A Guy's Dream Come True

CHAPTER 1

With every birthday wish for the last ten years, Amy Monty Montgomery had asked for one more year of no one finding out about her lies.

She’d gotten her wish every year.

Her lies had celebrated her 21st birthday four years ago at a blow-out birthday party in Amsterdam. Surrounded by friends she hadn’t heard from in four years, she blew out the four extra candles.

She was really 17; a very grownup, talented, highly acclaimed, rich and famous, 17, but only 17.

Almost three years ago, she’d turned 18 and dumped her boyfriend, Kevin Maverick, who had been voted #1 in TV Scene List of 100 Hottest Guys on Planet Earth that year.

More off than on, their public relationship was off, but privately, neither of them had moved on.

Doing her ex’s dad, movie producer, Victor Maverick and her boss, a favor by driving Kevin to his high school prom when no chauffeur would touch the job, things had switched from off to on in a heartbeat and she’d managed to have sex with her ex-boyfriend in the back of a limo and end up pregnant.

So drunk he didn’t remember anything, every now and then Kevin would call Monty after he had a sex dream about the night to ask her if she was sure they didn’t do it on prom night? Dreaming about Monty wasn’t what Kevin wanted.

He wanted her back, but she always told him he’d had 10 dates on prom night and she’d stayed in the driver’s seat up front.

At age 17, with 21 candles on her cake, she had been pregnant and made a wish for two. Breathing deeply, she’d wished that her baby girl would never have to lie; not once.

Living with lies was hard, but thanks to lying, Monty had a life and even better, something to live for. Having extra candles on her cake wasn’t the end of the world.

She could have hit rock bottom and lost everything when she found out she was pregnant. Running home to her mom on Cape Cod wasn’t an option. With two new babies of her own at home, a new husband and a 15-year-old son; Monty’s mom had her hands full.

To Monty, her mom’s happiness and new life was the success story she’d worked hard for and lied through her teeth for.

Telling the truth about the lies and the baby wasn’t worth everything she’d have to give up: her career, her friends and any shot at someday getting back together with her baby’s father.

She preferred to hide in the safety of strangers, keep the peace and lie, lie, lie.

Keeping her life of lies from completely blowing up in her face meant she had to stay as far away as possible from her ex, Kevin Maverick, which was impossible because Kevin’s family, the Mavericks, had raised her as one of their own. She’d stayed in Europe to avoid her family, the Mavericks and the Montgomeries, guessing her secrets until the baby was born in Europe.

Her passport and work visa had her fake age and so far, no one had questioned it.

Staying in Europe meant no one would question her age or who her baby’s father was. Knowing her pregnancy would show, she’d told Kevin’s father, Victor Maverick, who was producing the cable TV show she was starring in about a young woman who stayed in hostels, partied hard with other young travelers and helped lost souls find meaning and love in the world that she was pregnant.

Upping the production schedule and writing the pregnancy into the story line, the audience followed Monty’s character as the mystery of who the baby’s father was climaxed in the series finale. The audience ate the story line up week after week. Her character had reunited twins who’d been separated and lost each other on opposite side of Europe, a dog who found his owner who was backpacking in the Alps and a young mother who’d left her baby in a train station in Madrid and in the very last episode, she was reunited with her baby’s father, a soldier returning from Afghanistan.

Lying about her age was the only way Monty knew to hold her life together. With a baby on the way, she needed money for diapers, a baby stroller and eventually, a home for her little girl. She’d supported her mother and brother with her acting career. Now she had another mouth to feed and a home life to build. The lies made it possible for her to be an adult and make plans for her life and for raising her baby.

Telling the truth, meant she’d be treated like a kid; just another pregnant 17-year-old Hollywood star who had thrown everything away by forgetting to use a condom.

Lying about her age and being mysterious about who the father was instead of naming her teenage ex-boyfriend who was too drunk to remember having sex with her, meant she kept her acting career and could support her family.

Breaking Kevin Maverick’s heart again and again over the last three years was a sin of the greatest magnitude in the world of Kevin’s teenage fans, but telling Kevin she was younger than he was and pregnant wouldn’t have meant anything. He was almost 19 and all he did was party and date celebrities.

At 17, she’d have lost everything if the lies came out.

It was better to tell the world that her baby’s father was a young student who, like the characters on her hit show had found love one night at a disco in Amsterdam. Her baby’s father was a gorgeous young man who’d fallen for a famous actress, made love with her and forgotten to leave her his contact number as he ran for the train to Paris that would connect him back to his home country to finish his studies.

From the moment she gotten pregnant, she’d needed to guard her lies closer than ever. Even if lying meant she might lose Kevin for good. For real. Forever.

While she stayed in Europe, hiding from the cameras, Kevin took the heat from the press about the breakup. He worked through his heartbreak by making sure Monty knew he was angry, disappointed and wanted her back.

Back in the USA and in South America, Kevin dated every beautiful co-star who threw herself at him, finished every drink he was offered at parties and told everyone he was Monty’s baby daddy. He called his girlfriends temps until Monty accepted the job he’d offered her: his wife.

With Kevin on a romantic rampage, Monty settled into motherhood and waited to Kevin to shut up, grow up and wise up.

For Monty at 17, keeping her lies safe meant being alone.

Love had to go.

Late At Night

From the Diary of Amy Montgomery

Unusually late at night

memories surfaced

when missing him meant she

couldn’t sleep wondering

where he was

who he was with

whether he was lying awake in bed

thinking about her

When we were together

we loved so much

I thought we’d work out

always dreamed you were the guy

I could sleep beside.

CHAPTER 2

When Monty finally made the decision to move back home to Massachusetts from Amsterdam just before the baby was born, Kevin was about to leave for a movie shoot in Argentina.

Monty had grown up as part of the Maverick family and had spent a lot of time on Nahant at Victor Maverick’s mother’s family home. Victor had finally convinced Monty to come home with the baby to Nahant and think about doing a movie in the U.S.

It took more than a few conversations, but Victor had talked her into producing or directing her next project. She was a grown up now. It was time for her to do the grown up jobs for Maverick Productions.

Right before Kevin was scheduled to leave, he flew back up to Massachusetts to see Monty. A photo spread of Monty showing the progression of her pregnancy wearing nothing but body paint was featured in an article about her transition from teenage movie star and former Kevin Maverick dream girl to the new, adult and soon-to-be-mom, Monty Bristol.

The whole Maverick family congregated in Nahant at Grandma Mav’s house and caravanned in their Mercedes and in Grandma Mav’s purple minivan to the family’s vacation home on Martha Vineyard like a group of birds migrating south.

Flying in from LA on the Mavericks’ private jet, Kevin showed up on the family vacation like a dog chasing through a circle of seagulls. Without realizing it, Monty and Kevin ended up naked and enjoying the best post-fight sex imaginable.

Furious the whole world was seeing his girlfriend naked in a magazine, Kevin wanted to fight about it face to face, but when he saw Monty’s baby belly, he saw how alone she was. It didn’t matter how many people saw her covered in paint. He saw Monty naked; live and in person. He fell in love with Monty’s baby before she was born.

Reliving the summer they first met, Kevin spent almost a week with Monty right before she was rushed to the hospital in Boston to give birth to a beautiful blue-eyes girl. That week together ignited their ex-relationship.

For the next three years between movies, girlfriends and fiancées for Kevin and the occasional close friend for Monty, whenever she and her baby, Skyler, ran into Kevin, they were privately more on than off. Watching how deeply in love Kevin was with Skyler, Monty couldn’t help falling in love with him each and every time she saw him.

At 18 she was on top of the world with a new baby, a mature attitude about her future and filming a movie in Boston. Kevin was a young 20 on his way back to Argentina to act in and produce the sequel to the action movie that had made his career and catapulted him from teenager TV star to international heart throb.

With a guy like Kevin, love was dangerous. No matter how many times Monty advised herself to move on and let Kevin go on with his own romantic life, she wasn’t ready to lose him.

Unable to resist a weekend here and there with Kevin when he flew back home to Massachusetts over the two years he shot the films and explored South America, the short bursts of passion filled her with hope.

If they could just be in the same time zone for more than a week, they might be able to build a relationship that would last, but every time he left, she’d get a call from him saying he missed her and he couldn’t wait to introduce her to his new girlfriend. It was becoming a joke between the two of them that they broke up every time they said goodbye.

Half the time she thought about Kevin, she wanted to erase him from her memory and the other half of the time, she fantasized about the day he would grow up and get it through his thick skull that she was crazy about him and had been since the day she met him.

The constant competition for his attention with every gorgeous female he came in contact with crushed her cocoon of safety. Loving Kevin brought her too close to losing everything, but she couldn’t get him out of her system. Being with Kevin and letting him go and bringing him back to her was her dysfunctional status quo.

Over the next two years, on-set friendships brightened Monty’s long work days, but the friendships ended the moment the director shouted, It’s a wrap. Life on the road with her baby to come home to and the trips back home to Nahant for vacation and holidays with the Mavericks and the Montgomeries kept her sane.

A lot of time and effort went into maintaining the lies. She had to keep anyone she let close to her from putting the pieces of her lies together. She kept things simple. Monty raised her daughter out of their matching suitcases, enjoyed as much Kevin-time as she could schedule between shoots and slowly transformed herself from a vulnerable teenager to a responsible and for the most part, honest, adult.

EAST OF IOWA CITY, IOWA, INTERSTATE 80 EAST, 80 MPH

SHE LISTENED TO HIM AS HE TALKED. BETTER THAN SHE EVER

LISTENED TO HIM BEFORE.

MAYBE HE’D TELL HER TO STOP SCREAMING AT HIM.

SCREAMING AT HIM WHILE HE WAS DRIVING WAS A BAD IDEA.

NO ONE GOT AWAY WITH SCREAMING AT HIM.

TOLLS. GOOD THING SHE KEPT PLENTY OF QUARTERS IN HER CAR.

HE’D CHANGE HIGHWAYS SOON AND COAST INTO BOSTON ON THE MASS

PIKE ROUTE 90.

SWING UP REVERE BEACH, 3.3 MILES OF GARBAGE-FILLED BEACH

WASHED IN BY FILTHY BOSTON WATER, BEFORE HEADING HOME. LIKE

ATTRACTED LIKE – DIRTY TO DIRTY.

HE’D LEFT THE RENTAL CAR IN IOWA CITY AND TAKEN HER CAR. IT

SMELLED LIKE HER PERFUME.

STRANDS OF HER HAIR WERE EVERYWHERE.

HER HALF-EMPTY COFFEE CUP SAT IN THE CUP HOLDER. COLD.

SHE’D PLACED HER LIPS AROUND THE EDGE OF THE CUP AND LEFT

LIPSTICK STAINS.

SHE LEFT STAINS WHEN SHE TOUCHED HIM.

HE FELT STAINED. DIRTY ATTRACTED DIRTY.

HIS CAR WAS PARKED AT LOGAN AIRPORT. HE’D DRIVE UP ROUTE 1A

AND SWING UP REVERE BEACH BOULEVARD. SEE WHAT GARBAGE

NEEDED CLEANING UP ON HIS WAY HOME.

THE PRISONERS AND COMMUNITY SERVICE JUNKIES WALKED THE

BEACH AND PICKED UP TRASH. HE’D STOP AND PICK UP A PIECE OF

GARBAGE. DO THE WORLD A FAVOR.

ALMOST TWENTY-FOUR HOURS OF DRIVING TO THE BEACH. ALMOST

TWENTY-FOUR HOURS OF HER TALKING.

HE’D MAKE HER HEAR HIM. YEAH, HE WAS TALKING TO HER. BITCH.

ANN. ANNE. ANNA. ANNIE.

HER MAIL CAME TO ANY KIND OF ANN. SHE WAS A NO ONE. A NO ANN.

HER CAR WAS TOO DAMN SMALL FOR CROSS-COUNTRY DRIVING. HIS

LEGS WERE CRAMPED.

BETTER GET COFFEE. COULD LOG IN. THAT WOULD LEAVE A TRACE.

HE DIDN’T LEAVE TRACES.

BETTER TO WAIT UNTIL BOSTON. LOG IN. AFTER, KITTY. AFTER.

HE’D DRIVEN NONSTOP FROM IOWAY SEEDY, IOWA. FUCKING IOWA.

OVER ONE THOUSAND MILES OF PURE NOTHING. JUST WASTED SPACE.

IOWA.

WHERE THE CHICKS’ TONGUES GROW AND AS TALL AS THE CORN. HOT

IOWA SUMMER.

HE DID HIS BUSINESS THERE. SHE WAS BAD BUSINESS. RESTART.

LOGGED HER OUT.

SHUT HER DOWN.

PROFILED HER BEFORE HE LEFT. KNEW HER. SHE WASN’T A BITCH.

TRUSTED HER.

A PLACE TO LAY DOWN HIS HEAD. OR GIVE HIM HEAD?

SHE WAS A BITCH. HE DIDN’T KNOW HER. ANN. ANNE. ANNA. ANNIE.

GOD DAMN SCREAMING ANNALEE.

YEAH, HE GAVE IT TO HER. HE’D BEEN NICE.

PLAYED NICE. TOOK CARE OF THE NICE GIRL.

LISTENING, KITTY?

HE’D BEEN A GOOD, GOOD BOY.

THIS TIME.

SHE WAS LIKE YOU, KITTY.

SHE’S DEAD.

DEAD.

DEAD. SHE DIED EASY, KITTY. ANNALEE JENNIFER.

HE NEVER LIKED JENNIFERS.

WHAT WAS THE BIG FUCKER’S ADDRESS? CALL HIM.

SCARE HIM.

LET HIM KNOW YOU WERE HERE.

NAH, LET THE COPS TELL HIM.

BIG FUCKER. DESERVED. IT.

WATCHING HIM.

MAYBE CALL THE COPS.

TELL THEM?

NO. HE LEFT NICE AND EASY. LEFT HER IN THE MIDDLE OF THE MALL

PARKING LOT.

CLEANED HER WHITE COAT WITH THE WHITE FUR AROUND THE HOOD.

FUCKING HARD TO GET BLOOD OUT OF WHITE FUR.

CLEANED HER STUDIO APARTMENT. WIPED HIS PRINTS. WIPED HER.

WIPED IT ALL.

AWAY.

IN AND OUT. BEFORE. AFTER.

CAUGHT ME A WOMAN. KEPT HER REAL NICE. KEPT HER THE WAY HE

LIKED.

FRESH. YOUNG. JUST AS GOOD IN PERSON AS ON THE COMPUTER.

SHE’D CALL OUT FOR HELP. GOD.

HER MOM. HER BROTHER THE BIG FUCK.

THAT BIG BLOND FUCKER IN THE PHOTOS ON HER WALL.

HIS PHOTO WAS ON HER COMPUTER DESK.

UNFRAMED. TAPED TO HER MONITOR.

HE WAS COMING HOME, KITTY.

LATER TODAY HE WAS HERS. SHE WAS HIS.

HE’D PICK UP SOME GARBAGE TO RELIEVE HIMSELF AND FORGET. HE

HAD TO.

FORGETTING WAS THE HARD PART.

ALL HE REMEMBERED FROM AFTER WAS HE’D DUSTED THE BIG

FUCKER’S PHOTOS.

BROKE A FRAME WHEN SHE TRIED TO RUN.

BURNED ONE PHOTO AFTER STICKING HIS KNIFE IN THE FUCKER’S EYE.

BIGGER THEY ARE.

HARDER THEY FALL.

YOU’RE DEAD, BITCH.

STOP. SCREAMING. AT. ME.

IT’S TIME TO PAY ATTENTION. CATCH ME A COUPLE NEW VOICES.

THREE LITTLE PIGGIES, BUT ONE RAN AWAY. TWO FOR THE PAN. ONE

FOR THE MAN.

THE ONE.

WHO LISTENS.

CHAPTER 3

At Monty’s actual 21st birthday party, she’d wondered if her mom would say something about the 25 candles on the cake, her lies blew out the four extra candles on her cake. Her birthday wish was smothered with long steady streams of smoky deceit. At 21, Monty wanted to make a new wish for her, her daughter and for Kevin: to start over. She was going to explain to everyone why she’d lied and why.

She’d celebrated her 21st birthday at home in Nahant, Massachusetts. No one from four years ago in Amsterdam even sent her a card.

This was the first birthday she’d been home with her family since she was ten. Not even the lies she told every single day of her life could muffle the excitement of being home with everyone who loved her on her 21st birthday. Feeling like a kid again, she couldn’t stop smiling.

Keeping her mouth shut, her heart closed and her mind off things she really couldn’t risk dreaming about had taken its toll. As public as her life was on the surface, she lived a reclusive life going straight home from work to her daughter.

When she could turn off the public, she went home to her Grandma Mav’s house in Nahant surrounded by all the mini-Mavericks.

Over the last year, she’d made some changes in her life. After finishing her first movie as director, she decided to stay in Massachusetts to work on a year-long Maverick Productions project converting a documentary Monty had assisted Victor with several years ago about homeless kids on Revere Beach which she was re-creating as a reality TV show where the participants worked to change their lives and get into college.

Living in the same house on Revere Beach for over a year felt like she had her first home of her own; even it was rented by the studio. This house felt permanent. She was ready to settle down, unpack the lies slowly and rebuild her life.

Telling the truth would free her, but lying wasn’t without its benefits.

Lying about her age got Monty the job on TV that gave her the money to keep her family safe from the man who haunted her dreams; the monster.

There wasn’t anything she wanted to change in her life. She loved her job, her family and even her so-called sordid past breaking up with Kevin.

Her life was worth lying for.

The same lie about her age that got her the job also resulted in her lying to Kevin about Skyler. Being four years younger than everyone thought she was hadn’t been a big deal until she and Kevin started dating.

Their relationship went from innocent kissing to a sequence of awkward, overly publicly analyzed and overly- adult situations. When it came to Kevin, everything was too soon and too fast.

Interviewers asked her publicly if she was a virgin. Reporters went into hotel rooms where she and Kevin had stayed and reported on their sheets, roses spread around the room and empty champagne bottles.

Magazine articles featured photos of her and Kevin captioned Kevin Maverick and Monty Bristol’s Younger Guy/Older Girlfriend: Why Dating Older Women In Your Teens Is Smart. Monty wanted to gag when she saw that, but she’d read it to try to keep things with Kevin from falling apart.

Kevin loved his 2 years-older and wiser girlfriend and pushed her to be the sexier, more experienced girlfriend the magazines said she was. The more he pushed, the more she retreated.

No matter how many times she tried to tell him she was two years younger than he was, she’d think it through and see herself losing her next movie contract and causing massive legal problems for her boss, Kevin’s dad, Victor Maverick. She’d lose her job and make things tough for Victor.

The worst consequence of all would be losing Kevin when he found out she wasn’t the experienced, sexy older girlfriend, but a lying 14-year-old; two years younger than he was.

After four years as Hollywood’s teenage sweethearts, Kevin’s heart was broken when she turned 18 and publicly announced she couldn’t date an immature 16 year old anymore.

Publicly, Kevin lashed out at Monty in every way he could - partying, girls, drinking, drugs, showing up for work on his show late and more partying. Privately, he was a mess calling her and texting her.

All he wanted was Monty back. He did everything he could think of to get her attention and get her back.

Pushing him away, Monty had to keep her secrets. After four years together as best friends and two years as boyfriend-girlfriend, Monty knew the only way she could keep her secrets from Kevin was to put as much distance between them as possible.

Dumping him and moving to Amsterdam was the hardest thing she’d ever done. Tossing her cell phone number and telling her assistant not to put his calls through, Monty felt like a monster for what she did to Kevin, but the real monster was still out there.

Lying was the only magic power she could come up with to keep the monster from coming back. She didn’t know what the monster would do to Kevin or her family if she let her guard down even a little.

Monty’s only super power against the monster coming after everyone she loved was a shield of lies.

Hard to Miss

From the Diary of Amy Montgomery

You are hard to miss

even in a crowd

if you were here

I’d know it

instantly.

You blew me off

for the first time in a long time, it hurt

I have to stop making excuses for you

You aren’t my best

my boy

or my friend

or even close

anymore.

You are almost a stranger even

when we were together

you told me

all I had to say was I want you

and you were mine

Never seriously

there were no do-overs or wait and sees

being with you was all a big game

Pushed me

to tell you

my true feelings

told me to trust you

but I held back

Why couldn’t we enjoy being together

without you pushing me

for so much

neither of us relented

we broke up

got back together

couldn’t commit

always apart

You treated me like a rental car.

You said you were with me.

Always mine.

Our future didn’t matter.

You were with her now.

She wanted believed you. She wanted you to stay.

You never ended with me or started with her.

The next time we are together, we’ll start

over again

falling back in love

pulling away to opposite sides of the planet.

We can’t keep our hands off each other.

We can’t keep in touch.

You don’t think I understand that you only want me

to be with you and only you

I don’t believe you.

You don’t believe how much I love you.

The between relationships

don’t count

no one else matters

We can’t stay away from each other

wanting the impossible

stay with me

it’s too hard to miss you all the time.

CHAPTER 4

The only things in life that really mattered to Monty were keeping her family safe and keeping her lies safe. Until now, she hadn’t dared to wish she could tell the truth about her age to Kevin or anyone else she loved, but things were different now.

He was 23 and she was 21.

For the last four years she and Kevin had tried to stay close friends and failed the moment they got together and ended up in bed and then breaking up. She said they broke up, because he was getting too close without really making a commitment. He said she wouldn’t accept a commitment from him if he handed it to her on an eight foot diamond.

Remembering the hypnotic feeling from gazing at the small fires on her birthday candles, Monty knew her biggest lie of all was that she would ever have courage to stop lying to Kevin and everyone else she loved.

She just had too much to lose if she threw the lies away.

Lying meant she could keep working and continue trying to make up for not being strong enough to stop the monster from taking her two friends away. She’d accepted living with a broken heart, a lonely bed and being as big a jerk to Kevin as he was to her any day over a single attack on her family by the monster.

Hiding behind the dancing flames of the birthday candles on her cake, Monty had looked around at the eerie, glowing faces of everyone she loved most in the world and decided to keep this small slice of happiness to herself for a little while longer. She breathed the lies back in and blew her 25 birthday candles out with a strong swoosh of air.

In the sudden darkness before her mom turned the lights back on, she’d quickly removed the 2 and the 5 from the cake and dropped them under the table before her mother noticed and said anything.

Next year, when she made her birthday wish, she’d wish she could blow out the years of lies and not have any candles on her cake.

She hoped that this time next year, her friends would still be smiling at her even after she told them she’d lied to their faces for years.

Closing her eyes to soak in the moment and put off what she’d have to do make next year’s wish possible, Monty reminded herself that all her wishes and dreams had come true thanks to her lies.

At 21, Monty had everything she’d ever dreamed about: a family; friends who loved her; the movie star life every little girl dreamed of. Having it all wasn’t what Monty really wanted for her birthday this year. All she wanted was to be invisible to cameras when she wasn’t working.

Her idea of a perfect day was to come home from work, enjoy dinner with her daughter, catch up on what happened in her daughter’s day, check in with Kevin and all the other Mavericks and Montgomeries by email or cell and get ready for work the next day. She watched a little TV especially the Boston Celtics’ games, spent too much time online and was addicted to listening to the radio.

Normal was good. The monster stayed away from normal life.

Having the time to do mundane and dreary chores, such as doing laundry and taking out the trash was a luxury Monty looked forward to after months of sixteen hour days on a movie set. Smelling the scent of a new garbage bag and even chats over her backyard garbage cans with her neighbor, Vincent and his wife, were fun.

Some days, Monty couldn’t wait to get the makeup off, get home and trim her daughter’s nails or clean sea gull poop off her front porch. Taking care of other people, especially her daughter and the rest of her crazy Maverick/Montgomery family, was what Monty lived for.

The trick to getting to enjoy the mundane and normal was to avoid being caught lying. She wasn’t ready to lose all the little moments she loved with her family.

Until her lies caught up with her, she planned to enjoy washing strawberries and trimming the green leaves from the tops to fill bowls for everyone to eat while watching fireworks over the beach from her second floor balcony. Living with the lies gave her the small, happy moments she craved in her goldfish bowl life.

Monty counted her blessings. For her birthday, she’d had a homemade cake from her two best friends, Victor Maverick’s daughters, Haley and Chelsea. Grandma Mav and Monty’s daughter, Skyler, had decorated the cake to look like Revere Beach with sugary shells and a surfer on a giant blue and white wave.

She was here at home with the people she loved the most in the world for a whole summer between production schedules for her show. All except Kevin, who was with his dad, Victor, finishing up a movie in New York and would be there for the next few weeks. They were closer distance-wise than they’d been for almost a year and Monty knew she’d see him at the Mavericks’ 4th of July party this week.

Still, knowing Kevin was only an hour away by plane was a thrill she wouldn’t admit out loud to anyone. The only thing keeping them apart was Monty’s lies. Until she could tell him what was in her heart, she couldn’t give him her heart.

Monty felt the lies consuming her every move. She couldn’t just be herself and live her life with the lies hanging over her. She was tired of celebrating a new year by remembering a previous birthday party.

21 again. Next year, she vowed, it would be 22 again. No candles on the cake. The only wish she was making was for the lies to end before she had to celebrate 30 twice.

PERFECT STRANGERS

HER LIFE WAS PUBLIC.

SHE WAS A PERFECT

STRANGER.

IN THE MIDDLE OF A CROWDED PARTY

ISOLATED AND ALONE

SINCE THE DAY I SAW HER

HER SENSE OF SAFETY

UNWOUND

INTO MY NIGHTMARE

THE DREAM MESSAGE WAS CLEAR.

I CAN FIND HER ANY TIME

ANYWHERE

SHE SAW ME

A STRANGER IN MURKY SHADOWS

AT A CROWDED PARTY

NO DIFFERENT FROM THE DREAMS I’D HAD OF HER

SINCE THE FIRST TIME

SHE’D LIED FOR ME

SO I LEFT HER ALONE

LET HER GO

ON HER WAY

ALL SHE REMEMBERED OF ME

WHEN HER FRIENDS WERE ABDUCTED

WAS MY SILVER CAR

BIG AND SHINY

STARS ON THE TIRES

BACK SEAT WAS HUGE AND COVERED IN A FUZZY MATERIAL; NOT

LEATHER.

I WAS A MAN TO HER

SITTING IN SHADOWS

WITH MY BACK TO HER.

SHE TOLD THE POLICE ABOUT ME

AND THE BROWNIES I SHARED WITH HER FRIENDS.

WHEN I LOOKED AT HER

SHE WAS SO HUNGRY

WHAT SHE COULDN’T SAY WAS

SHE LOOKED STRAIGHT AT ME

AND ATE MY SOUL.

I LOCKED EYES WITH HER

I SAW HER AND SHE LOOKED LIKE MY KITTY

MY DEAR SISTER KITTY

MY GIRLS WERE TALKING TO HER

BEGGING HER TO GET IN WITH THEM

I TOLD HER KITTY WAS WAITING FOR HER AT HOME

SHE CLOSED THE DOOR

SHRUGGING AND TELLING HER TO RUN UP TO KELLY’S

MEET ME THERE

WE DROVE AWAY

MY GIRLS WERE USED TO LEAVING HER BEHIND

BUT I WANTED TO GO BACK

SHE FROZE THERE WHEN I BRAKED

AS MY CAR INCHED OUT FROM THE PARKING SPOT AND INTO TRAFFIC

SHE COULDN’T MOVE

HER EYES WERE LOCKED TO ME

TO HER, I WAS A DANGEROUS STRANGER

BUT I AM MUCH MORE THAN THAT

I AM A PERFECT

STRANGER FOR NOW.

CHAPTER 5

Sweet, soft, chocolaty brownies.

Monty’s nightmares always began with the monster welcoming her with a cold smile over his shoulder from the front seat. Standing outside the car, his cold eyes pierced her from across the passenger seat to where she stood frozen in place on the curb. In real life, he hadn’t smiled. He’d just stared at her like she was a ghost and angrily mumbled something about a cat.

Her nightmares always ended with the monster’s rejection. Everything went silent in her dream as she ran away from the friendly monster with brownies into the ear-splitting shriek of darkness.

In the nightmare, the monster took her two friends, her family, the Mavericks, including her ex-boyfriend, Kevin, and, worst of all, her daughter, Skyler. The monster never took her. Monty always ran away into darkness. Alone. Not wanted.

All she could hear in the dream was her own silent screech.

When she woke, the nightmare left her heart pounding and her hands were clenched so hard they were numb.

When Kevin was in bed with her, he’d ask her if it was the same nightmare, but Monty would smile and say she couldn’t remember a thing. It was just a bad dream. Knowing better, but letting her fight her own demons her own way, Kevin left her in peace, but he held her close to him in the middle of the night more often than she remembered in the morning.

From the first meeting with the police to every interview she’d had over the last 11 years, she’d lied and said all she remembered was that the car was big and shiny, had stars on the tires and the back seat was huge. The first lie she came up was that all she remembered was the monsters wore a hat and sunglasses. He had driven the big, shiny silver car.

Sorry she hadn’t been able to tell them more, she told them she’d been looking at the brownies because she was so hungry.

Her mouth couldn’t form the words that he’d looked straight at her and locked eyes with her. When he saw her, he’d been scared and excited at the same time. The only word Monty remembered clearly was kitty.

Inside the car, her two friends had been talking and begged her to get in with them, but they were used to her running away when they went back to the house with the boys they’d run away to Revere Beach to party with after meeting them back home in Hyannis at the Cape Cod Mall.

Those brownies had looked so good. She wanted the food, but the car scared her. Her dad had been looking for a guy who drove a car like that on this beach a few years ago. This type of car reminded her that a dangerous stranger her dad was looking for drove a car like this car.

No matter how much she wanted to go with her friends in broad daylight, the monster freaked her out talking about his cat and shouting for her to get in.

When her nightmares started, she’d be alone looking into the passenger side window of the