Prologue

Dear Daisy,

Weight: 98lbs

Calories: 2000

This is my first letter to you, well, my first journal entry, I mean.

Since you have left me, I really don’t know who I can speak to, so I have decided to keep speaking to you… through the medium of pen and page. Instead of our nightly chats on the phone about our progress that day, I will talk to you here. I will tell you my weight, how many calories I’ve eaten… just like before.

But this is not like before, is it?

It’s not the same. The contact is not nearly enough, but it is all I have… all I have left of you, Daisy, my closest friend.

I’m sitting here now under the scorching summer sun, shaded by a huge pine tree… next to your grave. Your grave, Daisy! How did it come to this?

I am running my hand down the beautifully bright black granite headstone, tracing the edges of your epitaph:

‘She concealed her tears but shared her smiles’

That was you, Daisy, smiling on the surface but too fragile for this world underneath. You never let it show, though, always smiling through the pain. Wearing your mask that told the world you were fine, but all the time you were dying inside.

I know because I wear this mask too.

You were always my rock, the one person who I could rely on. But you left me here alone and I am lost without you. I don’t know my place without you in this frightening world full of pain, with its constant pressure to be perfect.

It was never supposed to be this way. We were meant to get through this life together, survive together. But just like the flower of your name, you thrived for a while but, too delicate to last, withered and died.

Your last words to me were live for the both of us. Do what scares me and cherish each day. And I will try. I promise, this year, I will try. But already dark thoughts plague my mind. Insecurities haunt me each day.

I don’t know how to purge myself of these horrid thoughts… of his horrid words.

The voice is so powerful in my mind, and only you could understand what this is like. I’m afraid without you here, it will win. I’m afraid without you here, I will lose this relentless fight. I’m afraid, without you, I will listen to his words and find myself falling into the iron clutches of my biggest fear.

Oh, Daisy, as I sit here in this silent and peaceful graveyard, a part of me wishes I were there in heaven with you. I am not sure I am strong enough to carry on like this and, even now, the voice taunts and teases me from the deepest recesses of my mind.

You’re disgusting.

You’re an eyesore, he tells me without pause, day and night, ripping me from my dreams and pushing me to give in.

Daisy, I fear that without you in my life I will fall… again.

Chapter One

Lexi

The University of Alabama,

Tuscaloosa, United States of America

Three months later…

Tens of thousands of feet stomped in the stands, sounding like clashing thunder rolling aggressively through Bryant-Denny. The smell of grass, of a summer’s day, of sweat, of adrenaline drifted into the tunnel from the field.

Game day. An Alabama Crimson Tide game day. The famous Crimson Tide’s opening game against the Chattanooga Mocs.

My heart was racing, my palms were sweating, and I straightened my crimson uniform just to occupy my shaking hands. A finger snapped in front of my face, and I glanced up to see the team captain, Shelly Blair.

“You ready for this?” she asked bluntly, her perfectly straightened long red hair swishing over her shoulders. I nodded and straightened up, and a smug smirk spread on her lips. “You’d better be, Goth girl. Eighty thousand people out there today, and you’re flying.” She leaned in close. “Don’t mess this up. You gotta prove you’re worth this spot.”

Goth girl. Shelly’s reference to my black chin-length hair, pale face makeup, and dark kohl-rimmed eyes.

“I won’t,” I said through gritted teeth. A curt—and what seemed like impressed—nod was her only answer before she turned away and took her place at the front of our large co-ed squad.

“You’ll be good, Lexi babe,” Lyle, another squad member and a base of my stunt team, said as he playfully nudged my arm.

It had taken me four years to get to this day. Four years to face being back on a squad. Most of the team questioned why I’d only tried out senior year, not before, but once I’d showed them my triple-axle-twist, no more questions came my way, and I placed straight on the Crimson team—the best squad, the squad that cheered at all football games, home and away. The squad everyone who ever tried out really wanted to make.

“I feel nauseous,” I told Lyle at the thought of facing the entire student body and then some, in only my tiny uniform.

He passed me his bottle of blue Gatorade. “Drink this, then get your head in the game, chickadee. We’re out in two.”

I did as instructed and breathed deep.

Two minutes.

One hundred and twenty seconds.

Until the thing I’d worked toward for years came into reality.

All my rehabilitation. All my hard work was for this.

This moment.

This one chance to take back control of my demons.

To face my biggest fear.

To face head on what drove me to my dark place.

To conquer what nearly killed me.

The Million Dollar Band began to play. I watched their intricate formation from my spot. Drums were rolling. On a crescendo of the trumpet section, Big Al, the school’s elephant mascot, pushed his way through the squad and rampaged onto the field, his dramatic entrance hyping up the crowd even more.