Page 1 of Creeping Beautiful

PART ONE - IGNORANCE IS BLISS

Everyone has secrets.

They can be big or small.

Mean a lot or very little.

They can change lives, they can destroy bonds, they can break hearts.

But a secret always comes with a reason.

Everyone has been told a lie at least once.

That lie can be bad or good.

It can spare your feelings or crush them to dust.

It can hold you prisoner or set you free.

But a lie is just a secret in the shadows.

Everyone has been discarded by someone at one point.

That rejection can kill your spirit or lift it up high.

It can set you down a path of revenge or redemption.

But secrets, and lies, and rejection are almost never about you.

So before you go lookin’ for those secrets. Before you go uncoverin’ those lies. Before you let that rejection seep into your heart and wound your soul—ask yourself this:

Do you really need to know the truth?

Because that truth doesn’t come with a return policy.

You cannot unknow things once they are known.

You can’t unsee things once they are seen.

So be very, very sure that you need those answers.

Because it will change everything.

Ignorance is bliss, my friend.

Pure. Bliss.

CHAPTER ONE - McKAY

PRESENT DAY

Indie Anna Accorsi blows into a life the way a hurricane spins across the Gulf of Mexico on a late summer night. She is both terrifying and sensational. The kind of girl you can’t walk away from even though you know damn well she is out to destroy you.

She is hard rain that stings your skin, and overflowing rivers that carry things away, and there’s always a debris field left behind. Little smudges of dirt and detritus that remind you she was there.

She was fucking there, ya know?

But she is someone else too. She was small once. And OK, maybe she was never exactly sweet. But she had her moments of balance and peace. I call those moments the ‘eye of Indie’. Like ‘eye of the storm?’ Wild winds raging all around her. Fuckin’ shit flying everywhere. Houses blowing by, air-raid sirens blaring, and she is standing in the middle of it all with her eyes closed and her chin tipped up. Calm.