Wrecked Read Free

quietly slip out of the house so I wouldn’t wake Nikolas.
    The town of Pointe Hope was just like any other town, at least as far as the nosey neighbors and gossiping housewives go. One hybrid of the two was Mrs. J.J. Pierson. The older woman was invested in my love life , or more accurately, the lack thereof. She had tried to set me up with nearly every eligible bachelor Pointe Hope had to offer. Although I’d never admit it to her, I needed all of the help I could get. It wasn’t like I didn’t try, but there was never a spark or the potential for the incredible devotion I saw my parents had with one another. Mrs. J.J. Pierson was a sucker for romance and admired the fact that I was waiting for true love. Yet, at twenty-three years old, I suspected she had envisioned that I would have fallen in love by now. I could give in and be like many women who had good and bad times with Mr. Not Right Enough, but it would go against the grain of who I was and what I truly felt.
    I believed being in love wasn’t about sunshine and daisies, but that love allowed someone to find the person who complemented them best. It was through the trials and tribulations of life that people discovered their weaknesses, strengths, and depended on each other to be entirely whole. The theory sounded right, and since I grew up with the memory of such great role models, I believed that true love was possible.
    I slipped in my ear buds and cranked up Muse’s “Uprising” as my feet pounded on the asphalt. With each step, I gradually lost myself in the rhythm of music and the beat of my heart. The two were synchronized in a beautiful dance, and I was the star. I ran along the river behind our home within the forest. It was dense, and the new fall air had turned the leaves brilliant shades of gold, amber, and red. There was a mist that coated the ground, and as my heart pumped with each step, I felt one with the forest.
    Every day Nikolas and I would run the trails, and we’d get lost in a place where our past was not a factor in our present. I’d imagine a place where we were content with our lives, but our reality was never like that. Whereas I waited for Mr. Right, Nikolas was happy being Mr. Not Right Enough. He was a sorority girl’s plaything, and he loved every minute of it. I was tired of seeing my brother with those tramps, and he knew it. He made sure to make himself scarce most days and stayed at his frat house whenever he could. Last night he came home around three in the morning, which undoubtedly meant there was yet another girl he had left behind in a tangle of sheets.
    I was lost in my own world and not paying attention to anything but the rhythm of the music, when I saw a helpless animal struggling to free itself from the confines of a snare. I detested the people who left those things out to capture poor defenseless animals. Upon closer inspection, I realized it was a beautiful ebony rabbit that was twitching in fear.
    “Hey little guy,” I cooed while walking as quietly as I could through the brush.
    I reached down and carefully tried to untangle the little creature. I didn’t have a knife, so I couldn’t cut him free. I scanned the area for a jagged rock. The scene brought back memories of the time my troop leader yelled at me because, instead of earning my snare badge, I had shooed away the animals. Needless to say, I had been kicked out of the troop. Then in my freshman year, at Pointe Hope Prep, I protested in my biology class when it came to dissecting animals. I had convinced the entire cheerleading squad, who then swayed half of the student body, that dissecting frogs was gross and would give them warts. It wasn’t my proudest moment, but I knew then I wanted to be an advocate for the underdog. So, I set my goals on becoming a lawyer.
    “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” a gruff voice yelled from behind me and sent fear shooting through me.
    I fought to get the snare off and anxiously watched a scraggly