A Little Unstable

A Little Unstable Elle Mitchell Dark & Stormy Books L.L.C. Copyright Copyright © 2023 by Elle Mitchell All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. To everyone who has been hurt and was afraid to try again. Do you still think of them now? "When you are not fed love on a silver spoon, you learn to lick it off knives." -Lauren Eden Contents 1. Tristan two years ago 2. Mila two years ago 3. Mila now 4. Tristan now 5. Tristan then 6. Mila now 7. Tristan now 8. Tristan then 9. Tristan now 10. Mila then 11. Mila now 12. Mila now 13. Mila then 14. Tristan then 15. Tristan now 16. Tristan then 17. Tristan now 18. Mila then 19. Mila now 20. Mila then 21. Tristan now 22. Mila then 23. Mila now 24. Tristan then 25. Tristan now 26. Mila now 27. Tristan now 28. Mila then 29. Mila now 30. Tristan now 31. Mila now 32. Mila then 33. Tristan now 34. Tristan then 35. Mila now 36. Tristan now 37. Mila now 38. Mila now 39. Mila three and a half years later Thanks for Reading! About the Author Also by Elle Mitchell Tristan two years ago “What a fucking dick,” I say, tossing my phone onto the floor. Of course, my best friend would blow me off for some girl he had just met. Fucking figures. This was pretty typical for Landon—he was always in love. It was almost pathetic. Now I get to spend the last Saturday of summer before my senior year sitting at home with my parents. Awesome. I look over at the phone I'd thrown across the room and reluctantly roll out of bed and pick it back up, silently berating myself for being so dramatic, before exiting the room. I head down the staircase toward the back door. “Tristan, where are you going? Is Landon here already?” my mom asks, stopping me right as I get there. “No, Landon’s busy. I’m not going anywhere. I’m just going out back,” I tell her. “Okay,” she says. “Please let me know if you leave.” I don’t reply and let the door close behind me. I’m about to head down to my spot on the beach when I see that it’s taken. I stop on the deck for a minute and watch as a tiny girl with strawberry-blonde hair—its color just barely visible in what’s left of the sun’s last light—throws rocks into the water, muttering a barrage of profanities. She doesn’t notice when I walk up, stopping about three feet behind her. I look down at the pile of rocks next to her and realize she’s written on them with a sharpie. What the hell is wrong with this girl? “Ignorant fucking son of a bitch!” she grits through her teeth, picking up another rock and throwing it. “Do you need some help or something?” I ask. Not realizing she is being watched, she jumps at the sound of my voice. “What the fuck?!” she exclaims when she turns around and sees me. “I could ask you the same thing,” I say. Now, I see that she’s probably around my age. She’s wearing a pair of cut-off denim shorts and an old band t-shirt—The Killers. Decent choice, I guess. Her eyes look to be green or maybe a little darker—maybe hazel—it’s hard to tell behind her thick-rimmed glasses and with the sunset nearly depleted. “You’re the one sneaking up on girls in the dark,” she says. “That’s my house,” I tell her, gesturing behind me. “This is my spot. Where’d you come from?” “Oh,” she says quietly, looking back at the house. “You’re fancy. I um, I came from over there.” She points to the place next to mine. “Yeah, it’s our consolation prize for my dad always being away for work. You know the Hamiltons, then?” I ask. The elderly couple had lived next door to me my entire life, and I know I have never seen her over there. I'd have remembered someone who looked like her. “No,” she says, “there’s an apartment over their house. My mom’s boyfriend lives there. She made us move in with him.” Yeah, I had seen him come and go a few times. He looked like a dirtbag. Thinning hair, beer gut. In his early 40s, probably. He throws his cigarette butts into our yard, and my parents just let him. My dad didn’t want to start any kind of confrontation with him, considering how much he traveled and how often my mom was here by herself. He didn’t look like the kind of guy who was open to accepting criticism. He also didn’t look like the kind of guy someone would want around their teenage daughter. I don’t say that. I move closer to the girl and her now-dwindling pile of rocks. They have names and places written on them, and a couple of them have sentences that I can’t quite make out from this distance, but most of them have the name 'Steve.' “And is this guy’s name Steve? Is he the ignorant fucking son of a bitch?” “Yeah. He’s a jackass. He treats her like shit. He’s always staring at my legs,” she says, her eyes taking in that I, too, am staring at her legs. “Kind of like how you are right now.” “Gross. I mean…not that your legs are gross, but if he’s looking at you the way I am, then….” I trail off, deciding not to finish the sentence. She gives me the side eye. Usually, I’m not one to trip over my words like that. I blame the crazy coming from this girl instead of myself. “What’s with the rocks?” I ask, changing the subject. “I thought it would be cleansing,” she says, picking up a couple more and throwing them into the