Page 1 of Advice from a Sunflower

Prologue

Eli

I've had two loves in my life.

You know, that earth-shattering, lay-my-life-on-the-line, knock-entire-cities-down-to-please-her kind of love. The kind that you meet, and your souls release this sigh of relief because you've finally found each other again.

And I lost them both.

The first was the proverbial girl next door. She captivated me the instant we met and kept me strung along like a puppet every moment after. It was years before I got to taste her, and it was the most delicious thing I've ever experienced. So, I devoured her. I carped that diem harder than Horace ever intended when he uttered the words.

It was perfect.

Until she decided life in our sleepy town wasn't enough. ThatIwasn't enough. She spread her wings and flew out of my grasp before I could even attempt to convince her not to, and our time together came to a crashing, fiery end.

She broke me.

The second love was instant. Zero hesitation. She entered my life, and my heart immediately changed its beat to suit her. She was everything I needed and nothing I deserved. But just as quickly as she'd appeared, she was gone. A flicker of bright light that couldn't withstand the storm raging around her.

She obliterated me.

Now, I'm a skeleton of a man, walking the earth without purpose or direction, simply going through the motions. Each day brings on the same mundane schedule and I'm slowly disappearing into the nothingness, my life fading to black.

Until my first love comes back.

Her return gives me purpose again, but not in the way it had in the past. No, I'm not the same naive little boy playing nice in the sandbox anymore. I warned her of that the moment I saw her.

But she didn't take my words seriously. She chose to test me instead—to awaken the sleeping beast and try her luck with him.

I promised her I'd destroy her and if there is one thing I do well, it's upholding my promises.

Chapter 1

Lyla

8 years old

Dark clouds gather behind the looming house, a signal for the beginning of the storm the town hasn’t stopped talking about for the past week. The weatherman is expecting flash flooding with torrential downpours on and off for the rest of the week. I count the windows and doors before me, concerned that there aren’t half as many on this house as there were on Grandma and Grandpa’s.

Three windows and one back door. That’s it. That’s the only opening to the rest of the world that’s offered to us in our new home. I’m claustrophobic just looking at it. Even with the sky threatening to open itself above me, I still feel safer outside in the backyard than I do inside the old house.

My mother—she prefers to be called Denise—insists that it isn’t so bad. She’s confident we’ll be able to start over here, but I miss our old apartment over my grandparent’s garage. At least that place didn’t breathe at night, startling me awake with its spooky sounds, or watch me every time I left. Denise says it’s just settling; that’s what old houses do. But I think it’s worse than that. There’s a bad energy in there and I can feel a shift happening between the three of us—her, my sister, Marnie, and me—as we each get settled into our own routines. Our tight-knit family is already starting to fall apart. My mother thinks I’m too young to talk about negative energies or feel suffocated simply by a house but she’s wrong.

Age doesn’t matter when it comes to things like this.

There’s a rumor that an old spinster lived there before us, her family leaving it vacant for years before they finally decided to sell to Denise. It’s said that she practiced witchcraft in the basement, often casting spells on the people in town who had mocked her or treated her poorly. That was supposedly why the basement creaked so much at night. That, and Marnie told me she sacrificed children to cast her spells. I'm not sure I believe any of it, but I know something unexplainable is going on.

“Mouse, get your butt inside before you catch a cold!” Denise yells from the back door, waving her hands around animatedly to grab my attention away from the sky.

I don’t waste any time, quickly gathering my blanket and copy ofThe Catcher in the Ryeas I realize the rain has already begun to fall, chilling my entire body through all my soaked clothes.

“What were you thinking?” she scolds once I’m safely inside the sliding door, grabbing at my dripping attire with rough fingers. “Take this off before you track water through the house and ruin my floors.”

That’s her new thing: calling everything hers.

Don’t slamherfront door. Don’t spill juice onhercarpet. Don’t leave a mess inherkitchen.

Marnie assumes it’s because she’s never had anything that was fully hers before and now that she does; she wants to take full advantage. I think it makes her sound a little selfish. This is supposed to beourhouse, where we make memories together. That’s what the apartment was, at least.

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