Today my life is going to change.

I tell myself that every day. Sometimes, it’s the only way that I can keep myself sane, the only way to get through the shit show that is the life of Jazmine Woodson—my life.

But today—today, it feels like it’s actually true. There’s something different about today, something in the wind. A whisper of premonition in the sea breeze that’s currently whipping mercilessly against my cheeks.

I instantly shoot the ridiculous thought down. A whisper of premonition in the breeze? Something in the wind? God, I’m really starting to lose it.

But it isn’t the first time. This isn’t the first time that I’ve felt … something. Because all my life, I’ve felt like there’s something just dancing on the edge of my consciousness, waiting in the wings, just beyond my grasp. Sometimes I feel like I can almost grasp it, but it slips away again, like a dream that you can never remember after you wake up.

Then there are those times of quiet when I feel like I can almost sense the pounding of the waves crashing against the shore, as if it’s the pounding of my own heart or when I’m looking up at the sky at night and I can almost feel the glow of the stars or the moon pulsing above me. In those times of quiet, it almost feels like they’re a part of me, watching me, waiting for me.

In those times, I feel like if I just reach out, I’d be able to hold the moon itself in my hand—of course, I never let myself do that, because that would make me certifiably insane and as messed up as my life is, I’d like to think that at seventeen, I have a way to go before I lose my mind entirely.

So, just as I always do, I sweep the crazy feelings out of my mind. I busy myself with packing away my sketch book and pastels, dusting off the sand from my worn jeans as I stand and look out at the achingly familiar scene.

Rockford Cape. It’s been one year since I’ve been back here and it feels too long. The four-hour bus ride from foster home number ten and the price of a roundtrip bus ticket, means that coming here is no easy feat but I never let a year go by without coming back to this place. I’ve lived in ten different towns, ten different foster homes since I was seven. A different foster home each year, to be precise, but this place is the only real home I’ve ever had.

The place where mom and I lived before she died. Before the car accident that took everything from me. Before the world became this lonely place with me wandering lost through it. Because that’s how I feel most days—lost.

On this day ten years ago, in this town, my life changed forever and on this one day each year, I come back to this place. I visit my mom’s grave and sit on this beach for hours, losing myself in my sketchbook. Capturing the blue-green waves crashing against the sandy shoreline, the silhouettes of the lifeguard outposts dotted along the coast, the rickety pier jutting out onto the water with the multi-colored lights of the equally rickety amusement park reflecting off the water.

I can still remember coming here with my mom most evenings, and for the few hours each year that I spend here, I can almost imagine that the last ten years were nothing but a bad dream. In a life that is full of temporary places and faceless people, this place is the only anchor that I have.

After one last look, I turn away from the past and make my way back to the bus station. To the bus that will take me back to Brockton, to foster home number ten in the little backwater town that is my present.

I make it back just in time to start my evening shift at Rodeo Ricky’s. Not a Rodeo as the name suggests, but a diner with a difference—an undoubtedly seedy difference. The first few shifts had left me feeling ashamed and dirty. But then I shut those feelings out. I’m good at that.

Still, as I stand in front of the rusted staff bathroom mirror and slip on my uniform, consisting only of a pair of hot pants and a bra, I can’t help but feel a bitter stab of disappointment at what I see.

Get it together, I tell myself.

I need this job and I’m not exactly spoiled for choice in a small town like Brockton. The job pays well and the tips are even better. I’m saving for my future—in less than a year, I’ll be out of the foster system, out on my own. I’m hoping to get a scholarship to art school, but if that fails, then I’ll have to pay my own way. I’m providing for myself and that is nothing to be ashamed of.

I let out a long breath and stride into the dimly lit diner with renewed determination.

Tonight’s especially busy—the diner is packed with the usual seedy patrons, leering at the scantily clad waitresses sauntering between the tables, myself included. I paint on the smile that gets me the most tips and head to my first table of the night. Not that I need the smile to get the tips—I’m not vain by any measure, but I know I’ve inherited my mom’s looks. Long, jet black hair falling like a silken waterfall down my back, delicate features, full lips and perfectly arched brows. My body is my mom’s, too—slim, yet curved in all the right places.

But it’s my eyes that set us apart. No one has my eyes—it isn’t a good thing either, because most days I wish that I didn’t have these eyes.

As I approach my first table for the night, I’m reminded of exactly why. People usually give me two looks and as if on cue, the middle aged, balding man seated at the table in front of me gives me those exact two looks that I’ve grown so used to.

The first is appreciative and the second startled, once he sees my eyes. Wide and doe-like, they almost seem innocent, although the color is anything but. Uncanny is probably the closest word to describe the startling coloring—the vivid violet with smoky silver rings. Even the thick black lashes can’t shield my freakish eyes.

I’d say that the eyes probably belong to my father, but I wouldn’t know—I’ve never met the bastard who abandoned my mom and me before I was even born and my mom never talked about him. I don’t care, the asshole may as well be dead. I hope that he is, at least then I won’t have to think about the fact that he’s out there somewhere being a father to another daughter while I’m rotting in this hell hole without one.

The man in front of me gets past that initial shock pretty quickly, though, as he takes in the abundance of bare skin on display. Dirtbag.

“Ready to order?” I ask, ignoring the urge to wince at the sound of my own false tones.

The man leers at me, as if I’m the meal and not the triple cheeseburger, chilli cheese fries and pitcher of beer that he’s ordering. I feel like ripping his eyeballs out and feeding them to him. But instead, I grit my teeth and flash a well-rehearsed smile, playing out an equally well-rehearsed routine. I’m a good actress.

The way this sleazebag is looking at me, only reminds me of the aversion that I have towards the opposite sex.

Whenever I think of men, it only makes me think of my asshole of an absentee father and the perverted men who frequent this fine establishment, like the one seated at the table in front of me right now. Then, of course, there was foster father number six, the sick bastard who thought it was a good idea to try to grope his sixteen-year-old foster daughter. Asshole. I’d quickly put him out of commission, kneeing him squarely in the balls before reporting his ass to the police. But the memory of his sweaty hands on my skin still makes me shudder.

I scribble down this loser’s order and make my way to the kitchen. I’m halfway across the diner when I pass by a crowded table of rowdy jocks. Although I pay very little attention to my fellow students at my latest high school, these faces look familiar. Guys from my high school, most of them on the football team, I think, but I don’t pay close enough attention to be sure. Not the usual clientele and all clearly under-aged but tonight, they’re here all the same. Great.

I don’t expect them to recognize me. I keep a near invisible profile at school and working at a place like this doesn’t exactly make me popular at high school number ten or it makes me popular for all the wrong reasons. Frankly, I don’t care.

I stopped caring what other people think a long time ago. I’ve never stayed in one place long enough to make friends or to care what the kids think of me in whatever high school I happen to be.

I walk past their table without so much as a hint of recognition in most of their faces, although I don’t miss the word whore being whispered by one or two who apparently are aware that I happen to be a fellow student.

It’s not the first time and I can’t even bring myself to feel offended. But if only they knew. I haven’t even so much as kissed a guy before and I sure as hell haven’t had a boyfriend or even gone on a single date. I’ve never once been tempted. Without my even noticing, something like a stone wall has built itself up around me. Hell, I’m starting to think that my heart itself is made of stone.

“Jazmine, can you take table six?” Ricky calls out from behind the counter. Ricky is just as bad as his patrons, but that works well for me—he probably knows I’m under-aged, but is too much of a sleaze to care and had given me the job anyway.

“Sure,” I call back, walking over to the far corner of the diner. As my gaze falls on the table, something inside me twists in discomfort. Even in the dimly lit room, I can see that there is something different about this man.

His silvery grey hair and the creases around his eyes tells me he’s somewhere in his late fifties. His strong jaw and well-defined features tells me that he must have been handsome in his younger days, but it’s his eyes that really get to me. They’re dark grey but the pigmentation is so striking, strange in a way that is almost otherworldly and there is a knowledge in them that doesn’t belong in this place, in this world even. In fact, everything about this man feels alien. Like those eyes have seen things, know things that weren’t of this world.

What the hell? Am I being serious right now?

But there’s no denying that this man is totally out of place. He doesn’t belong here anymore than a god, if they exist, belongs on Earth. I can see the way his presence affects the people around him, too—they glance his way before quickly averting their gazes. As if they can sense, just as something inside me can sense, that there is something about this man that stirs the very air around him.

Yeah, sure, because this man is really a being from another world who just wandered into this seedy diner in the backwater town of Brockton of all places. Shaking my head in annoyance, mostly at myself for thinking such stupid thoughts, I stop in front of the man’s table.

“What can I get you …” I trail off when those startling grey eyes meet mine. He knows me. Is my immediate thought.

Stop it. I tell my overreactive imagination, as I struggle to paint on my usual smile. I brace myself for the perverted comments, but they never come. In fact, contrary to the depraved looks I get from the usual clientele, this guy is pointedly not looking at my tits or my ass or any of the usual places that the customers usually ogle. The expression on his face seems almost … sad?

“I’ll have a whisky, no ice.” The man’s voice is gentle, kind. Not something I’m used to.

“Coming right up,” I say, trying to keep my voice light, despite my growing discomfort. I open my mouth to say something else, although I have no idea what. But thinking better of it, I walk away instead, feeling the man’s eyes on me the whole time.

I get through the rest of the shift feeling like I was two seconds from running out of the diner. The man at table six stayed until an hour before closing, watching the whole time. Again, not in that perverted way that I’m used to, but watching all the same, and I’ve never felt more uncomfortable in my entire life. I could feel something like shame prickling down my spine as I batted my lashes and flashed the usual smile to the customers under that watchful gaze.

I’d gotten rid of that shame a long time ago, but for some reason, in the presence of this total stranger, I suddenly wanted to cover up and get the hell out of there.

The shiver of premonition returns. Those eyes see things, know things that I’m sure I never want to find out.