Chapter 9

Trent dreamed of his mother that night.

He didn’t dream about her as often as he used to. Sometimes he even thought he’d moved on from her death. But then the dreams and the memories would return with a force to knock the breath out of him.

He was fourteen again. Tall for his age but skinny, he’d been a loner in middle school. It didn’t help that the Younger family had a reputation: a deadbeat father and crazy mother, the kids would whisper. There’d been more than one instance where a kid would act like if Trent got too close the crazy would rub off from him like a disease.

Trent had punched that kid in the nose and ended up with detention for two weeks straight.

He dreamed he was in his childhood home, yet it wasn’t the same house. The walls kept shifting, the photos changing. One instant there was a happy family photo, the next the photos crumpled like the corners had been lit with a match. Trent touched the wall, trying to find his balance as the floor rolled underneath his feet