Page 1 of Wanted You More

PROLOGUE

Summer 2012

Iwas eightyears old when I experienced the threat of oblivion for the first time, and it started with all of my favorite things. Slightly charred hotdogs covered in bittersweet ketchup, sour pink lemonade, and my family.

The start of the end began with the firework display.

Bright.

Loud.

Beautiful.

Reds. Whites. Blues.

Until the noisy cheer of the packed crowd in Shakespeare Park turned into noisy chaos as everybody started to scatter.

I looked to my left, where my mother had disappeared to the bathroom with my little brother, Wolfe, then to my right to search for my father’s familiar face, where he’d been talking to a family friend about golf. Instead of my family, I saw a mass of others running toward me with fear-stricken faces.

“Mommy?” I call out, dodging the people grabbing their kids from the foldable lawn chairs spread along the grass.

The fireworks are getting louder.

Closer.

I don’t know when the park stopped smelling like the yummy grilled food from the barbecues or food trucks, but soon a pungent odor took over the space that became too thick and suffocating to bear.

I stumble when someone smacks into me from the side, then nearly fall when somebody else runs into me from the other side. “Daddy? Where are you?”

Suddenly, hands grab me from under the arms and pick me up despite my wild protest. When I look over my shoulder, the blurry image of the older man who delivers our mail is who I see. “We need to run, kid.”

“But Mommy and Daddy—”

“We’ll meet them,” the red-faced man whose name I can’t remember tells me, although he doesn’t sound like he’s telling the truth. He’s winded and breathing funny as he’s keeping pace with the others running, and thebang, bang, banggets louder and louder.

Red, white, and blues light up the sky.

They don’t seem very pretty anymore.

When I try searching around us, the mailman’s grip tightens around me as one of those large hands that delivers all of Mom’s Amazon packages blocks my eyes. “Don’t look, Austen.”

His voice is hoarse, making my weird name sound stranger coming from him. My parents are both English professors, which is why they named me after Jane Austen and my little brother after Virginia Woolf.

“When we get to the parking lot,” he says, struggling for air as he hauls me closer to his chest, “I’m going to put you down and you need to run to safe—” His directions get cut off by a horrible, gargling sound before we drop to the ground in a tangled heap that makes it hard to breathe from the weight of his body on my back.

Something wet seeps into my pretty new shirt that has a glitter heart in the middle with stripes like the American flag. I begged Mom to buy it for me even though she hates glitter. When I see her, I’ll tell her I’ll get rid of it. I’ll get rid of whatever she wants. There’s a Barbie that melted in the hot sun a few years ago that freaks her out, but I’ve been too attached to get rid of it. I’d let her throw that out too.

My eyes get heavy as I think about all the things I’d change for her. She can cut my long hair like she’s been wanting to and style it however she wants. I’ll wear pigtails again like I did when I was little.

No matter how much I try to wiggle from under the crushing weight above me, I can’t seem to break free.

Energy draining the longer I fight for air, I feel myself falling asleep, wondering when Mom, Dad, and Wolfe will find me.

That’s when the fireworks finally fade into the distance, and things slowly get quieter. My ears ringing is the only sound I hear until my eyelids finally close.

SUMMER 2022

CHAPTER ONE

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