Kamari's (Takoda Outreach Center #3) - Sammi Cee

Prologue

Lachlan

Rage. Overwhelming, gut-churning rage coursed through my body as I slammed into my room. Why did my dad have to ruin everything? He couldn’t let my big brother, Jasper, have anything without trying to sabotage it. I eyed my desk, fighting the desire to sweep my books and computer onto the floor for a release of the anger churning inside of me, but ultimately, I’d cause myself problems. No one else was going to clean up the mess, and I’d been lucky my dad bought me a second-hand laptop in the first place. If I broke it, I doubt he’d replace it.

Slumping against my bedroom door, I banged my head back just hard enough to hurt—to focus. What I really wanted to do was go into the bathroom and grab a blade out from under the sink. Bleed this pain. After thumping my head back once more, I shook my body out. Deep breath, Lachy. That isn’t the answer.

Dad dropped me off without even getting out of the car, so I knew he’d be gone most of the night, if not until sometime tomorrow. He spent most of his time with whoever the newest poor unfortunate lady happened to be. I never met any of them, thankfully. I didn’t need another person to feel sorry for because they’d been touched by my father’s toxicity.

Since I’d be alone the rest of the night, I went into the back of my closet, moved the container with my shoes out of the way, and pulled up the carpet so that I could lift the floorboard and get my latest notebook out. I had to hide them because my father didn’t believe in the concept of privacy. He barely bothered to be home most nights, but at least twice a month, I came home from school to find my stuff moved around and my drawers opened with my clothes hanging out from his digging through looking for drugs or whatever else he suspected I might have at the time. You’re a teenager after all, Lachlan, and I won’t have you embarrassing me keeping that shit in my house. He was like a broken record.

But Mrs. Mitchell, my best friend Milo’s mom, counseled at the middle school, and when I’d started fantasizing about hurting myself, I’d gone to her. Dad had come home so many times complaining about answering a call for another stupid teenager hurting themselves that I knew how dangerous any type of self-harm was. Of course, I thought it was disgusting that as a cop my father was more concerned about the little bastards wasting his time than about the kids being hurt, but...that was my father. But I didn’t work up the nerve to talk to her for myself, and especially not for my father, but for Jasper. The last thing he’d needed was for one of those 9-1-1 calls to be for me. Life sucked for him anyway; if anything bad happened to me, I’m not sure he’d be able to handle it.

Mrs. Mitchell had taken everything in stride, though. She hadn’t made me feel stupid or weak—like my dad would have. We’d talked about how hard life had been since my mom died, and my dad kicked my brother out of our house. She’d urged me to keep a journal. At first, I’d shrugged her off, saying that didn’t exactly sound like my thing. I mean, come on, no teenage boy wanted to get caught keeping a diary. But she knew the thought process of a twelve-year-old boy and suggested I write letters to my mom in my journals—what I would tell her if she was still alive.

So reluctantly I’d pulled an extra notebook I had for school out of my backpack. It had been thin and only seventy pages. I’d filled it up in one weekend. Once I started writing, I couldn’t stop. I’d told Mom all the selfish, disgusting things my dad had done to Jasper since she died. Then I told her how Dad barely came home and how he ignored me. I guess I was lucky he remembered to buy food. Once I’d written down how the first year since her death had been, I’d cried for hours.

Jasper and I had mourned together when Mom died, but when Dad kicked him out, he’d told me Jasper wasn’t really my brother since he wasn’t his son and Mom was gone now. When the tears had welled up in my eyes, he’d punched me in the arm and