by DC Renee
Copyright © 2017 by D.C. Renee
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, things, living or dead, locales or events is entirely coincidental.
SCARS OF MY PAST
Cover Design by Rebecca Pau, The Final Wrap
Interior Formatting by Elaine York, Allusion Graphics, LLC/Publishing & Book Formatting
Dedication
Time may heal, but it doesn’t erase. Each occasion announces your absence. Another milestone is here, but you’re still gone. I miss you Babulya. I love you.
Baba, Deda, I hope you have found each other in a better place, watching over us together with love. I miss you both.
To my uncle, taken from us too soon. We all miss your jokes, your kindness, just simply you.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
CHAPTER SIXTY
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
CHAPTER SEVENTY
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
OTHER BOOKS BY DC RENEE
CONNECT WITH DC RENEE
PROLOGUE
SOMETIMES THINGS HAPPEN in life that change the person you were; things mold you into someone else or steer you in a different direction. It doesn’t always have to be something big or even traumatic to make you become a different person. I used to be overweight. Not horribly fat but definitely chunky for my body type. I used to have acne that left my face with dry, red splotches after I had applied the cream on my skin. I wore braces to fix my crooked teeth and small overbite. And for a little while, I even had that embarrassing headgear thing going on. I used to wear glasses because I couldn’t fathom sticking my finger in my eye for contacts.
I talk about myself like I was a freak; the girl everyone made fun of, picked on, and bullied. It wasn’t that bad actually, but I just had to get through that phase. Sure, I was self-conscious, but what I lacked in looks, I made up for in personality. I wasn’t going to win any popularity contests, but in general, everyone liked me. They found my ability to laugh at myself charming, my sweet disposition appealing, and my willingness to provide homework help a definite bonus.
Only one cloud hung over my high school life. One person made me dread going to school, made me stare at myself in the mirror for hours wishing I was someone else, and made the smile fall off my face just by looking at me. He made me hate myself, hate everything about me, hate my very existence. He was the epitome of a bully, but he only seemed to direct it at me.
I had been taught at an early age and had read enough novels to wonder if he did that because he liked me. You know that whole “if he hits you, it’s because he likes you” thing? But we were in high school, not elementary school, and I was no dummy. I knew what I looked like. A guy like him didn’t crush on a girl like me. No, he bullied me because he simply hated me.
He was a year older than I was, and we had no classes together. We didn’t have the same friends, and I don’t even think he knew my name. If he did, he didn’t call me by it. He didn’t need to know my name, though, to hit me where it counted. Physical wounds healed. Emotional ones left a scar on your heart.
His words, carelessly thrown in my direction every time I saw him, really did a number on me. I had a breakdown near the end of my junior year. I kept hoping that if I could hold out for just a little longer, he’d be gone the following year, and I would be in the clear. But the constant verbal assaults made that impossible.
The first time he taunted me was nothing too crazy. I’d brushed it off as just a guy being an asshole.
“Hey, watch where the fuck you’re going, bitch,” he said after he’d run into me.
“S-sorry,” I stuttered even though he’d come barreling around the corner, knocking into me and sending my books flying.
He hadn’t even stopped to help me pick up my things before he ran off.
I wrote him off after that, but I shouldn’t have. A week later, he found me. He always found me—like I was his personal punching bag even if I didn’t understand why.
I lived too far from home to walk, I had no car, and the bus system in my city wasn’t convenient for travel. This meant I stayed late a lot, waiting for my parents to pick me up after work.
“What the fuck are you looking at?” he snarled as I came down the hall. He must have just come from football practice because he was still wearing his gear. I hadn’t even thought twice about walking past him when he rammed his hand into the nearest locker after looking at his phone. I gasped, which had caught his attention.
“Nothing,” I said quickly.
“That’s fucking right, bitch,” he snapped. “Bitch,” he’d said—his choice word for me. He was very clever. A true wordsmith. Then he started stalking toward me, and my sarcastic thoughts died instantly as fear took over. For a moment, I was frozen, afraid o
f what he’d do, but he just brushed past me, shoving me a little with his body.
After that, he seemed to always find me when I was alone; when no one was nearby to save me from him. Most of the time, it was after school when everyone had already gone home.
“Why are you always here?” he asked. “Are you following me? Are you a stalker? Should I be worried you’re going to come to school with a gun and shoot me?” Unjust words from him, especially since I had tried my best to avoid him, but it was like the universe hated me.
“Do you like me or something? Get a clue. I’ll never fucking be with you, bitch.”
“Why are you always alone? What? You have no friends? You a loser or something?”
“You trying out for the part of a robot with that thing on your face?”
“How do you get through a metal detector with so much metal on your head?”
“What are you wearing? You shop at Thrifty?”
“Those overalls make you look like a cow.”
“Where do you get your hair cut? Haircuts for Losers?”
He never got physical with me, never harmed me—maybe shoved me out of his way once or twice—but he didn’t need to. His words hurt more than punches would have. He made me doubt myself; he made me feel ugly, fat, and like a loser. I rarely looked in the mirror because I hated what I saw.
I begged my parents to pick me up early from school, but realistically, they couldn’t because of their work schedules. I tried to miss school. “Please don’t make me go to school,” I told them. When they asked why, I told them I was being bullied by a boy. “Just ignore him,” they answered. They didn’t understand the emotional stress he was causing. I believed his words, believed I wasn’t worthy to breathe the same air as he was, believed I was the bane of everyone’s existence.
He got under my skin—every freaking time—and each time, it was worse. It’s not even that his taunting got worse; it’s that a little tiny piece of me died each time he bullied me. Slowly, he was chipping away at the fortress around my heart, and when the last brick fell, all his words rushed at my heart, overwhelming it.
It was at the end of my junior year when I felt my fight leave. I had been holding out, hoping my senior year would be different because he wouldn’t be there, but I just couldn’t make it to senior year. I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror. I couldn’t stand my own skin.
It was the last time he taunted me, the last time I heard his words, but not the last time I heard them in my head. I couldn’t take it anymore. I came home and scrubbed my skin with scalding hot water, desperately trying to rub away his words that had seeped into my pores. I tried to rub away my very essence—me—from my own skin. I couldn’t stand who I was anymore. He’d done that, but I’d believed him.
I looked at myself in the mirror that day, and all I saw were his words—a bitch. A loser. An ugly, fat nobody.
I didn’t want to be that anymore. I didn’t want to look at myself in the mirror anymore. I threw the soap dispenser at the mirror, breaking into a million shards. When I picked up one jagged piece, I had only one thought—that I wanted the pain to end.
My parents found me passed out in the bathroom, blood dripping from the wounds on my wrists. They called 911, and I was rushed to the hospital.
I landed in the psych ward when I was released from suicide watch. I don’t know that I even wanted to die. I just wanted his voice in my head to shut up for a little while. I wanted to feel the pain of something else—something other than the words eating me from the inside out.
I spent almost a year in a therapy program, healing myself bit by bit. At first, I had done it for my parents because I knew it killed them to know I was hurting. They thought they’d failed me when they didn’t listen to my pleas. The truth was, they couldn’t understand unless they’d been in my shoes. I didn’t blame them, but I wanted to do this for them. Slowly, with time, I realized I was also doing it for me. I needed to learn how to be all right with myself, how to be in control of my emotions, and how to survive for me.
I missed my senior year of high school. Just another thing he took from me. I missed all the fun activities associated with the last year of being a minor. I didn’t mind, though, because I had needed that time away from life, away from my life. And a part of me was afraid to go back. I knew, logically, that he wouldn’t be there, but the ugly memories he left behind were still there. I knew I’d see his image taunting me as I walked down the hall, mocking me in my head and smirking at my discomfort. I couldn’t go back there, and therapy gave me a reprieve from that. But it also gave me so much more.
During that year, I found myself. I found who I needed to be to feel better about myself. I completed my GED while in the outreach program. I applied to colleges far, far away. And I vowed when I was done, I would be a different person.
That meant I changed who I was, both inside and out. I wore thick bracelets—leather bands—around my wrists to hide the permanent reminder of my former life. I worked out, and I slimmed down, found curves I didn’t know existed. My braces came off, and my teeth were like those of movie stars. I found the courage to switch from glasses to contacts. My doctor switched my acne cream, and it cleared up.
I also cut and highlighted my hair, learned how to style it, figured out how to wear the right makeup for my face, and dressed like I was into fashion. Amy, a friend in the program, had actually taught me these things. And we stayed friends long after both of us had left even though I was now literally across the country.
When I got my acceptance letter to attend the University of Southern California, I jumped up and down, whooped real loud, and threw my arms around the person closest to me.
Not only was I a new person, but I also had a real chance to start over where no one knew me.
I would no longer introduce myself as, “Genevieve, but my friends call me Gen.” Gen was long gone, replaced by someone with more confidence, a better style, prettier, and stronger. Gen was a little girl, and I would be a woman.
Tyler Haywood had been the thing in my life that changed me. And as much as I hated him, as much as I had suffered because of him, he shaped me, molded me, and turned me into who I was now. And the person I was now? I liked her. I liked her a lot.
CHAPTER ONE
Present
Genevieve
WHEN I STARTED college, I was shy, nervous even. I had learned to love myself and became comfortable in my own skin, but doubts always have a way of lingering. I had never been kissed or gone on a date; I hadn’t even gotten the attention of guys before. I had to get used to the looks I was getting when I walked around campus—the ones from guys who wanted to have me for dinner and the ones from girls who appreciated my looks.
Having an overly confident roommate who I’d met during orientation helped. Amanda took one look at me and decided we’d be best friends. Where I had a quiet confidence about myself, she knew she looked good and rocked it. Where I thought about my words before I spoke them, she blurted out whatever felt right. Where I was pale with brown hair and light hazel eyes, she was blond and tan with bright blue eyes. I think we balanced each other out, which was why we got along so well.
Within the first few days we’d roomed together, she turned and said, “You know, Genevieve, we all have things in our past we want to bury deep. Some are worse than others, sure, but it’s not a competition of whose pain is worse. You’re beautiful, you’re strong, and you survived.”
“How’d you know?” I asked her because, even if she didn’t know the details, she clearly understood something about what I’d been through.
“Your bracelets,” she said as she flicked her head toward my wrists. “No matter how sentimental they are, no one wears them constantly like you do. Like a shield. Or like you’re hiding something.”
I tasted salt on my lips as I realized tears had been silently streaming down my cheeks. Then it was like the floodgates opened, and I sobbed as I told Amanda everything. After that moment, she made it her duty
to tell me how wonderful I was each day. She forced me to participate in extracurricular activities like dorm parties, frat events, or just even hanging out at the bars with friends.
She’d become my rock, and I appreciated her.
And if self-doubt ever crept up, I’d just repeat her words from that day in my head like a mantra. You’re beautiful, you’re strong, and you survived.
I repeated those words the first day of spring semester my freshman year.
I had been rushing to get to my first class so I wouldn’t be late.
Amanda was definitely all about school spirit, and when news of the new star quarterback who had transferred in made its way to her, that meant it made its way to me.
“They said we’ve been trying to recruit him since he was in high school,” she told me like a giddy child. “They finally got him because he hasn’t been getting any play time at his old school.”
“Can you even transfer schools in the middle of the year?” I asked her, not caring about our football team. If it wasn’t for Amanda, I wouldn’t have even gone to any of the games.
“If you’re a hotshot quarterback, you can do anything,” she responded, and I could practically see her saying, “Duh,” right after. “Hilary said he’s hot.”
“And how would Hilary know?” I asked. Hilary had been in one of Amanda’s classes. They’d become friends, which meant we’d become friends.
“She just does,” Amanda huffed. “I bet he’s gorgeous like Tony Romo.” Even I knew who Tony Romo was because he was definitely on the good-looking scale. “And I bet he has muscles for days. Mmm. I wonder what his abs look like.”
I laughed at Amanda’s antics. She giggled in response and threw her pillow at me. I looked at the clock and realized I had only a few minutes to get to class.
“Shit, we’re gonna be late,” I said as I scrambled to grab my books. We didn’t have the same class, but our classes started at the same time.
“We’ll be fine,” she said as she lazily grabbed her things. “It’s the first day.”
“All the more reason to be there on time. Good first impression and everything. Or how about the fact they could give our seats away?”