Prologue
PHOENIX
Summer: sunshine, bikinis, and bonfires.
Summer in Malibu Cove: scandals, secrets, and blackmail.
The sun's bright rays warm the crisp Spring air while laughter echoes along the sandy shores of Zuma Beach, and happiness erupts from every child along the sunshine coast of Southern California. School’s out, bikinis are on, and all the teenagers in Malibu Cove are preparing to live life careless and carefree for three long and scorching months. Not like they live responsibly for the other nine months of the year, but summer is a free pass. Anything and everything is possible.
From scenic sunset strolls on Matador Beach, to cliff jumping at Pointe Dume, and down to Pacific Park on the Santa Monica Pier, the possibilities are endless.
Wind in our hair, sand in our toes, pomegranate margaritas in our hands, and blonde surfer boys squirming their way into our hearts. Summers in Malibu Cove are EPIC. For three months, we play, party, and pretend the world is ours for the taking, living every second as if it were our last. Friendships are golden, relationships flourish and bloom, and even the nemesis drop their weapons retreating from battle until the summer's end.
Nothing compares to surfing the rolling waves and riding them until the sun goes down on the horizon, spending nights camped along the beach's sandy shore, or soaking up sunshine laying out by the pool.
Affluent teenagers run wild and free down the streets of Malibu Cove, while the adults remain locked away in their mansions, their offices, or on exotic vacations, clueless to what their offspring are really up to. But all is fair for the summer, as long as it lives up to their absurd expectations.
The only problem, summer doesn’t last forever. All is fun and games until the sun sets, the air cools, tourists head home, and the oceans' wayward waves wreak havoc along the shore, and in our homes.
But for three months it’s nothing but tan-lines, joyrides, and summer flings.
At least that’s how it all started for me the summer before my senior year of high school. Everything was perfect.
I had the boy; I had the perfect friends; everything was just as it was supposed to be.
Until it wasn’t.
Summer ended early for me that year, and nothing would ever be the same.
The curtains lifted, the rose-colored sunglasses fell off, and everything I’d been blind to became blatantly obvious. Nothing was as it once seemed.
Secrets were revealed, scandals wreaked havoc in my household, and my picture-perfect life ceased to exist.
After all, life in Malibu Cove is anything but perfect.
ChapterOne
PHOENIX
Senior year is supposed to be the culmination of your epic teenage years. The best of the best. The happiest of times. The most memorable moments. Memories that’ll last a lifetime.
Or so it goes.
At least that's the way it's portrayed everywhere you look. It’s what we’re raised to believe is true. This is Hollywood after all.
Movies show you a faux glimpse of the high school ideal. The glitz and glamour that is supposed to exist, yet is hidden under layer upon layer of anxiety, despondency, and cruelty.
Don’t get me wrong, some parts are true. The cliques, the popular mean girls, the gorgeous, almost too good to be true fuckboys, but nothing rings truer than the lies hidden behind the curtain of idealistic adolescence.
It’s all a facade, and mine was finally, and viciously, ripped off like a super glued Band-Aid to reveal the harsh reality underneath.
For me, senior year is the beginning of the end. A catalyst that will likely ensure the end of my picture-perfect life. A brutal reminder that everything I once held dear, everything I had in the palm of my hands, has been ripped away from me for good.
And no, this isn’t me just being your typical, over dramatic teenage girl.
This is my reality.
My father cheated. My parents divorced. My mother turned suicidal. My father remarried. I gained a new stepmother, and worse, a stepbrother. Though I’m sure my misfortune is far from over. This is only the beginning. Soon enough, I’ll be able to take a deep breath, examine the damage, and hopefully it won’t be too late.
