Amaris

!!Trigger Warning!!

The following Prologue Contains acts of sexual violence, self-harm, and assault. Reader discretion is strongly advised.

Skip to Chapter One if being triggered is a possibility.

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Prologue

It's my eighteenth birthday and instead of celebrating, I'm standing alone in the pouring rain, shivers racking my body as I watch the casket being lowered down into the ground, my heart shattering as I say goodbye to the only person that I have ever been able to rely on in my whole life.

Where do I go from here?

Is this my life?

Destined to be alone forever?

My brother, Axel, and I grew up bouncing around foster homes, one after another. No one ever wanted us, at least that was how it always seemed.

We almost had a family once.

The Montgomery's had told us they wanted to adopt us. God, we were so excited. We were finally going to have a family. A place to call home.

But then a few days later, all of our dreams went to shit when we came home to our bags packed and a social worker standing on the front porch, waiting for our return from school so that she could take us away.

Away from the people who were supposed to give us a family.

I don't know why they changed their minds.

I've always felt as if I were...I don't even know how to put it into words...it was as if I didn't belong...

Some of the places that we lived in were pretty nice. Nice as in the paint wasn't peeling from the walls and we didn't hear the sounds of rats scurrying across the floor throughout the night. Others may have not been dumps, but honestly, I would have rather been in a dump or even on the streets than have to stay in those places.

And then there were the people themselves. Some of our foster dads, although they never tried anything, the way they watched me, always made me uncomfortable and if I said anything about it, no one ever believed me.

But Axel always did.

Because, although they never touched me—fuck, Axel, he...he had it so much worse because they did touch him. The things that they did to him...it turns my stomach, making me feel sick just to think about it.

They were depraved, sick, and utterly disgusting.

And it fucked him up really bad.

And it only got worse as we got older. Not only did he receive abuse at home, but then he started to be abused at school, too. The boys began teasing him, looking down on him, finding him being gay a reason to treat him like scum.

But things escalated quickly. Someone even raped him in the boys' locker room with the end of a hockey stick.