That girl thought being held was the same as being seen.
That girl thought survival was the same as living.
And now?
Now I know what it feels like when someone kissesyou like they’re drowning and you’re their oxygen. Now I know what it’s like when someone gives their body to you alone, in a way that makes you feel precious for the first time in your whole life.
Now I know what it feels like when someone shows up to rescue youbeforethe bad thing happens, and then doesn’t take advantage of you after or expect payment.
Now I know what it’s like to be held all night to someone’s chest like I’m not broken, but already whole.
Every step up the stairs is a step away from the girl who took what she could get.
Every step is a step toward something I don’t have a name for yet. Something terrifying. Something that might destroy me.
Something better.
The light from the basement fades behind me, warm but weighted with everything I’m leaving down there.
Everything I thought I wanted.
But maybe what’s ahead is still more wild yet than I can imagine, and not all surprises have to be bad, and relationships don’t have to be just transactional…
I get to the top of the stairs and pause as I grab the doorknob.
Or maybe I’m just like my mother after all, pouring everything into a man who will leave as soon as next summer ends, off to his next adventure while I’m left behind, broken-hearted and soothing myself at the bottom of a bottle.
TWENTY-SEVEN
CALEB
The tensionat breakfast is thick enough to cut with a knife.
Z slouches in one of Mom’s antique chairs like it personally offends him, glowering at the wall like he’s trying to set it on fire with his mind. His bruises are still deep purple, and he still moves like a dog that’s ready to bite.
The whole scene might be darkly funny if it weren’t so unnerving—him in a hoodie two sizes too big and a permanent snarl, sitting at a table set with cloth napkins and crystal juice glasses because Mom believes in using the good china every day.
“You run a business, and I’m good with side jobs, old man,” Z says to Silas before anyone’s even touched their food. Helen cooked bacon, eggs, and French toast. Z opted for cereal. His voice is casual and insolent as headds, “Of course, I know you used to hustle for MCs. Think you could hook me up with your old contacts?”
Across the table, Harper sucks in a sharp breath, and then, under the tablecloth, I hear the unmistakable sound of her foot making contact with his shin.
Guess that wasn’t part of the script.
The shift in Silas is instant. One moment, he’s my affable stepdad—the guy who taught me how to rebuild an engine and insists on fondly calling meson. The next, he’s… someone with dead eyes and a face that hardens with muscle memory.
A vein bulges at his temple.
Beside him, Mom reaches out without looking, curling her fingers over his. It’s a move I’ve seen a hundred times before. To anyone else, it probably looks romantic. To me, it looks like an anchor. Like she’s trying to keep him from slipping back into another version of himself. She’s barely touched her eggs, but then, neither has Silas. He’s been too busy glaring at Z since we sat down.
“You stay away from that crowd, or you’re out on your ass,” Silas growls. The words sound like they’ve been dragged over a cheese grater on the way out of his throat. “I won’t have my daughter around that kind of trash.”
The room goes silent. Even the grandfather clock down the hall seems to take a beat.
Z doesn’t flinch. Just picks up his spoon and takes another obnoxiously loud slurp of cereal out of Mom’s beautiful bowl. He licks a drip of milk off his lip and then—lookingdirectlyat Silas—he goes in for thekill.
“You mean the kind of trashyouused to be? The kind Harper had to grow up with while you were busy playing don’t-drop-the-soap behind bars?”
Jesus.