“I’m used to having things under control. Her coping mechanisms have morphed over the years… ranging from drugs to men to boxing, but truly, her way of dealing is to bury her feelings and live life in a continual state of numbness and controlled anger. Vivid memories of holding her boyfriend’s hand and hearing final breaths perpetually permeate her thoughts and haunt her dreams. When Kacey lost her parents, best friend and boyfriend in a drunk driving accident, she was shattered to pieces. And now, she repeats them without really understanding them, without benefiting from their hidden wisdom. Those are the words her mother used to tell her when trying to quell the rush of emotions she would feel. She’s harbors a deluge of feeling, but channels her emotions into angry punches in instead of facing the battles she should be fighting to find her life again. She’s stuck in an endless replay of what happened, engulfed in fear and barely living. Kacey Clearly has been internally and externally scarred by a horrific tragedy that occurred four years prior. Submerged in her own thoughts… in her anger… in her inability to relinquish the memory of death. Unceasingly gripped by the vises of tragedy. It’s pouring over me, into me, through my mouth, up my nose, filling my lungs, seizing my will to breath, to live. Falling backward into the deep, dark water. Seemingly perfect Trent has an unforgiveable past of his own one that, when discovered, will shatter Kacey’s newly constructed life and send her back into suffocating darkness. Maybe she’s not beyond repair.īut Kacey isn’t the only one who’s broken. She starts to believe that maybe she can leave the past where it belongs and start over.

But sexy Trent finds a way into her numb heart, reigniting her ability to love again. What she can’t handle is Trent Emerson in apartment 1D. Armed with two bus tickets and dreams of living near the coast, Kacey and Livie start their new lives in a Miami apartment complex, complete with a grumpy landlord, a pervert upstairs, and a neighbor with a stage name perfectly matched to her chosen “profession.” But Kacey’s not worried. She just needs to keep it together until Livie is no longer a minor, and then they can get the hell out of Grand Rapids, Michigan.īut when Uncle Raymond slides into bed next to Livie one night, Kacey decides it’s time to run. Kacey can swallow the constant disapproval from her born-again aunt Darla over her self-destructive lifestyle she can stop herself from going kick-boxer crazy on Uncle Raymond when he loses the girls’ college funds at a blackjack table. Now she’s working hard to bury the pieces left behind-all but one.

Kacey Cleary’s whole life imploded four years ago in a drunk-driving accident. A moving story about a girl submerged in the depths of tragedy, drowning in her own emotional turmoil as she struggles to breathe again… to love again… and to forgive in order to find life again.

10 tiny breaths series