Chapter 6: Back to the Start

I met Derek in high school. He never should’ve ended up in our small Ohio town, but after his family blew up, he moved in with my grandpa.

Back then, he was wild and rebellious. Not long after school started, he was one of the first to get called up to the front during an all-school assembly in the gym. Most kids at least pretended to be sorry when they got in trouble. Derek just stood there, looking bored and untouchable.

I didn’t like people like that, and I tried to steer clear.

But when he got blamed for something he didn’t do, I couldn’t help but step in. After that, he started trailing me everywhere—from school all the way to my front porch, never leaving until I was safely inside.

"If it weren’t for me, you’d have gotten payback already. Good kids shouldn’t get mixed up in this stuff."

He didn’t care—fights, being set up, getting in trouble, whatever. But the night my dad’s fist—after smacking my mom—was about to come down on me, Derek jumped in and kicked him to the ground.

My mom screamed, clung to my dad, glared at me and cursed me out. Derek froze, then yanked me out of the house and ran.

He made me Kraft mac and cheese. The orange cheese powder clung to the edges of the bowl, and the broccoli was so raw it squeaked between my teeth. It was the worst bowl I’d ever had, but I ate every bite.

He sat across from me, nervously tugging his hoodie strings, watching for any sign I liked it. It was the first time anyone had tried to take care of me—even if it was just a blue box and a beat-up microwave.

In that messy, chaotic time, two lonely kids kept each other warm, pushed each other forward.

But everyone was against us. The school was strict about dating. Derek’s family thought I was beneath him. "I’ve seen gold-diggers, but never one this young."

My mom, eyes red from crying, slapped me and called me a disgrace. Derek got dragged away, and I was branded a pariah at school.

But he ran away, bringing all his birthday cash, even hurting his leg to do it. "Let’s run away together," he said.

I hugged him, forehead pressed to his. "One year. We’ll get into the same college. Then nobody can stop us. Just one year."

We mapped out our future on the backs of diner napkins and between stacks of library books. The whole world was against us, but for a while, we thought we could outrun fate.