I met Jacob Jonathan Carter the night his father tried to kill me.

Most of that night had long since become no more than an occasional nightmare pulled from the depths of my subconscious, so deep when awake, I have very little memory of the events.

What I did have every bit of knowledge about was the hurricane of destruction it'd left in its wake.

John Carter had left more than my blood forever staining the kitchen tile of my childhood home. He'd wrapped his large hand around my throat, and when he retracted his hands, he took with him my entire life in the blink of an eye.

Mom left four days and six hours after our neighbor had tried to take my life. She had packed her bags in the middle of the night, slapped a sticky note with a crappy apology on my older brother's meal prepped breakfast for him to find, then disappeared to never be seen again. Ian had tried for three years to try and find a way to contact her for some sort of explanation, but she'd changed her name and become a ghost.

Dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer seven years and four days after our neighbor had tried to end my life. It was a sudden, life altering diagnosis that shook my brother, then eighteen, to a point that he'd left for two weeks and returned with custody paperwork. I was no longer than the child of Issac Baker and Eloise McAdams, but eighteen-year-old college freshman Ian Baker. My brother had become my primary caretaker overnight-and didn't understand how difficult the adjust would be on me. I distanced myself from the boy who'd been my best friend-who'd quite literally saved my life years prior and started to act out.

Though our father defied the odds by living a year and a half longer than the doctor's had promised, he passed away last May, just before my graduation in the middle of the night in his sleep. He'd gone peacefully, Ian had assured with tears in his eyes, he didn't suffer.

The only salvageable, vivid memory I had from the night I met Jacob for the first time was strange. I'd been discharged and Ian had walked me to the vending machine to get me a Twix-as if a chocolate bar could erase all the trauma I'd just suffered through. I spotted Jacob then, the small, frail boy. His arms were black and blue, and he had the biggest laceration across his forehead, matting his thick, black hair against his forehead. I wasn't sure if the white shirt he was wearing sported any type of image or words, as he was covered from head to toe in blood. A nurse had crouched beside him, to try and get the trembling boy to agree to follow her back to a room. Seeing he was shaken far beyond comprehension, I crossed the small space between us and broke my Twix in half, one for him and one for me. He had looked at the candy as if it were an artifact he had no intention of eating.

"What is this?" his voice had been scratchy and rough, hardly audible.

Ian had edged closer and took my small hand in his own, eying the boy sympathetically. "It's chocolate. You look like you need some."

"Thank you."

I remember nodding and Ian leading me away before anything else had been said, but it'd been far from the only time Jacob and I had crossed one another's path.

Sixth grade he'd returned the favor by loaning me his sweatshirt when I got my period. Eighth I'd been sure to drop a Twix in front of him at lunch when I saw he'd chosen not to eat anything. It'd been symbolic, I suppose, but he didn't speak on it, at least verbally. Those pretty blue eyes said everything. Freshman year he'd offered his hand when I'd been stood up by my date at Homecoming, and though it was only one dance and a silent one at that, it had saved me a lot of humiliation and a night of tears. Junior year I loaned him my notes and left him a coffee on his desk in English around the time we were supposed to take finals.

His final act had been my father's funeral. He had kept himself so camouflaged with all my father's friends, family, and colleagues I hadn't seen him until everyone started filing out. He hadn't uttered a single word-this had become our thing over the last ten years, and I would have been a bit thrown off if he suddenly started to conversate with me. Seeing how much of a mess I was, he pulled a black handkerchief from his pocket and rested it in my palm. It hadn't been until he was long gone that I unfolded the handkerchief in Ian's truck and found a pretty charm bracelet with a dove midflight dangling from the silver rope.

I didn't see Jacob again after graduation a week later, in fact, he didn't even show to walk the stage. I caught sight of him taking the diploma from Principal Martinez hours later before I'd been ushered out to the lot to celebrate with my brother and aunt.

Given the history of our peculiar friendship, I had come to terms with the fact that we'd likely never seen each other again-the bracelet had been a parting gift. A goodbye. A thank you.

I had been kind, friendly, to him when the rest of our town had outcasted the boy with the psychotic father. I had given him fragments of myself that nobody else saw, when other people turned their nose up any time he walked by.

It was sitting in my brother's kitchen as he slaved over the stove and flicking at the charm and watching it swing back and forth, I finally asked my brother, "Have you heard anything about Jacob?"

"Carter?" Ian asked from the kitchen. "I haven't seen him since the funeral. A few of my buddies downtown said he's there every few days to pick up."

Drugs. I shouldn't have been surprised he was using, but there was a flicker of surprise that ignited in my chest hearing the words. "Oh, I didn't know."

"I don't know why you care. The kid's trouble." Ian stepped out of the kitchen and into the dining room, throwing a blue dish rag over his shoulder, dark eyebrows drawing in, "The apple doesn't fall too far from the tree, you know."

"What does that say about me?" I shot back.

Ian frowned, crossing his arms so the sleeves tugged and threatened to tear around his biceps. "You know that isn't what I meant."

"It is, though. If Jacob is his father, than I'm Mom, right?"

"I don't have the patience for this tonight, Iz."

I watched in silence as he retreated back into the safety of the kitchen before slumping back in my chair, "How'd the date go?"

"Fine."

"All I get is a fine?" I responded, dangling my bracelet over my face. "Come on, Ian. I love me some juicy details."

He snickered from the stove. "She was sweet. Not huge on our situation, but maybe she'll come around to it. We have another date Friday."

"Aye, get the girl!" I exclaimed, then quietly added, "I won't be here Friday anyway, so maybe you could come back and—"

"What?" he cut me off before I could finish my sentence, shock evident in his tone. "Where are you going?"

I shrugged a shoulder. "Aunt Chrissy sent me Mom's new address."

"Isabelle." For a second my heart plummeted into my stomach as my eyes flickered to my brother poking his head out from beside the fridge. He sounded so much like Dad, so stern and concerned, but controlled, nonetheless. "Please tell me you're not considering going to see her."

"Then I won't." I mumbled.

He heaved out an exhausted sigh and dropped the dishrag on top of the small white microwave to his left, then crept out into the dining room so he was leaning over the chair to my right. "Izzy, please. Be smart. Nothing good can come out of going and seeking love from a woman who couldn't care less about us."

"I don't want love." I said through my teeth, avoiding his brown eyes hyper fixated on me. "I want and explanation."

"You're going to drive three thousand miles for an explanation?"

I pointed a finger at him accusingly. "Don't tell me you haven't laid in bed and contemplated everything at least once."

"Of course, I have." he breathed, shaking his head. "But I know better than to try and search out that heartless, sorry excuse of a mother. I know we don't need her."

I extended my hand out and rested it on top of my brother's. "Ian, I love you and I appreciate everything you've done for me. Seriously. But I'm an adult now and I need you to understand you don't have control over my choices anymore."

His eyes dropped to my hand, his long lashes a fan across his fair cheeks as he absorbed the words.

I'd never say it aloud, but the guilt I had for this entire situation ate at me every night. The guilt of knowing I was what was standing between my older brother and his dream career. The guilt of knowing I was the roadblock between him and the family I knew he yearned to have. He had taken on the burden of having to raise from a young age and had never got to be a teenager, not in the ways that mattered, and it was my fault.

Some nights I told myself that if John Carter had taken my life, my brother would be living out his dreams without me in the way.

"You're eighteen." Ian finally stated the obvious, then added, "And sure, maybe legally you're considered an adult, but you still have so much to learn about yourself and the world, Izzy."

"And one of those thing is why our mother chose to run instead of raise the traumatized little girl that needed her."

He flinched, squeezed his eyes shut once more, then whispered, "I know I'm not going to be able to talk you out of this, but you're going to have to send me text every half hour, call every time you cross a state line, and take pictures."

"Of course, Ian."

He straightened and opened his arms for a very much needed hug. I rose shakily and fell right into his familiar, warm embrace and rested my head against his chest.

"Is it going to get easier." I choked on my words, the heaviness in my chest still weighing me down. I felt his arm tense against my back as he tried to find the right thing to say. He eventually decided that no answer was the best response, for him, not for me.

I needed to know that this heavy, cold, empty, hallow hole in my chest was going to close. That one day I'd be able to breathe normally again. That every little thing that reminded me of Dad wouldn't send me spiraling into a long bout of depression I struggled to tear myself from.

Some days I felt seven again, with a large hand locked around my throat, struggling to breathe. But this time there was no one rushing to my rescue and if I wasn't able to escape the chokehold, it was possible I wouldn't be able to breathe again.