Amanda Maddox

The Beginning.

CHAPTER TWO

AMANDA.

Mom and Dad were barely present in our lives growing up.

Except on Sunday afternoons.

Steven Maddox was either deployed to some foreign country or working ridiculously long hours at the Pentagon. My dad was a Navy captain who served for almost thirty years before finally settling in Washington, D.C.

My oldest sister, Tracy, was born at a naval base in Guam. Four years later, my brother, Brently, was born at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida. Then, two years after that, I came along in Norfolk, Virginia.

We lived there for four years before Dad was transferred to California, where he eventually ended his military career as a captain. And after retiring, he moved us to the nation's capital when he accepted a high-paying position as a senior executive engineer.

Mom, on the other hand, decided to build an empire of her own.

Patricia Maddox opened a real estate firm and spent practically every waking hour growing it. She was gone all day, nearly every day of the week, leaving my siblings and me in the care of our live-in nanny, Rosita.

Rosita was more of a mother to us than our own mother was.

The truth was, we probably could've done whatever the hell we wanted.

We had money.

We had privilege.

And we had very little supervision.

By the time our parents came home at night, they were usually too exhausted to ask what we'd been doing.

So, I found something to keep myself occupied with.

Gymnastics.

And I loved it.

My parents enrolled all three of us in an elite private school, and our schedules didn't end when the final bell rang. Our afternoons were packed with extracurricular activities.

Looking back, I think our parents were trying to disguise their absence.

If their children were constantly occupied, maybe we wouldn't notice how rarely they were around.

Sports.

Clubs.

Lessons.

Tutors.

Anything that could fill the hours they couldn't.

They probably thought they were giving us opportunities. What they didn't realize was that keeping your children busy wasn't the same thing as raising them.

And eventually, their absence would catch up with all three of us.

I was different from my siblings, though.

Or at least, that's what everyone thought.

I had a plan.

A very f*****g specific one.

I was going to become one of the greatest gymnasts in the world.

Not maybe.

Not hopefully.

I was going to win gold.

I had the talent, the discipline, and the scores to prove that dream wasn't some ridiculous fantasy. I was already being considered as one of the strongest athletes from my academy to advance through national competition.

Actually, scratch that.

In my teenage mind, I wasn't merely going to represent my academy.

I was going to represent Washington, D.C.

Then the United States of America.

And eventually, I was going to the Summer Olympics.

By fourteen, I'd already won several competitions across the country, along with two medals in European rhythmic gymnastics competitions.

People believed in me.

My coaches believed in me.

And more importantly, I believed in myself.

I usually had a crowd of supporters cheering from the stands at every competition. My parents just weren't always among them anymore.

They had stopped attending most of my events unless a championship was involved.

Apparently, ordinary competitions weren't important enough to fit into their schedules.

My siblings had problems of their own.

Tracy had gotten pregnant a month before her high school graduation and was now raising her baby girl—my beautiful niece, whom I adored with my entire heart.

Brent, meanwhile, was running completely wild.

Our parents were so busy trying to keep him under control that they paid even less attention to me.

Why worry about Amanda?

Amanda had excellent grades.

Amanda had gymnastics.

Amanda had a future.

Amanda was the sensible child.

Or so they thought.

They had no f*****g clue I'd lost my virginity to Samuel Cox shortly after turning fifteen.

Pretty much everyone at school knew we were dating, and together, we'd somehow become one of those disgustingly popular couples everyone talked about.

Samuel was the son of Senator Ryan Cox, and the captain of our basketball team.

He was also one of the hottest guys in school.

Unfortunately, he was also an asshole.

And a bully.

But I was in love.

I'd put that phrase in quotation marks if I could.

Because at fifteen, I didn't have the slightest f*****g clue what love was.

I thought Samuel's possessiveness meant he loved me. I thought the hickeys he deliberately left on my neck were his way of telling the world I belonged to him.

When he held my hand through the hallways, carried my backpack to my next class, or pulled me into some hidden corner to make out with me between bells, I thought that was romance. I mistook jealousy for devotion, possessiveness for passion, and being claimed for being loved.

I didn't know any better.

Everything between Samuel and me was superficial.

Popularity.

Attraction.

Status.

Attention.

I mistook all of it for love.

And eventually, I learned the difference the hard way.

But before Samuel could destroy my illusion of romance, something else destroyed the future I'd planned for myself.

The morning was sunny and bright.

So was my spirit.

So was the future I saw waiting for me.

I had absolutely no idea that within minutes, all of it would change.

I was preparing to execute what I believed would be one of the greatest performances of my young career at the Junior Pan American Games.

I'd trained relentlessly for that routine.

I knew every movement.

Every turn.

Every landing.

My body knew what to do before my mind even had time to think about it.

Then something went wrong.

On my final handspring, I transitioned into a midair flip.

My balance shifted.

Just slightly.

But in gymnastics, slightly can mean everything.

My hand hit the mat at the wrong angle.

And I heard it.

Snap.

The sound of my own bones breaking.

Pain shot through my wrist, but the physical pain wasn't what terrified me.

Somewhere deep inside, before a doctor ever touched me, before an X-ray confirmed the damage, before anyone told me what it meant for my future...

I knew.

Everything after that became a blur.

The screaming.

My coach running toward me.

People surrounding the mat.

Someone telling me not to move.

The ambulance.

The hospital.

My parents finally dropping whatever they were doing because this competition had suddenly become important enough.

None of it mattered.

Because one bad landing had done what no competitor had ever managed to do.

It had taken me out.

A broken wrist changed my life.

I underwent surgery within hours of my injury, but there was no miracle fix waiting for me afterward. So, I was immediately withdrawn from the competition.

The doctor told us it could take close to a year before I was able to compete again—and even then, there were no guarantees that my wrist would regain the strength and flexibility required to perform at the level I had before.

A year.

He might as well have told me forever.

My mind began spiraling into a dark place almost immediately.

I'd worked so f*****g hard for that dream.

Early mornings.

Late practices.

Bruises.

Blisters.

Diets.

Travel.

Missing birthday parties and sleepovers because I had training the following morning. While other girls my age worried about homecoming dresses and weekend plans, I worried about scores, routines, and shaving half a point off my deductions.

And I'd loved every second of it because I knew where I was going.

The Olympics.

Then, in the blink of an eye, it was gone.

And apparently, so was my beloved boyfriend.

Samuel didn't hesitate to leave me.

Hell, I was still recovering in the hospital when he decided our relationship no longer had a future. Within no time, he was dating Mia, the captain of our cheerleading squad.

How f*****g predictable.

There was something about basketball players dating cheerleaders that apparently made both of them more popular. They became the school's new golden couple before my surgical wound had even healed.

Fuck him.

And f**k every immature boy who treated a girl like an accessory he could trade in whenever a shinier model came along.

What hurt most wasn't even losing Samuel.

It was realizing how little everything I'd given him had meant.

I regretted having s*x with him.

I regretted him being my first time.

Over and over again, I replayed those moments and wished I could take them back.

Mia plastered their happy little relationship all over social media, and every picture made me want to puke.

There he was.

The guy who had promised me the sun, the moon, and every damn star in between, now kissing another girl like I had never existed.

And Mia wasn't exactly my favorite person either. The girl had spent years making other people's lives miserable.

The only dirt I had on her was that my brother Brent had already slept with her, although judging her for who she'd slept with would've made me no better than the people who judged me.

My problem wasn't her s*x life.

My problem was that she was cruel. And now she and Samuel had something else in common.

They both enjoyed humiliating me.

I was already in a dark place.

Emotionally.

Mentally.

And eventually, physically.

After surgery, I'd been prescribed oxycodone for the pain in my wrist. At first, I took it because I needed it. Then I discovered something dangerous.

The pills didn't only dull the pain in my wrist.

They dulled everything.

The disappointment.

The anger.

Samuel.

The Olympics.

My parents.

My fear that the one thing that had made me special was gone forever.

For a few hours, I didn't have to care about any of it.

So I started taking the medication for reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with my wrist.

When I ran low, I panicked.

When I didn't have any, I cried and exaggerated the pain because I wanted more.

Needed more.

Eventually, my doctor realized what was happening and stopped prescribing it.

Completely.

I didn't handle that well.

I became agitated, confused, angry, and desperate. Going to school became almost impossible. And without the pills to numb everything I didn't want to feel, I searched for another outlet.

I cut my wrist.

The same wrist I'd broken only a couple of months earlier.

That was when everyone finally realized Amanda Maddox wasn't the child they didn't need to worry about. Dad took several days off work and stayed home with me.

For once, he was there.

But by then, staying home with Dad wasn't enough.

I was admitted to a private treatment facility for my substance misuse and depression. By the time I came home, most of my sophomore year was gone.

So was my motivation.

I refused to do schoolwork.

I didn't care about grades.

I didn't care about catching up.

For a while, I didn't care about much of anything.

Eventually, the consequences caught up with me, and I had to repeat the year.

Returning to my old school didn't help.

Samuel and Mia made sure of that.

The whispers.

The comments.

The looks.

The rumors about where I'd been and why I'd disappeared. Eventually, their bullying became so relentless that walking through those hallways made me sick.

So I transferred.

At the time, changing schools felt like one more thing I'd lost.

Looking back?

It might have saved me.

Because that change brought light back into my life. And, without knowing it yet, brought me closer to the man who would someday change it completely.

That's where Claire Johnson came in.

Daniel's daughter.

Ironically, she lived next door to us, but we'd never really crossed paths before. Gymnastics had consumed practically every free minute I'd had, and we attended different schools.

Once we finally met, however, Claire Johnson became nearly impossible to avoid.

The girl was trouble from day one.

Maybe that's why I liked her.

She'd been through a dark period of her own, and there was something about recognizing another person's pain that made it easier to connect.

Claire was angry.

Mostly at her parents.

Her mother had left, and Claire couldn't—or wouldn't—accept what that abandonment had done to her. Instead, she directed most of her anger toward her father.

Daniel.

She blamed him for letting her mother go. Except, from everything I eventually learned, Daniel wasn't the one who had walked away.

Her mother had.

She wanted to pursue a career in theater and apparently believed becoming a mother had destroyed that dream. Claire carried that resentment like it belonged to her too.

I struggled to understand it.

Daniel had become a father at seventeen.

His life had changed too.

Whatever dreams he'd had at that age had been rearranged the moment Claire entered the world, yet he'd stayed and raised his daughter.

Still, Claire blamed him.

Maybe blaming the parent who remained was easier than admitting how badly she'd been hurt by the one who left. Therapy had taught me enough to recognize that much.

And maybe that was why I became so protective of her.

Taking care of someone else gave my brain something to do besides revisit every horrible thing I'd been through.

I didn't want Claire making the same mistakes I had.

She was two years younger than me, and somewhere along the way, I appointed myself her unofficial guardian.

She never asked me to.

That should've been my first clue.

Claire practically lived at our house.

Dinner.

Sleepovers.

Holidays.

Random afternoons.

If she wasn't home, there was a good chance she was with me.

She was there when I needed someone. And I tried to be there for her too.

The one thing I couldn't understand was why she gave her father such a hard time. From everything I could see, Daniel was a great dad.

He put Claire first.

Always.

He worried about her.

Provided for her.

Set boundaries.

Tried to protect her from herself.

Claire couldn't stand it.

She seemed to consider getting under her father's skin an extracurricular activity.

And Daniel?

I didn't particularly like him in the beginning.

He was intimidating.

Serious.

A man of very few words.

I rarely saw him smile, and whenever Claire and I got into trouble—which happened more often than I'd like to admit—his expression alone could make me feel twelve years old.

I thought he was unkind.

Cold, even.

It would take me a while to understand that Daniel had been broken too.

His ex-wife had done a number on him. He simply carried his scars differently than I carried mine.

Meanwhile, I continued cleaning up his daughter's messes.

Claire was reckless.

Impulsive.

And sometimes unbelievably selfish.

She wanted to move to Nashville with her mother and resented Daniel for refusing to let her go.

I couldn't understand it.

Her mother had already left her behind once, claiming Claire would have a better life with her father. Why couldn't Claire see that Daniel was the parent who loved her?

She wanted freedom.

No rules.

No curfews.

No authority.

Basically, everything a fifteen-year-old thinks adulthood means. And for some inexplicable reason, I decided it was my responsibility to keep her from destroying herself.

I had found a new sport.

What the hell was I thinking when I became that girl's babysitter?

Claire was beautiful.

And boy-crazy.

A terrible combination when paired with absolutely no impulse control.

I wasn't some innocent little saint myself. God knew I'd made my share of terrible decisions. But after everything I'd experienced with Samuel, I wanted Claire to understand something I'd learned painfully:

Attention wasn't love.

Sex wasn't proof that someone cared about you.

And being wanted wasn't the same thing as being valued.

Claire didn't want to hear any of that.

She snuck out to meet boys constantly.

I lectured her.

She ignored me.

I threatened to tell Daniel.

She begged me not to. And somehow, despite knowing better, I became her accomplice.

That's right.

I helped her fool her father.

I'd go over to Claire's house and pretend we were having a movie night.

I'd make popcorn.

Turn up the television.

Leave something playing loudly enough that Daniel could hear it from downstairs. Meanwhile, Claire would slip out to meet whichever boy had caught her attention that week.

And there I'd sit.

Alone.

Watching some stupid movie I'd never chosen while her father exercised in the basement or worked late in his studio.

Daniel Johnson thought his daughter was safely upstairs with Amanda Maddox.

Poor man.

He was being deceived by his almost-sixteen-year-old daughter.

And by me.

I was just as guilty as she was.

By then, I was what everyone jokingly called a super senior. I still laugh at that ridiculous term.

Because I'd lost so much school time during my hospitalization and treatment, I'd been forced to repeat tenth grade. That meant I was nearly nineteen during my senior year.

I was one of the oldest students at Corner Stone.

Maybe the oldest.

My parents had even met with the director of the private school to ensure I could remain enrolled rather than being pushed toward an alternative program or GED.

There would've been absolutely nothing wrong with earning a GED — but Patricia and Steven Maddox had a reputation to protect.

And apparently, a very generous contribution to the school made administrators considerably more flexible about my age.

Money.

One of the Maddox family's most effective communication tools.

I was almost nineteen by then.

And dating another teenage boy was the last thing on my mind.

I'd decided relationships could wait until college.

Maybe longer.

Samuel Cox had done enough damage.

At this point, my little twelve-mode stimulator provided all the companionship I needed.

Plain and simple.

Or at least, that's what I kept telling myself. Because there were things a little battery-operated friend couldn't give me.

I missed walking through school holding someone's hand while he carried my backpack to my next class. I missed having someone waiting for me outside a classroom just because he wanted to steal five minutes with me before the next bell rang.

I missed being pulled into some quiet corner and kissed until I forgot where the hell I was supposed to be going.

I missed flirting.

The butterflies.

The anticipation of seeing someone I liked.

I missed getting a random message in the middle of the day that made me smile at my phone like an i***t. Having someone notice when I'd done something different with my hair. Someone wrapping an arm around my waist while we walked or reaching for my hand without even thinking about it.

And, damn it, I missed being touched.

Not necessarily s*x.

Just touch.

A hand resting on my thigh while we sat together. Fingers tracing my arm. A kiss on my neck when I wasn't expecting it. Strong arms wrapping around me from behind.

I missed having someone lean close enough for his breath to tickle my ear before whispering something mischievous that made my cheeks burn.

I missed feeling wanted.

Maybe that was the dangerous part.

Because Samuel had taught me that being wanted wasn't necessarily the same thing as being loved, and I wasn't interested in confusing the two ever again.

So yes, I missed having a boyfriend.

I just didn't miss one badly enough to settle for another Samuel Cox. My pink dildo would have to do until someone came along who was actually worth the trouble.