Nightshade (Sorrowsong University, #1)

by Autumn Woods

Standing here represents the final domino falling in a long streak of letting him down.

There are two girls living inside me: the one clinging onto her final shred of hope, and the one that wants to burn the world down. One tugs me backward, the other forward.

“You look just like your mother.” His words punch me in the gut, and the wave of grief that follows almost knocks me to my knees. I am the spitting image of my mother. It took months for me to be able to bear my own reflection after I lost her, and even now, I turn the mirror in the bathroom around.

Maybe a better way to honor my parents is to just live a beautiful, blissfully ordinary life.