Free All In My Head (First Tracks Book 1) by Kristen James Page A

both in fear and pain. Kyle whipped around and threw his
fist into the drywall, burying his hand for a second.
    “Dude!” A guy yelled from the other side of the door. “Take
it easy on my bed!”
    Kyle didn’t answer. He turned with his fist in his other
hand, glaring at Avery.
    My stomach fell out of me. The asshole was going to hit her
and I couldn’t stop him. I lunged anyway, went through him, screamed.
    “Whatever.” Kyle snorted and it turned into a cruel laugh.
“Whatever.” He threw a hand up in the air, almost like flipping her off, like
she was being a child.
    The moment replayed until I lost count.
    Whatever.
    Whatever.
    Whatever.
    Her heart came through clear to me, like she was
inside me . Something died. Shame filled her when she didn’t do anything
wrong. Humiliation bloomed. Disappointment, confusion, hurt. Going from
innocence to knowing there was a price to keep him.
    Was she not good enough without that? Why did he want to
rush it, have it there like it didn’t matter at all to him? If he liked her so
much, why couldn’t he wait a little while?
    I hunched down so I could take her hands, only I couldn’t.
    I’m here.
    Kyle flung the door open and left. Avery scurried after him
and I followed her. He said something to the two guys and grabbed another beer,
downing it standing right in front of the open fridge, then burped.
    “I’m outta here.”
    “See ya,” Blondie called. Avery followed Kyle outside to the
car.
    He stopped outside the driver side door and stared at her a
long minute. So many words came to mind but I was emptied out.
    The feelings Kyle should have felt, were hers. He took
something special and left dirty things. I felt her think it, as if she
realized that later on, but in this dream remembered it.
    Kyle made a noise and unlocked the car. He didn’t drive off.
Avery got in, her body stiff like a dead rabbit I had to move off a porch once.
    Was that my memory? I remembered something. But it didn’t
matter now. I went with them as they drove in silence. Kyle went to the college
and she got out at a stop sign and started walking. Never looked back. Just
walked, her head high, her eyes straight ahead, but her arms folded across
herself in defense, not strength.
    Watching her walk away like that hurt almost more than
everything else.
    I had to pull back away from the pain.  I wanted to kill
Kyle. First I’d slam him to the ground and stomp a foot on his neck. Call him a
piss ant and every other name I could think of.
    Avery kept walking and we passed the dorms. She just kept
walking. Soon I realized this wasn’t a walk to a place. It was just a walk, a
path away, and one she’d been on for a while.
    I heard her gasp—back in her bed. Something seemed to suck
me down a drain. I was in her head again, feeling from the inside out. It was
different than the dream … two ways of being inside a person’s spirit.
    The pillow was wet with tears. Her hands gripped the covers
like a person dangling off the edge of a building.
    Avery?
    I kept talking, not saying anything important but trying to
reach her with my voice. She didn’t wake up enough to talk to me, but her mind
flew through the dream, the memory, not trying to keep me out. She wasn’t aware
of me right now. It was just her life. I could see two images: her and Kyle intertwined
together in a chair, whispering and touching, and then Kyle on her in the dirty
bedroom. She was trying to fit the two realities together, to make sense of
them, but she couldn’t make the puzzle pieces fit. They were pieces from two
different puzzles.
    And all I could do was look at the mess.

Chapter Eight
     
    Avery
     
    A massive 9.2 magnitude headache woke me up. Even the soft
morning light felt like a pick ax splitting through my head. I slowly slid out
of bed and crawled to the bathroom, eyes clamped shut, where I pulled myself up
by the cabinet and felt around for a bottle of pain reliever. I downed three
and a full glass of water and