Where the Ivy Hides Read Online Free Page A

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    I want to be the girl Jaci liked to play dress up with and gossip about the girls at school. The grunge girls, the skank cheerleaders, and every other wanna-be in between.
    I want to be the home-body Reese told himself I was. The girl he dragged to his parents at Thanksgiving and church on Easter.
    I want to be the broken beautiful girl who only needs love and acceptance to grow into the healed beautiful woman, Ryker believed me to be.
    But I’m not. I’m none of those girls and I never will be.
    I’m an unwanted adopted child with a history of substance abuse, cutting, Bipolar and Narcissistic behavioral disorders, two minor drug charges, and last but not least, suicide.
    I’m untrustworthy. Selfish. Annoying. I’m a compulsive liar. Severely untrusting. And I’m fake as fuck.
    So fake that sometimes I just wish people would see the truth. Get the hating me part over with and get straight to the just leaving part. That’s all anyone would do anyway if they knew the truth.
    Alas, I am here.
    Ryker hasn’t spoken to me in over six months.
    After fighting with him for over a month about the whole virginity thing, he finally left. And within twelve hours, I’d ingested more pills, snorted more coke, and had more shots of tequila than I’d ever had before. The next morning, I woke up sore and naked in a stranger’s bed, with no recollection of anything that occurred after my fight with Ryker. Two and two equals I’m pretty fucking sure I consensually had sex for the first time in my life. And it wasn’t with Ryker.
    And at least every other day since, has mimicked the first. Jaci and Reese hardly have anything to do with me anymore. Reese still tries, but Jaci stopped months ago. I’ve somehow situated myself in an artsy crowd. The kids of the upper class, if you will. The ones who have opted for a year of travel instead of straight off to college.
    I mostly crash on Delilah’s couch. She has a three story beach house that is usually infiltrated with loners like me. I belong here as much as Karen, the washed up, homeless, ex-socialite, and Nicolai, the fifteen-year-old high school drop-out, who plays a harmonica like no body’s business on the beach for extra money. Delilah is a not-so starving artist, with clueless rich parents. Last summer I traveled, smoked, shopped, and snorted, my way across Ireland, Italy, and Spain and I guess Delilah must have liked my fake ass compliments and total BFF façade, because she’s kept me around ever since. Paying my way and keeping me high enough to be just pliant enough to not give a fuck that my body is being photographed or painted for whoever’s pleasure…hers, her dad’s, her dad’s friends. For the most part, I’m usually only used for my nude modeling job description; which involves just lying there in my birthday suit draped in sheer, see through sashes and clothes her father or her father's photog and painter friends choose. But most of the time, the dirty deed is done wearing nothing at all.
    For some reason, every time, and I haven't figured out why, but during every session, as the camera flash pulses in sync with the drugs in my veins as well as the bass spilling from the speakers, I always pretend it's Ryker behind the lens or canvas. I guess it's probably just more abandonment issues. I digress, I know.
    But it’s in rare moments like this that I find my heaven.
    And I think, when I die... this is where I want to end up.
    I’m well on my way to my norm on a rainy, fall night on the beach along the back of Delilah's house when he happens again. And just like every time he happens, my world alters.
    My wet clothes are glued to my body as I flop down onto the ground and lie flat on my back making sand angels. My short hair is wet with sand matted all in it, but I don’t give a fuck.
    It’s like it always is when the moon is right and Delilah has the white wine and coke flowing…nothing can touch me.
    Nothing but him.
    “No, no, no…play