it caused was very real.”
-V.J.
I used to think people got happy endings. You know, the whole, defeat the ugly stepmother, marry the prince, and live happily ever after. I believed in fairytales, the keyword “believed.” My mom would always hate me reading those types of books. “They aren’t realistic. Real life never has a happy ending,” she would tell me. For a while, I didn’t believe her. I read and read and read until I ran out of books to read.
One night, when I was in 5th grade, I came home to my mom sitting on the couch with a bottle of beer in her hand. Of course, I say “Mom,” but that thing was not my mom. That thing sitting on the couch was a monster left in place of her. She told me that my dad had left and he wasn’t looking back. That night my mom went off the deep end. That night I grew up. That night I finally understood my mom when she told me that fairytales were a lie.
