Cold. It was so cold in my room, like the cold from my frostbite heart had seeped into the space around me. Cold, like a winters day when you get home from school, pile up the blankets, and sip on warm cocoa. Except, this time, I didn't crawl under the covers. I didn't make myself a cup of hot cocoa to melt away the cold. Why? Because it didn't matter anymore. I didn't have the energy to move from on top of my sheers back under the blanket. All I had the energy to do was stare at the ceiling.

Every so often, a car would drive by. Light would dance on my ceiling, playing a game, creating a pattern, making my own aurora borealis. It was intoxicating and fun to think of the lights this way, to make something incredible out of something so ordinarily simple and mundane. I wish I could do that with my life; turn it into something bright and shiny and fun. I wanted to be the beautiful, popular girl that turned heads in school. Hell, I would've settled for being the girl everyone gazed at and feared. I wanted to be anything other than the girl who blackmailed people.

I was very few things, and I compiled a list in my mind:

A coward

A blackmailer

A bitch

' A bad friend

I couldn't think of anything nice to say about myself. I didn't think I was nice. I didn't think I was kind. I didn't think that I was even worthy of kindness. I was just someone, somewhere, at some time, and existed for some reason. I existed because a man and a woman wanted a happy, perfect family. But the woman left for another family, and the man worked harder to make up for it, so his children wouldn't grow up underprivileged like he did. But the two children, they were messed up. They grew with twisted thoughts inside their heads, festering as school and life took a toll on them. I existed because a man and a woman wanted a family they could not handle, could not fathom, could not create.

I sighed, my chest heaving, tears streaming down my cheeks. My heart pounded a million miles an hour in my chest, desperate to escape the rest of my body. My heart wanted to leave the cruel mind that told it that it was incapable of love. At 17 years old, not even an adult, my heart was told to give up. It was told that no matter how much longer I lived, I tried to love, tried to thrive, nothing would make the pain go away. No one would.

This wasn't a fairy tale where love saves the girl from herself. This wasn't the book where the loser girl took her revenge and won the hearts of all her classmates and found her best friends for life. This wasn't the movie where the protagonist has a shitty life and all of a sudden she goes through hardships and comes out with a brand new, happy life. Because I wouldn't be the protagonist, maybe I would be the villain. I was the villain in Janessa's story, and Nelson's, and maybe even August's. I was the villain to Stacie and Nina and to my own damn self.

I pushed myself into a sitting position. Forced myself to wipe away the tears that had dried on my cheeks. I had to stop this. I had to stop pitying myself, stop pitying others. I just needed to stop feelings at this point. I needed to compose myself, to be the girl that I had always wanted to be; strong, confident, brave.

But I just couldn't do it.

I couldn't walk into school the next day, face the principal, and tell her the truth. Of course she knew what happened on the worst day of my life. She had to be involved. Paramedics had to be involved. It wasn't like she would suspend me, or I would go to jail. It was about what the others would think, how the word would spread around town. How everyone would think of me differently for a situation that had been kept hush hush. Bad for the school's reputation, bad for mine.

I found myself getting out of bed and walking downstairs to my dad's office. I checked a clock on the way down, the old cuckoo clock that Dad loved so dearly nearly eliciting a scream from me. The clock had struck midnight. If only I was Cinderella, and someone found my glass shoe, and I got a happily ever after. But that just wasn't reality.

My footsteps echoed throughout the quiet house. Dad was sitting at his desk, typing furiously at his computer. He barely looked up when I came in, deciding that this was the best time to take a swing of coffee. He looked totally and utterly exhausted, just like he always did. The bags under his eyes were dark as night, and he was in desperate need of a shave.

"Dad, I need to ask you a question."

"Kiley," he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "It's late. Can you just ask me tomorrow?"

The tone of indifference in his voice stung. "It's very important. Dad, please."

"What? What is so important that you have to bother me at midnight?"

I crossed my arms, tears forming in my eyes. "I just need to ask, am I a bad person?"

His eyes widened, the frown falling from his face. "Why would you ask that?"

I stiffened, my body bracing itself for the blow of the words that I was sure were coming. Like taking a dive into the water and bracing for the cold, merciless descent. "I just need to know. Don't lie to me. I need you to be honest with me, and it's okay if the answer is a resounding 'no', because that's what I really deserve. It's just, no one I love or trust or value has ever told me the truth. I've heard Stacie and Nina scream it over and over, or some stupid variation. I've hated myself for so long now, that obviously my opinion doesn't count. Nelson hates me again. So tell me, Dad, the last person I have known to like my presence- or at least not hate it - am I a bad person?"

The look in his eyes was indecipherable. It was like staring at a stone wall and expecting it to read you a bedtime story. Like someone who knows nothing about cars popping the hood and not even knowing where the oil goes or where the engine starts and ends. I realized at this moment that I didn't know what every look in his eye meant. I didn't know the hidden meanings to his words, I didn't even remember his favorite flavor of ice cream. I barely knew the man in front of me because we both spent so much time hiding from the world. He spent his time hiding in his office, working overtime. I spent my time hiding in my room, believing I was never worthy of attention or love.

"No, but for you to come in here asking that, maybe I'm not such a good dad." He stood and walked over to me, gathering me in his arms. "Good people make bad decisions. Good people can question if they're good people, but that's not what determines who you are. You determine who you are."

The tears were coming again. I thought I had run out of moisture in my body. "Dad, I did terrible things because I thought it would make up for another terrible thing."

And that's how I told my dad about his daughter being a blackmailer. I told him the truth about Stacie and Nina, what I did to Nelson, and how I met Janessa, Kalila, and August. I told him how terrible I was while sobbing. After a while, I had slid to the floor and just sat there, staring up at my father while telling him the whole story. I left out the revenge plot and tried to word around it. He just knew that I had made three new friends, one was dating a teacher, and my other two friends hated my guts and suggested I blackmail my classmates for fun.

When I finished, Dad stared at me for a long time. He sighed, sat down on the floor next to me. "You know when you were younger and I enrolled you in those karate classes?"

I nodded, not seeing the correlation.

"Well, Kiley, those classes were to teach you how to defend yourself. Back in my day, bullies would physically beat me. I never wanted my children to go through that. I assume you don't remember much from the classes, but I needed to know that you and Nelson could handle yourselves. I was quite proud when Nelson beat up that bully in fourth grade, even if your mother yelled at him for it."

"And what does that have to do with now?" I asked.

"Well, I realize now that you didn't just need physical protection. Emotional manipulation can do just as much damage, it seems. You needed a father who was there more, and I'm sorry for that. I let your mother critique me for years, and I buried myself in my job. I vowed that you and Nel would have this amazing life that money could provide. You know what?"

"What?"

"Money doesn't matter. My kids matter. And-"

"Dad, you're good. You're a good dad, and you have always helped us with our problems."

He shook his head. "I could have realized you needed more help. I-"

"No!" I shouted, making myself flinch. "It's just as much my fault. I could have told you. But I didn't. I thought I deserved it."

Dad stood, offering me his hand. I took it, standing with him and following him into the kitchen. He pulled some frozen pizza rolls from the fridge and went to cook them in the microwave.

"Who am I talking to tomorrow?" He asked.

"No," I said. "No, you can't talk to anyone. You-"

"Don't let them win. You are going to see the therapist first thing Monday, and if I can't complain, you will."

We were silent until the microwave beeped, and a tasty scent filled the air. "I'll see the therapist, but let me do this on my own time. I just need time."

He handed me a plate full of pizza rolls. I realized he took none for himself as he headed back for his office. "Okay, but I require daily updates."

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Author's note: Two updates in a week? I'm backkkkk. For how long, who knows? But I want to finish this book!