Bended Dream

By Kat Caldwell

In small American towns, the cycle of poverty is the hardest chain to break, but Tristen is determined to break through. He just wasn't sure how or when. Tonight might be his 'when'.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: Mar 23, 2024
• ISBN: 9781964171005

Book preview

Bended Dream

Prequel to Bended Loyalty

Kat Caldwell

Ladwell Publishing

Contents

Copyrights

1.One

2.Two

3.Three

4.Four

5.Five

6.Six

7.Seven

Chapter

About the author

Copyright © 2024 by Kat Caldwell

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permission requests, contact Kat Caldwell at [e-mail].

The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.

Book Cover by Kat Caldwell using Canva

First edition 2024

One

Tristen ran up the five stairs to the house he’d always called home. During his childhood, he had rarely noticed the paint peeling or the wooden railing rotting. His house wasn’t much different from the others on the street. But as he got older, something about the tiny matchbox house rubbed him the wrong way.

Could be that at nineteen, he was just finally waking into adulthood.

He shuddered. Being a kid in declining middle America was hard enough. Being a nineteen-year-old who had to start choosing like an adult living in a place with few prospects besides working construction, the fiberglass factory, or other odd jobs was daunting. He and his twin brother Talon had seen their mom, and several of her boyfriends, fight for every penny they ever gripped in their tired hands. Ivy, their mother, had also struggled against addictions ranging from alcohol to depression to pills.

At first, it was to numb the pain of her own childhood trauma that she never spoke of, but they all somehow knew she had. For the last two years, it was to numb the pain of losing her only daughter to an opioid overdose.

Tristen shook the thought of Aimee, his little sister, away. He preferred not dwelling on her or the hole she left behind. That way, he had nothing to numb. Now, more than ever, he was determined not to become like Ivy or Aimee’s dad, Luke. In just a few months, he hoped to be in the city, forging a path into the music industry.

He pulled open the screen door with the hinges screwed too tightly in, so that it slammed shut on your buttocks if you didn’t enter quickly enough.

Talon! he shouted from the front door.

Entryways were nonexistent in these homes in central Kentucky. His six-foot-two-inch frame filled the small square of brown tiles designated for keeping muddy or wet shoes. Behind the door was an overflowing coat rack, even though Ivy was always telling everyone to hang their coats in their own damn closet.

With Aimee’s coats gone, there was more room. Tristen wasn’t sure when they had been put away, but he noticed it a few days back.

It still felt like a gut punch, seeing his fourteen-year-old sister's stuff slowly disappear from the house, but he couldn’t say anything. He was just the brother. He had no say in how quickly her stuff left the house.

Talon, he repeated, kicking off his shoes and walking into the kitchen where his twin brother was usually guzzling half a gallon of milk and eating a load of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches after work.

But the kitchen was empty.

Tristen headed across the tiny living room to the other side of the small house, where the single bathroom and three