Kasey Patenaude
'I’m driving now. Driving away from the past and everything that was ever in it up to the very last second. It’s hard to breathe and I tell myself that everything happens for a reason.'Amaryllis Brown is a high school student with a past and present that threatens to strangle her and not let go. At eleven, her mother dies, leaving her alone with her abusive and vicious father, Jarvis.Looking for a safe haven away from the sexual slavery in which her father has branded her, she finds it at school in her teacher, Mr. Wells. Though Mr. Wells is an improvement from the violence of her father, he too becomes obsessive and drunk with an overwhelming infatuation for his student, leaving himself and his marriage in shambles.As Amaryllis journeys through sadness, joy, and silently battles to overcome thoughts of suicide, will she gain the strength to untangle herself from the web of her past and the horrors of her present? 3
