FLAWED

KATE AVELYNN

For JD, who always believes in me,

even when I don’t believe in myself.

One

My first memory of James is what keeps me here, smoothing hair out of a boy’s blood-spattered face. The sirens screaming in the distance are too late.

They’re always too late.

Forehead pressed to his, I choke on the burnt stench of gunpowder and try to hum the lullaby James used to sing to me.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine…

James is why I never left.

I should have left.

Two

I remember the tiny, white flowers that dotted our neighbor’s lawn and how my body sank into the lush grass like it was made of pillows. I remember the way the sun baked my exposed skin and the tiny insects and dandelion seeds danced around me on the soft summer breeze. I remember my white, cotton dress, the only sleeveless, legless item of clothing I’d ever owned.

Mrs. Baxter gave it to me as an Easter present a few days before my seventh birthday, leaving it on the porch, folded and wrapped in a pink ribbon. James snuck it into our room before our father saw, and helped me tie the white sash sewn onto the waist.

I remember sitting on Mrs. Baxter’s lawn hoping she’d see me in it because I was too shy to knock on the front door and thank her. I remember wishing I knew how to tie bows as well as James so I could have worn that pretty pink ribbon in my hair.

I remember my father’s calloused hand clamping down on my shoulder.

He dragged me inside, out of the sunshine and into the dark dungeon of our house. Two of my dolls were lying in front of the television in the living room. My carelessness normally would’ve cost me the dolls, but not that day. Not when the sharp bite of beer hung in the air and clung to his rumpled weekend clothes. My hands flew out to break my fall a second too late.

“How many times’ve I told you not to leave your shit on the floor? Huh, Sarah?”

“I’m sorry!” I scrabbled across the worn carpet, gathered up the dolls, and clutched them to my chest, but it didn’t matter. He had already unbuckled his dreaded belt and was pulling it through his belt loops.

“Yeah? You’re about to be a whole lot sorrier.”

The stinging slap of leather against skin reverberated off the dingy walls. Once, twice, three times. I bit my lip and tried not to cry out because crying out only ever made things worse.

The blows stopped abruptly. “Get your ass back in your room or this is gonna be a whole lot worse!” he bellowed down the hall. “I’m not warning you again!”

A door clicked shut. My mother’s door.

The pound-pound-pound of my brother barreling into the room filled the void she left behind. From where I lay curled on the floor, my brother looked like an angel.

“Don’t touch her!”

This is my first real memory of James. In every memory before that, he’s just a flash of color, a warm body with a blurred face, a comforting voice begging me not to die. When he planted himself between our father and me that day, an eight-year-old with small fists clenched at his sides, I think I fell in love with my brother.

Our father sneered at him. “Do you think I’m scared of you, boy?”

James lifted his chin. “You should be.” But even I heard the waver in his voice.

“You little shit.”

I scrambled back into the dining room, dolls forgotten, mouth open in a silent scream as my brother took what was left of the punishment meant for me. It ended when the back of our father’s hand sent him sprawling to the floor. Before James could get to his feet, our father staggered toward the garage and the refrigerator of beer waiting for him.

James crawled over to where I lay curled up beneath the dining room table and dragged me into his arms. There was blood on his lip and one of his eyes had started to swell. “Shh,” he murmured. “He’s gone. Everything’s okay now.”

I tried to dab his lip with the torn hem of my dress, but he gently pushed my hand away. “I’m okay,” he said. “You’re hurt worse than me anyway.”

I could feel the welts rising on my back and arms. “You saved me,” I sobbed into his sleeve. “You saved me.”

“I’m never gonna let anything happen to you, Sarah.”

“I won’t let anything happen to you, too.”

He smiled, all dimples and sparkling blue eyes. “Nah, you’re too little. Just don’t leave me, okay? Not ever. Promise?”

“I promise.”

We stayed huddled together under the table for as long as we dared, James holding me and quietly singing our lullaby, me watching the door that led to the garage.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.

You make me happy when skies are gray.

You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you.

Please don’t take my sunshine away.

James, the savior. That’s the image of my brother I clung to.

Still cling to.

Three

Eleven years later…

I’m probably the only person in school that dreads the final bell before summer vacation. Summer for me equals ten weeks of wandering around town or hiding in my room with the door locked, hoping against hope my father will work extra hours at the paper mill and James will work less.

From my desk in the back of the room, I watch my classmates swap yearbooks for the last time as they walk out the door, happily chattering about the usual lake parties and summer jobs and hour-long road trips down into California. They don’t notice me, the skinny girl with stringy hair and eyes too big for her head. They don’t ask me to come along or wonder aloud why I don’t have a yearbook for people to sign. I’ve made it a point to be invisible.

The room clears within seconds. The seniors got out three days ago, so it’s like everyone is in a hurry to join them. Even my American Lit teacher, Mr. Carter, seems eager to escape to wherever teachers spend their summers. Maybe I’ll stay in my seat until the janitor kicks me out, or maybe I’ll move from room to room until he locks all the doors and I have nowhere else to go.

The school is probably peaceful at night.

I can’t stay, though. I won’t. James gets off work early on Fridays—four instead of four thirty, a whole half an hour before our father—and I don’t dare worry James by not being there when he shows up. He already worries too much. Plus, he’s always starving when he gets home, and he’ll burn the house down if someone’s not there to guard the stove.

And then there’s our father. He expects dinner ready and waiting.

With a sigh, I heft my backpack onto one shoulder and trudge into the hallway, empty save for open lockers and leftover papers that flutter and scrape across the linoleum on the breeze coming through the open doors. Out in the parking lot, cars honk and engines rev as my classmates spill into the streets. Their freedom tastes sweet on the air. I breathe it in and wish it was mine, too.

Next year it will be. James and I are moving out the second I graduate—three-hundred and-sixty-three days from now—that’s the promise he makes every time something bad happens. He’s been saving the money he makes at the mill for almost a year now while I write out budgets, and fish the Sunday paper out of the neighbor’s plastic recycling bin every week to look for places we can rent. So far, we haven’t found anything cheap enough.

I cannot wait until we do.

After glancing at my watch, I decide to take the long way home, the one that winds through the nicer neighborhoods east of school, past the seventeen stores that make up the Granite Falls strip mall, and into the park just outside the paper mill’s gates. It’s deserted, of course. No one goes there because of the gritty haze that drifts down from the stacks and coats the trees in a layer of silt. Our neighborhood is two blocks past the park, and once I skirt the pond and pass the picnic tables, I can see our street.

It’s 3:42. And by the time I get to our driveway, I still have thirteen minutes to get dinner started. Perfect.

It’s hard to ignore the peeling beige paint on our house. This isn’t a “nice” neighborhood by any stretch of the imagination, but nobody else has a house that flakes paint like dandruff.

The low hum of my mother’s television and fresh cigarette smoke greets me when I step into the kitchen. I close the door quietly and hope she doesn’t hear the click. Some days, when there isn’t any smoke and the house is too quiet, I creep down the hall and listen for her breathing. It’s a weird feeling coming home from school, wondering if this is the day I’ll find my mother’s dead body. Part of me is terrified of that happening. The other part—the darker half of my heart I keep smothered for James’s sake—wishes she’d just overdose and be done with it.

After tossing my stuff into my bedroom, I head back to the kitchen, grab a pot from the drying rack by the sink, and set about boiling some water for mac ‘n cheese.

James remembers the way our mother used to be, back when she still smiled and didn’t take pills or smoke cigarettes all day. He hates our father for what he’s done to her—what he’s still doing to her—because of us. Sometimes I think picking up her prescriptions and leaving cartons of cigarettes outside her door is James’s way of making up for being born.

My father hasn’t always been like this, though. Ask anyone who doesn’t live with us and they’ll tell you he still isn’t. Our house is a shrine to the famous ex-boxer who has it all: a close-knit family, a successful athletic career in a former life, and a solid job at the mill.

It’s amazing how much people overlook when you’re a local celebrity.

Title belts painted an unconvincing shade of gold adorn our living room walls, faded, red boxing gloves dangle from sheetrock nails, and newspaper clippings yellowing in their cheap, tin frames line the fireplace mantle. In the center of it all is an enormous publicity poster from the Armory, the local boxing arena, featuring a man with a crooked nose and a busted lip. He waves triumphantly at our empty living room from atop the crowd’s shoulders.

James “Knockout Jimmy” O’Brien, Granite Fall’s very own boxing legend—a title he held until a young groupie poked holes in the condom she made him wear “for protection.”

My brother was born nine months later, fists already swinging.

I sink into a chair and stare at the pot of water, willing it to boil. Our father only married our mother because he had a public image to maintain—an image that didn’t include an abandoned son that might make him proud someday. Desperate and thinking a second baby would make things better between them, our mother seduced him again, lied about not needing birth control while breastfeeding James, and wound up with me.

Two babies in little more than a year and a half. Knockout Jimmy was forced to give up boxing and take a job in the paper mill.

It broke him, and in turn, he broke us all.

Four

A truck door slams out front. Even before the sound registers, I’m out of the chair, my body tense and ready to run. It’s only 4:09 p.m. He shouldn’t be here. Not yet.

My brother’s faint, familiar whistling keeps me from bolting to my room.

The door to the garage swings open and James breezes in, all dimples and smiles like always, holding one of our father’s beers in his hand. I must look terrified because his grin fades before it can reach his eyes.

“Hey, Sar-bear,” he says softly. “It’s just me.”

I edge over to the stove to check on our water, which has started to boil. My hands are still shaking when I dump the two boxes of macaroni into the pot. “Do you have to drink that crap?”

He doesn’t answer. After a moment, I peek over my shoulder and see him leaning against the counter, arms folded across his chest, eyes narrowed on me. The beer is nowhere in sight.

When James gets serious like this, he looks exactly like Knockout Jimmy in his prime, right down to the bump on the bridge of his nose. Even with sawdust in his blond hair and paper pulp caked onto his coveralls, my brother is gorgeous. Half a dozen girls throw themselves at him whenever we’re in public, but he never dates. I don’t get it. If half a dozen boys threw themselves at me, I’d be out every night. Anything to get out of this house.

“What?” I ask him.

“Nothing. Nice jeans, by the way.”

I roll my eyes, the panic gripping me successfully diffused. James bought me these jeans two weeks ago, one day after I’d drooled over them at the mall on my way home from school. He always does sweet things like that, even when I beg him not to. “To make up for you having to put up with me,” he says, but we both know that’s not what he’s making up for.

He pushes away from the counter, loops an arm around my shoulders, and plants one of the wet kisses I secretly love on my temple.

“Don’t…eww!” Laughing, I sink into his embrace. Wriggling out of his grasp never works. I’m way too light, and he’s way too strong for me to make him do anything he doesn’t want to do. Unfortunately, he knows it. At least he has the decency to grunt when I elbow him in the gut.

“I’m going to get cleaned up,” he says. “Save some of that for me, ‘kay?”

“I always do. Now go away.” I smack him with the hot wooden spoon I’ve been using to stir the macaroni. He yelps and jumps backward. Giving me one last smile, he saunters down the hall.

James is a pain in the ass. I love him more than I love anybody, even when I hear the crack of a beer opening in the bathroom.

As soon as he’s gone, I rush around the kitchen, rounding up the milk and butter and pepper. No one showers and dresses faster than James or I. Maybe it’s because we’ve always had to get in and out of the house as quick as possible. Whatever the case, I like having dinner done before he gets out.

Nineteen-year-old boys shouldn’t be working long hours doing crap jobs in the mill. Especially not ones smart enough to get into just about any college they want. He does it for me, so I do this for him.

Sure enough, before I’ve had the chance to strain the macaroni, he’s out of the bathroom. Our bedroom door slams—he’s always loud—and he cranks his music full blast. Godsmack floods the hallway. I dump half the pot of steaming mac ‘n cheese onto a plate for my father and leave it on the counter where he’ll see it. Maybe he’ll take it as a peace offering and leave me alone tonight.

Armed with bowls of food and Tupperware cups full of tap water, I kick our bedroom door with the toe of my black sneaker. “Are you dressed yet?”

Sharing a tiny bedroom with a teenage boy requires planning and patience. I give James his privacy as often as I can and take pride in the fact that I’ve never walked in on him naked or doing any horrifying boy things. Too bad he isn’t nearly as mindful of my privacy. I can’t begin to count how many times he’s walked in on me changing.

The music shuts off and plunges the house back into a quiet that feels even louder than his music. Canned laughter from whatever sitcom our mother is watching seeps through her closed door down the hall. As soon as he lets me in, I’ll turn on the fan that sits on my nightstand to block out the sound.

James throws open the door wearing only a pair of jeans and a wide grin. The fading yellow bruises on his ribs make me want to throw up, and I nearly spill the water trying to shield my eyes with the bowls. “Do you mind?”

“You are seriously messed up,” he says as I push past him, but I hear the amusement in his voice. “I’ve got pants on. Isn’t that enough?”

No, it’s not. Thankfully, by the time I settle onto my bed with our bowls, he’s pulled on a t-shirt. Covering up is also something James does for my benefit, though he teases me mercilessly about my “skin phobia.” I blame it on a lifetime of hiding bruises and welts under long sleeves and pants, but not all of it. It’s easier to pretend than tell him the real reason I don’t like seeing his body, so I play along. “Maybe if your skin wasn’t DayGlo white, looking at you wouldn’t physically hurt.”

He plops down on the edge of his bed and scowls at me in a way that I think is supposed to be chastising. When I laugh, he gives up, grabs his bowl out of my hands, and shovels pasta into his mouth. We’re a good pair. Neither of us can stay mad at the other for long.

4:26. Nine minutes to go.

My stomach growls, but I only nibble at my food. One bowl of mac ‘n cheese is never enough for James. I want to make sure I have some left to give him when he’s done. To distract myself, I focus on the posters plastered all over the walls on his side of our tiny bedroom—all horror movie and rock music-related, of course. Sometimes I wish he were into sports or supermodels or something a little less morbid. Other than a lone, teal Mariners pennant hanging crooked on the back of our door, his choice in decorations does nothing for my nightmares.

“So, Dad’ll be home soon,” he says through a mouthful of food. My pulse picks up, but then I notice his bowl is empty. Sure enough, he’s eyeing mine. “You want to get out of here, or are you cool locking yourself in while I’m gone tonight?”

I take one more bite and hold the rest out to him. He’s off his bed to grab it before I can blink. “Can you take me to the mall? I need a haircut.”

He looks up from my bowl and frowns. “I think your hair looks fine.”

“Really?” I smooth down the limp strands that hang almost to my elbow. “I was thinking maybe I’d get it cut really short this summer. Like, pixie-cut short.”

“Huh.” He resumes inhaling his food. “You can do whatever you want, I guess. All I’m saying is you look pretty as is.”

Heat creeps up my neck and bleeds into my cheeks. Even though he’s been saying nice things for as long as I can remember, his compliments always do this to me. It’s a confusing balance between feeling good about myself and being uncomfortable with that feeling.

“I’m supposed to meet up with Sam and Alex in a few hours,” he continues, as if he has no clue he’s embarrassed me. “Think we’ll be done by six?”

At the mention of Sam, my cheeks go from warm to scalding. I’ve been nursing a crush on the tall and mysterious Sam Donavon almost as long as he’s been James’s best friend, which is pretty much forever. I don’t delude myself into thinking it’s mutual. It made sense that he ignored me at school when he and my brother were popular upperclassmen, but the few times Sam has been at our house, it’s been the same way. His gray eyes look through me like I’m a window in the wall.

All-brawn-and-no-brain Alex Andersen, on the other hand, has been flirting with me for years. When I was in fifth grade and he was in sixth—before I knew about his obsession with all things sexual—he lured me out to the rickety shed in our backyard under the pretense of helping him find something for James. Surrounded by rusty lawnmowers and spare car parts, Alex gave me my first kiss.

While it had been a monumental, albeit disappointing, event for me, I doubt it meant anything to him. Alex dates all the girls my brother blows off, plus the few he manages to snag first. James doesn’t talk about the girls themselves much, but he thinks shafting them with Alex is hilarious.

Thinking about Alex and that kiss makes me think about Sam again. After he and James graduated last year, I hardly saw Sam anymore. Now that Alex has graduated, I’ll probably see him even less. Imagining his dark eyes staring at me and his lips on mine, hot and insistent, sends happy shivers up and down my body that I’m terrified James might notice.

The alarm clock perched on the top shelf of James’s headboard ticks off another minute.

4:29. Time to go.

“If we leave soon, we should be back in plenty of time,” I say. Hopefully he’ll take me with him tonight. Just in case, I hop off my bed and quickly contemplate my meager selection of shirts in our closet. A stretchy pale pink t-shirt—long-sleeved, of course, and also a present from James—is the most summery thing I own. I grab it and head for the door.

“You don’t have to change in the bathroom,” James says. When I turn around, startled, I see he’s shifted around to face his headboard. “You know I won’t peek.”

That doesn’t stop me from positioning myself in front of the mirrored closet door with my back to him so I can make sure. I shouldn’t feel weird about changing in front of James—we’ve shared a room our whole lives, so it’s not like we haven’t seen each other before—but I can’t help it. I may hate seeing his bruises, but I worry seeing all of his failures etched into my skin would kill my brother.

It only takes me three seconds to peel off my drab school shirt and slip on the pink one. The second the soft material clears my belly button, James is off his bed and out the door, mumbling that he’ll be back in a second.

While I wait, I rinse out our cups and bowls in the sink. The low rumble of a car pulling into the driveway stops me cold. I frantically glance at the clock in the hallway.

4:36.

We’re too late.

Five

“Take my keys and go out the front door.” James’s voice is quiet and even when he appears beside me, the opposite of how he looks. The air around his body might as well be vibrating with excitement.

“I’m not going without you.”

He turns on me so fast, I recoil. “I said go.”

For months, there have been whispers at the mill about our father receiving disciplinary action. No one will say anything about it around James, but from what he’s managed to overhear, our father has gotten into fights and come to work smelling like a beer keg more times than the mill manager can overlook. The stronger the whispers, the worse our father’s temper at home. I clutch James’s hand even tighter and shake my head.

“Yes. If he blows off steam fighting me, there’s less of it left for you.”

“I don’t want you to do this. Not for me.”

“You sure about that?”

Both options end with someone bruised and bleeding, so what does it matter? The third option—the one where we get the hell out of this house—is the only thing I’m sure about. “Please, let’s just go.”

The garage refrigerator door slams. At the last second, James presses his keys into my hand, soothing my fears with fingers so gentle I want to cry.

With one last silent plea on my part, I tug him toward the front door, but then his hand is gone and so is he. I watch him stride toward the kitchen, the hand I was just holding clenched into a fist.

The door to the garage opens. Our father’s keys slide across the tile counter in the kitchen. Even with James’s body between us, he sees me standing in the dimly lit hall. I feel his gaze raking down my body, lingering in places that make me shudder. He turns to his food, makes a show of poking at the plate of mac ‘n cheese, and glares at me. “My dinner’s cold.”

I open my mouth to apologize, but James answers before I can.

“So heat it up.”

Is he trying to get himself killed? When our father narrows his eyes, I bolt for the door. I can’t watch this. Knowing what’s about to happen is horrible enough.

James says something to him in a low voice. A threat, that much I can tell. I’m already through the door when our father grumbles his response. Any second now, I’ll hear the fists slamming into flesh. My brother’s flesh.

I cover my ears and run faster.

Except James jogs down the driveway a few moments later, which is too soon if he’d gotten into it with our father. I can’t help but wonder who backed off first, but neither of us says anything when he slides into the driver’s seat beside me and cranks the engine. It’s not until we’ve cleared our neighborhood and are driving past the park that he speaks up.

“Something happened at work today,” James says. “Something with Dad.”

“What did he do this time?”

He grips the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turn white. “He insulted me in front of all the guys we work with.”

“That’s it?” I fiddle with a loose thread hanging from the sleeve of my shirt, thinking of all the insults our father has hurled at me over the years. There are too many to count. And insults are much better than the alternative. James knows better than to let the taunting get to him. Our father lives to provoke people. It’s the boxer in him.

“They laughed at me,” he says in a low voice, “and I had to take it because I’m a low man on the totem pole. If I retaliated, they would’ve fired me.”

“They don’t matter.” I rest my hand on his knee. “He doesn’t matter.”

“I’m not going to listen to his shit anymore. I can take him now—I know I can.”

I remember what it was like before my brother was old enough and strong enough to keep me safe without getting hurt. The horrid guilt that gnawed at my insides every time he crawled back to me. When he turned sixteen and got his license, everything changed. When he got the job at the mill and started hanging around the Armory, it changed again.

Still, the determination in his eyes won’t be enough to stop them—and the rest of him—from winding up black and blue. Again. “Please don’t. He’ll just hurt you.”

“Your lack of faith in me sucks,” he grumbles, shoving my hand away. “I’ve been able to take every guy at the Armory for weeks, and they’re huge. Ask Alex.”

The thought of all those massive guys pounding on my brother is enough to turn my stomach. I unroll the window and suck in a shaky breath. “I don’t like you boxing.”

“Yeah, well, I’m sick of Dad acting like he’s still the shit. And he thinks we’re the disappointment. God.”

We ride in silence. Our father may hate me, but once upon a time, James was his pride and joy. He’d bring him along when he socialized at the Armory, making sure James paid attention to their rotten technique. When they’d get home late at night, our father unsteady from the all the beers people bought him, James would crawl into my bed and tell me about the fights.

The guy who won cheated! He rubbed Vaseline all over his cheeks so, when he got punched, the other guy’s glove would slip across his face. Can you believe it?

Our father hadn’t cheated in a single one of his matches, a fact he bragged about every time he mentioned the lowlifes who’d taken his place of honor at the Armory. Maybe that’s why his devoted fans refuse to see what’s going on in our house. Someone as noble as Knockout Jimmy would never use his fists against his family.

“I’m taking you with me tonight, by the way,” James finally says. “No sense in leaving you with him when he’s in a shittier-than-normal mood.”

He reaches across the seat and squeezes my hand. His grip is tighter than ever—a reminder of how much stronger he’s gotten. Maybe he can take our father.

Is it horrible that a tiny part of me wants him to try?

James’s truck shudders to a stop in front of the mall’s Super Clips a few minutes later. Posters of perfect people with perfect hair beam at us from the windows, one of whom has the exact haircut I’m hoping for—super-short layers, flippy ends. I shove away thoughts of our father and point it out to James. “That’s what I want,” I say, positive now that he’s seen it, he’ll agree. “Isn’t it cute?”

He shakes his head. “That won’t look good on you.”

“Oh.” I frown, trying to imagine my face on the poster instead of the perky woman. The best I can manage is a mangled combination of her eyes and my brother’s nose. Not helpful. “Are you sure?”

“I’m a guy, not blind,” he says and elbows me in the ribs. “C’mon. Daylight’s a’wasting.”

As luck would have it, the receptionist is one of the cheerleaders at my school, a bubbly girl with thick chunks of blond highlights in her black-as-night hair. Hopefully I won’t get her stylist. No way, no how am I paying someone to turn my head into a skunk.

Forcing a small smile, I say, “Hey, Claire.”

She looks up from the magazine she’s flipping through and gives me the most artificial pep-rally grin I’ve ever seen. “Hey…”

When her eyes drift toward where I’ve just written my name on the waiting list, I know she has no clue who I am. Which is pretty sad, considering we’ve been in the same homeroom since freshman year. Her hair was red back then.

The door chimes behind me, and Claire goes wide-eyed, which can only mean one thing.

“Hi, James,” she says, giving him a much brighter smile than she gave me.

He smiles at Claire, then leads me over to a square arrangement of chairs. We sit, and her bright green eyes devour him, magazine forgotten. It’s…irritating. More than I would’ve expected. I grab one of the hairstyle books and flip through the pages. How many guys does she get with the whole silent gawking thing?

Not many, I guess, because she scurries over to the low table beside James’s chair and makes a show of tidying the stack of already-tidy magazines. “So… are you coming to the party tonight?”

“Thinking about it,” he says without looking up from the book on my lap. He points to a picture in the center of the page before I can ask what she’s talking about. “See, now this would look good on you.”

The girl he’s pointing to has hair that’s maybe three inches shorter than mine and layered. I wouldn’t look a whole lot different. I flip ahead to the medium length styles and casually ask, “We’re going to a party?” I’ve managed to avoid Logan High’s party scene entirely and don’t know how I feel about breaking my streak now. Avoiding people is more my thing, and any party my brother’s attending promises to be crowded.

“Thinking about it,” he repeats. “How about this one?”

I frown at the picture, then at Claire who has moved on to tidying up the mirrored product wall so she can look at James without being too obvious. “That’s the same haircut she has.”

“Hmm, you’re right,” he says. His gaze trails up and down Claire’s body twice before he throws an arm around my shoulders. “There’s got to be something in this book that doesn’t suck.”

Through a stack of shampoo bottles, I see Claire narrow her eyes at her reflection in the mirror. I have to press my lips together to keep from laughing.

“Plenty don’t suck,” I manage to say, pointing to the last style on the page. “You just have awful taste.”

“I think you’re cute, don’t I?”

“Sarah?”

We both look up at the tall hairstylist who has really cool hair—longer in front, tapered in back, wisps of shimmering red highlights.

James must see the way I’m staring at her. He shakes his head. “Way too short.”

“But I really like it.”

He shrugs and sticks out his hand when I stand up, like he’s going to help me climb over his long, outstretched legs he’s apparently not planning to move out of my way—then jerks it back. Brat. I purposely kick him in the shins. He just laughs.

The stylist watches us act like ten-year-olds with an amused grin on her face. When I’m finally clear of my brother, she gestures toward her station. “Right this way.”

As soon as I’ve settled into the chair, I tell the stylist to cut my hair like hers. “Just make it a few inches longer,” I add, catching my brother’s eye. I’d never admit it to him, but his opinion matters to me. A lot. He’s almost always right, so there’s a pretty good chance he’s right about this, too. And he is a guy.

Now that we’ve decided on a style, she leads me to the shampoo station and helps me get settled. The hot water she’s using sluices across my forehead and down my neck, soaking into the towel she wrapped around my shoulders. At least I’ll have good hair if James drags me to the party Claire was talking about—

Two pieces of our conversation click into place.

Oh my God. I’m going to see Sam Donavon tonight.

Before I can fully freak out, the hairstylist shakes her head and squirts a glop of cold shampoo that smells like honeydew melon into my hair. “Mmm, honey. He hasn’t taken his eyes off of you since we got over here.”

I don’t need to look to know she’s telling the truth. When James watches me, I can feel it.

“I know plenty of girls who’d kill for a boyfriend like that.”

Okay, maybe she’s not talking about James. The woman’s too caught up in the whole suds and rinse routine to notice me shifting in the seat to get a better look. Across the room, Claire is rearranging the magazines next to James’s chair again, this time in a fan pattern. Sure enough, he’s watching me.

I slump back into the shampoo chair and close my eyes. How can I explain our relationship so the stylist gets it? It might not be normal, exactly, but it works for us. The kind of closeness we have can only happen when you grow up in a house like ours. When you know the one person in the world you can count on sleeps in a bed six feet away.

“I think Claire’s plotting how she’s going to steal him away,” the stylist says with a chuckle, right as Claire knocks a couple of the magazines to the floor. James stops watching me long enough to help her pick them up. “Not that he looks interested in being stolen.”

I sigh. “He’s just my brother.”

Her hands pause mid-scalp massage. “What was that, honey?”

“He’s just my brother,” I say again, loud enough for her to hear over the water.

Except she shuts off the water at the same time and everyone in the salon hears me.

My gaze darts to James who has a strange look on his face. Embarrassed, I look at Claire who, after shooting me a quick look of surprised recognition, ogles James like a cat ogling an abandoned can of tuna. She must have forgotten what he said about her hair, because if she gets any closer, she’ll be on his lap.

The stylist looks from me to James. I know what she’s thinking. I know what they’re all thinking—the little blue-haired lady in curlers peering at me from beneath the hair dryer helmet, the military-looking guy getting a buzz cut across the room, the little girl bouncing up and down next to him…

For whatever reason, right about the time I started looking more like my mother and less like a spindly little kid, people have assumed James and I are an item.

No one gets it. And I’m starting to think they never will.

“Well,” the stylist says. “Okay, then.”

She doesn’t say anything else during the fifteen minutes it takes her to hack off seven inches of my hair and do that feathery thing with her scissors that makes the ends evenly uneven. Claire finally catches my brother’s attention, and I wonder how I can apply what she’s doing to my next conversation with Sam. If there is a conversation. I should probably figure out how to start one first.

By the time the stylist finishes, my hair looks fantastic, even without the shimmering red highlights I couldn’t afford. And yet, I can’t bring myself to be excited because across the room, Claire has dragged James over to the reception desk and is showing him the little green butterfly tattoo she got last fall. I know it’s a green butterfly because we had the same gym class this year and she likes to prance around in her underwear.

I also know it’s in a place she shouldn’t be showing off in public, least of all to my brother.

I plunk the five-dollar bill James gave me on the hairstylist’s table and slide out of the chair.

James manages to peel his eyes off Claire’s bared hip long enough to glance at my hair. A hint of something—sadness, maybe?—plays across his face when he sees how much I cut off, but he only smiles. “Looking good, Sar-bear.”

I duck around him, irritated that the way he was staring at Claire bothers me so much, and wait by the mirrored wall display while he pays. Claire’s hint that she’ll see him later follows us out the door on a breath of eager anticipation.

Could anyone ever feel like that about me? Could Sam?

Doubtful. I’m so good at being invisible, not even a boy I’ve known half my life can see me.

James touches my shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

No way am I telling him that I’m wishing his best friend would look at me like James looked at Claire’s tattoo. “Doesn’t it bother you?” I demand instead. “Knowing she sleeps with everyone at Logan?”

“Who cares? It’s not like I’m marrying the girl.”

“I care,” I say. “You’d never let me date a guy like her.”

He frowns. “You want to date?”

Yes. Except, I know exactly how my brother feels about me dating. He maintains a strict No Guys policy. And with how messed up our parents are, I can’t blame him. “Never mind.”

He blocks my escape to the truck with his body. “No. This is obviously bothering you, so let’s talk about it.” He folds his arms across his chest. “You know how I feel about the assholes in this town.”

“Yes, I do.” Though you seem to like Sam and Alex well enough. “Can we go now?”

“I’m trying to keep you safe.”

“I know.”

Seconds tick by. Really loud seconds. Or maybe that’s my heart. Finally, James turns around and walks, not to his side of the truck, but to Triple Scoop a couple storefronts down. I glower at his back. Plying me with ice cream isn’t going to make me feel better, nor is the grin he shoots me before disappearing inside.

My empty stomach growls its disagreement. I grind my fist into my belly button to shut it up, but like everyone and everything else in my life, it doesn’t listen.

Six

Three hours, a double scoop of mint-chocolate-chip ice cream, and a slice of Hawaiian pizza later, I’m feeling better about what happened at the salon.

Somewhat.

“What good is me having a job if we never get to do anything fun?” James asks after he’s driven us deep into the forested foothills just outside Granite Falls. Apparently tonight’s party is being hosted by Smokey the Bear and his pack of furry woodland sidekicks.

“Any money we spend is less we’ll have to get a place after I graduate,” I say when he turns onto a gravel service road. “We’ve already talked about this. Spending a weekend in a hotel isn’t worth the extra weeks we’ll be stuck in that house.”

“I didn’t see you complaining about money when I paid for that haircut.”

I open my mouth to protest—my haircut was only fifteen dollars with the tip—but James doesn’t pay attention to little details like that. That’s my job. Also, he’s right.

“How about as soon as it gets hot enough, we drive to the coast and hang out for the day? Gas isn’t that expensive.”

Even though the thought of losing fifty dollars on gas stings, he deserves the break. And getting away from our house for a day is definitely worth it. “Sure.”

Now that I’ve caved, James resumes acting like his usual, dorky self. Girls wouldn’t drool over him near as much if they saw the side of him I do—the side that thinks bits of ice cream-coated waffle cone that fall onto the nasty truck floorboards are still edible, heavy metal is meant to be danced to in your underwear, and forty-mile-an-hour brake-checks on dusty forest roads are funny.

By the third brake-check, I’m regretting the extra scoop of ice cream.

We wind our way deeper and deeper into the forest, up the first set of hills and down into the thick trees of the valley on the other side. Finally, when I’m half a second away from asking if we’re lost, he turns onto a bumpy dirt road. The sun is just beginning to sink on the horizon, but trees as thick as these swallow daylight. If not for the artificial light streaming through the windows of a building in the distance, it’d be black as night out here.

At least a dozen cars, trucks, and SUVs are parked haphazardly in the gravel scattered around a rusty green and silver doublewide trailer so covered in moss and mildew it practically blends into the forest. As soon as James maneuvers us into a fairly flat spot close to the trailer, two tall guys and a familiar, skunk-headed cheerleader stagger through our headlights and out into the trees.

Apparently Claire decided not to wait for James.

Right before they disappear, one of the guys drags her body against his and gives Claire a kiss sloppier than any I’ve seen before. The other guy shoves them farther into the darkness.

And then I notice the silence inside the truck.

Suddenly I don’t want to be here. Not when the only sounds are the distant giggling that keeps getting cut short and the uneven breathing of my brother, punctuated by the dull thump of bass coming from the trailer. All my weird feelings from Super Clips come rushing back. He probably wishes he’d flirted more with Claire so he could be the one all over her in the woods—

What is wrong with me? It’s not my business who my brother drags off into the trees, not matter how weird the thought of him doing it makes me feel. Needing to get away from myself, I throw open the door and stumble out onto the gravel driveway.

That’s when I see Sam.

He’s waiting for us beneath the sickly, green floodlight hanging from the roof of the doublewide, hands jammed into his pockets and his head cocked a little to the left. The dark gray t-shirt he’s wearing stretches tight across his shoulders, and even at this distance, I can make out the glint of silver at his neck.

One of these days, I’ll ask James what Sam wears around his neck. Maybe.

Maniacal laughter and the sound of someone thrashing through underbrush echoes from the trees to our right. If I didn’t know that laugh, I might be terrified a hyena was about to eat us.

As James would say, Alex is batshit crazy. Sure enough, a bulky blur of white skin and reddish-orange hair streaks between the trees, circles around a large pile of dirt and branches, and stumbles into the gravel beside the house where a group of snickering guys toss him what looks like a superhero cape. Or maybe his cap and gown?

“Put your clothes on, asshole,” James shouts from behind me. “There are women and children present!”

More hoots of laughter, and several chuckled “busted”s and “uh-oh”s from his friends later, Alex’s very white butt disappears into a pair of shorts. Thank God he never turned around, or I’d be scarred for life.

“Women and children, eh?” Alex’s voice is muffled, his thick arms tangled in the mess of his white t-shirt as he yanks it over his head. When he gets himself straightened out, he whips around and flashes me his biggest wannabe-ladies-man grin—the one that shows off his twenty million freckles. “I’m cool with Sarah seeing me naked. Especially if she re-cip-ro-cates.”

Disgusting, but I smile anyway because he’s obviously trying to rattle me, and for once, I have a snarky comeback. “That’s a pretty big word, Alex. Do you think they’ll teach me how to use big words next year, too?”

James chokes on a laugh, and Alex’s grin fades as he shoves his arms into a tattered green graduation gown that’s clearly seen too much of the forest. I’m rewarded with a warm chuckle from Sam that makes my chest ache with a feeling I can’t place.

James is too busy ribbing Alex for being slammed by a girl to notice me drifting toward the house. Toward Sam. His face is hooded in shadows, but I want to see his eyes. I want to know if he’s looking at me, and if his eyes match the dark jeans he’s wearing tonight, or if they’re closer to drizzly-sky-gray like the last time I saw him. They’ve never been the same color twice.

After a few more steps, I have my answer to at least one of those questions.

Sam Donavon is definitely looking at me.

I take a shaky breath and hang back, waiting until Alex and my brother start joking about the new guy who got his ass kicked at the Armory last weekend before I close the rest of the distance. Sam watches me inch toward him. If I could see his eyes clearly, I know they’d be intense.

Everything about Sam is intense.

“Hey,” James says to him, pushing past me to give Sam their old slap-slide-bump. I’ve had their secret handshake memorized since I was eight in the unlikely event they let me hang out with them. One of these days, I’ll walk right up to Sam and stick my hand out. It’ll probably be far less humiliating than trying to talk to him.

Sam’s smile is empty as he takes in the purplish-black bruise on James’s forearm that I refuse to look at, and the tiny scab by his eyebrow I spent Wednesday night blotting with toilet paper until he let me cover it with anti-bacterial cream and a Band-Aid. I wait for Sam to ask James the inevitable. He doesn’t.

Instead, he turns to me.

“Sarah,” he says with a nod.

Sam Donavon is speaking to me? In front of my brother and Alex? I blink up at him. He seems a lot closer all of a sudden. I think he is.

“Um,” is all I can manage.

“I like your hair,” Alex chimes in, slapping his graduation cap onto my head. I swat it away. Apparently, me getting attention from a guy without James knocking out said guy’s teeth is an opportunity Alex can’t resist. “It’s kinda sexy. What do you think, Donavon?”

My mouth falls open—not because of what Alex said, but because Sam’s cheeks turned red when he said it.

I will never doubt my brother’s opinion on hair again.

I rack my brain for the plan I put together at the salon and come up empty. What would Claire do? Show him her tattoo, probably. Ugh.

Going with my gut, I offer him a reassuring, possibly flirtatious smile. Possibly because I’ve never flirted with anyone before, so I can’t be sure.

He turns even redder.

If I could feel my legs, I’d do a victory dance.

“Okay, okay,” James grumbles. “Are we going to do this thing or not?”

“After you,” Sam says to him.

My brother looks from Sam to me and back, mutters something under his breath, and heads for the door with Alex trailing behind like an overgrown puppy wearing a floppy green cape. Before I can follow, Sam leans in close and whispers, “I’m glad you came tonight. Maybe we can talk later? Catch up or something?”

He wants to catch up with me? Wait…we’ve never spoken to have anything to catch up about. Now that my heart is stumbling around drunk inside my chest, what’s left of my frazzled brain attempts conversation. “Oh, um, yeah. Sure. It’s pretty out here, don’t you think? Once you get past the potholes in the driveway, anyway.”

God. No wonder guys don’t talk to me.

Sam chuckles. He’s probably making fun of me, but my knees still wobble and I can’t breathe. I rarely hear him laugh, which is kind of strange because we’ve been in the same orbit for years. Closing my eyes, I let the sound wash over me, hot like the water at the salon.

“You coming, or what?”

James stopped at the corner of the house and is looking at us. I back away from Sam, my cheeks on fire, hoping my brother didn’t see me swaying on my feet in front of his best friend. He doesn’t look pissed off, so I’m guessing not. I duck my head and force my shaky legs to catch up.

Music and light floods through the open front door out onto the trampled weeds, gravel, and makeshift porch—three wood pallets set side by side—enticing those of us outside to come in. I hesitate at the door. As freaked out as I am to be here, surrounded by tons of people from school who usually pretend I don’t exist, the damp mist that clings to the trees in the valley is too cold for us to stay outside. I reluctantly follow my brother inside.

The second we step through the door, a heavily pierced girl winds herself around James like a safety-pin-and-metal-studded python. I choke on my shock when he grins and kisses her on the lips. It’s only a peck and looks about as romantic as a bowl of cold oatmeal, but I’ve never seen James kiss anyone. The sudden pain in my chest confuses me.

“And who do we have here?” the girl asks, looking at me as she unwinds from my brother’s body. “I’ve seen you before. You go to Logan, right?”

James pushes me behind him and shakes his head. “Sarah’s with me.”

“Yes,” I say over his shoulder, “I go to Logan.”

Her dark-lined eyes widen impossibly. “So this is the little sister you keep hidden away? She’s cute, James.”

Any warmth leftover from being close to Sam in the driveway melts away, as does any trace of friendliness on James’s face. I may not get out much, but I’m pretty sure the way she’s peering around James to look at my body—pausing in several choice places below the neck—is universal for I’m checking you out. I shift closer to James.

“Fuck off, Leslie,” he says. “Just give me what I want.”

He might as well have kicked me for how fast the air whooshes from my lungs. There’s only one Leslie in Granite Falls who’d throw a party like this. If my brother is hanging out with her after growing up with our mother, I’m going to kill him. I step back and collide with a hard chest.

Sam.

His hands settle on my shoulders to steady me before falling away. After a lifetime of only being touched by my brother and father, the sensation makes me dizzier than Sam’s laugh. Needing more, I shift my weight, just enough to feel the fabric of Sam’s t-shirt brushing against my shoulders and his body heat mingling with mine.

The renewed contact crackles through me like static. Dangerous static. Addictive static.

Leslie laughs and holds out her hand to my brother. “You have to pay to play tonight, J. Ten more for bringing a spectator. Unless she’s buying?”

“No.”

James fishes out his wallet and hands her three twenties. Tucking it into her red and black lace corset top, she grins at me. “Get your brother to share. If you like it, come find me and I’ll hook you up. Alex?”

“Mmm, baby,” he says, rubbing his hands together. “My account still good?”

“You know it. And I’m guessing holier-than-thou Sam is still a downer?”

“Yep,” Sam says.

From somewhere—I don’t even want to guess—beneath the waistband of her black plaid mini-skirt, Leslie withdraws two tiny baggies of pills and hands one to Alex and one to my brother. “Enjoy,” she purrs, then melts back into the crowd.

I know Leslie deals. Everyone knows. Even the cops, from what I’ve overheard at school. What I didn’t know was that my brother uses whatever she peddles. Explosive anger overrides the electricity skittering through in my body. I smack James on the arm. Hard. “How can you take those things after what you did to me?”

The memories flash white-hot like a burning dagger through my brain.

“Find the blue ones with the hole in the middle,” he whispers.

“It’s too dark,” I whisper back. “I can’t see.”

He grabs my wrist and drags me down the narrow hallway. When we reach what I assume is the mattress-less master bedroom, he pushes me down onto one of the many beanbag chairs littering the floor. There are only a few people in this room that I can see in the dim-lighting: a couple making out in the far corner, a sleeping girl, and two guys sprawled across four of the beanbag chairs talking about video games and marshmallows.

James is in my face before I can say anything. “These aren’t what we took,” he says in a hushed voice. “They’re just muscle relaxants. Soma, you know? I only take them when I need to get away for a little bit. I’ll give you one of mine if you want to try it.”

“They’re the ones that start with V, ” he says a little louder, a little more urgently from his place under our mother’s bed. “Look for the V on the label.”

At five years old, I can’t read yet, but I do know my letters.

I squeeze my head to dull the pain. Behind my brother, Alex empties the little baggie of pills into his mouth and swallows them dry.

James clutches me tight and rocks back and forth, back and forth as I fight my lungs for breath. “Don’t die, Sarah,” he sobs. “Don’t die, don’t die, don’t die…”

I remember all too clearly what it felt like not being able to breathe through the dribble of vomit I’d sucked into my lungs. How my heart pounded so hard against my ribs, I swore they’d crack open and all my guts would spill out onto the floor. “There’s no way I’m taking one of those things. And I don’t want to watch you take them, either.”

“Fine,” he says, though it’s obvious this is anything but fine. I try to grab his hand, but he brushes me off and shoves Alex in my direction. “Hang out with these guys, then.”

My mouth drops open. “James!”

But he’s already barging back down the hallway. I watch him push through the crowd until I see his blond head vanish through the door. There’s no way I’ll find him outside if he doesn’t want to be found.

Sam stares after my brother looking like he wants to punch something, but his eyes soften when he turns back to me. “You okay?”

I haven’t been okay for a long time, and Sam’s concerned expression isn’t helping me hide from that fact. Afraid he’ll see through me, I focus on an unruly chunk of his dark hair threatening to fall forward into his eyes.

Alex rubs the back of his neck and grimaces. “Actually, there’s something I promised the guys I’d do before I got too messed up to do it. You cool hanging out for a bit?”

Judging by the emptiness taking hold of Alex’s eyes, “messed up” might come sooner than he expects. I force myself to nod. “We’ll be fine.”

“Then I’ll catch you two love birds later,” Alex says with a wink.

Humiliation burns a path from my neck to my cheeks. Of all the horrible things to say…

“Sorry about that,” Sam says when Alex lumbers away. Looking pretty embarrassed himself, he crouches beside the beanbag chair, arms resting on his knees. “There are some pretty cool trails on Leslie’s property. We could go for a walk if you want. Unless you’d rather hang out here?”

I blink up at him. He wants to be alone with me? From what I’ve gathered, “alone” is a code word for “hooking up.”

“Are you serious?”

“Very.” He nods toward the couple in the back corner who have gotten louder in the thirty seconds we’ve been in the room. Definitely not making out anymore.

And he looks embarrassed, not interested.

“Oh. Right.” I want to kick myself when I realize how far I’d let my imagination take me. As if he’d drag me off into the forest to do what they’re doing.

He holds his hand out and gives me a grateful smile. Sliding my fingers into his warm, calloused palm, I remind myself he’s just helping me up. He’ll let go the second I’m on my feet, because, to Sam, I’m nothing more than his best friend’s little sister.

Except, he doesn’t.

Seven

Sam Donavon is holding my hand. Not the hand of one of the much prettier girls prancing around the living room, but mine. In public.

And he doesn’t seem embarrassed.

If the shock doesn’t kill me, my sudden inability to breathe will.

Wait. Maybe he’s waiting for me to let go?

Stomach tumbling at the thought, I loosen my death grip so he can shake his hand free, but he doesn’t. When he laces our fingers together and smiles, any hope of catching my breath fizzles out.

Definitely death by asphyxiation.

On the porch, Sam and I skirt around a group of guys wrapping entire packs of sparklers in duct tape. Alex, standing in the center of them all with his graduation gown tied like a pirate bandana around his head, gives me a nothing-to-see-here grin that puts me on edge. Third period Trig last semester passed in a flurry of pranks which usually resulted in Alex being sent to the principal’s office, and our teacher, frumpy spinster-in-training Miss Rabidon, sobbing to the counselor about mean-spirited children.

If he’s plotting something, I know better than to stick around.

“Homemade bombs,” Sam tells me when we reach his car. “Leslie will kick Alex’s ass if he sets those off out here. The county is dying for a reason to bust her.”

He lets go of my hand to grab a big flashlight from his trunk and open the driver’s side door of his beat-up black sports car, dredging up an unexpected emptiness at the loss of contact. When he leans inside, the door groans like it might fall off its hinges.

I’m all for Leslie getting busted—James can’t do what he can’t buy, but then I realize my brother’s here—probably high already—and might get hauled off to jail right along with her.

I glance over my shoulder, hoping whatever comes out of my mouth will convince Alex this is a really bad idea, but he and his minions have already disappeared. Great. If the cops come, Sam will have to get all three of us out of here. There’s no way I’ll let James drive home if he’s on something, and there’s no way he’ll let me anywhere near his truck.

Hopefully he’s not stupid enough to be hanging out with Leslie herself.

Sam emerges from the backseat with two hooded sweatshirts. He hands me the thick black one I’ve seen him wear a thousand times. I manage to tug it over my head without falling over, which is a miracle because it smells so freaking good. Like fabric softener, pine trees, and Sam. He pulls on an older, navy blue hoodie with a huge, white “LA” scrawled across the front. I pretend to be fixing the hood of mine so he doesn’t catch me pressing my nose into the collar. “Do you think we should look for James?”

Sam shakes his head. “He can take care of himself. If the cops show, he’ll just hide in the woods like he usually does.”

“Usually? You guys come here that often?”

“A couple times a month, maybe.” He gives me a funny look. As if he expected James frequently hiding from the cops to be the bigger surprise. Little does he know, James and I have spent our lives hiding. “Why?”

“No reason.” The lie does nothing to tamp down the irritation that spreads across my skin like a rash. James and I swore never to keep secrets from each other, and yet, everything about tonight points to the biggest lie of all. “So, um, when was the first time?”

“Leslie latched onto James back when we were still at Logan. He didn’t even have the truck yet, so two or three years ago, maybe?”

I was a freshman when James bought his truck. If he’s been hiding Leslie and her drugs for that many years, I’m going to kill him. “Wow. Okay.”

A frown tugs the light from Sam’s eyes. I take a deep breath, glad for the cover of darkness, and let all of my irritation flow out on the exhale. There’s no way I’m letting my stupid brother and his stupid drugs ruin my chance to spend an evening with the guy I’ve had a crush on forever. I make a mental note to talk to my brother when we get home, then change the subject.

“So, the Dodgers, huh?” I ask, pointing at his sweatshirt. “I’m surprised my brother hangs out with you.”

“When it comes to sports, your brother and I agree to disagree. Mainly because he doesn’t know a damn thing about anything except boxing. You want one?”

I’d been so busy staring at his eyes—charcoal swirled with gray tonight—that I didn’t notice him pull out the tiny tin of cinnamon mints. Maybe this is his subtle way of saying my breath stinks? “Oh, um, sure. Thanks.”

He waits until I take one, then dumps the last six or seven into his mouth and chews them up. Yikes. Maybe he’s more concerned about his breath.

With the thick white beam of the flashlight, he points in the opposite direction of Claire and the two guys. Blackness shrouds the trees where he’s looking. “So…I was thinking we’d head this way.”

“You’re not afraid we’ll get lost?”

“No.” He gives me a please-don’t-think-I’m-a-loser smile. “My only function at these parties is to hang out in case James or Alex needs a ride home, so I walk around a lot.”

As if I’m going to think a guy who wastes his evenings making sure his friends don’t wrap their trucks around a tree is a loser. “That’s admirable.”

“Admirable, huh?” He chuckles. “Thanks, I think.”

He’s said more words in the last ten minutes than I’ve heard him say in eight years, and apparently he’s tapped out, because we spend the next minute or two walking in silence. Without Leslie’s noisy trailer or my own anger mucking up the silence, the stillness of the forest is stifling. I edge closer to Sam on the trail. Even though we’re walking close enough to brush arms from time to time, he doesn’t reach for my hand. This would be disappointing if it didn’t feel like he’s purposely bumping into me.

“Selfish as this sounds, I meant what I said earlier,” he finally says.

I try to remember what he said, but everything is kind of a blur. “Which part?”

“The ‘I’m glad you came tonight’ part.”

So I’m not imagining the nudging or the sparks or what I could have sworn was his thumb tracing circles on the back of my hand while we walked to his car. “Mmm. Well in that case, I meant what I said, too.”

He kicks a rock I’m two steps from tripping over out of my path. “You said the potholes in Leslie’s driveway suck.”

I swallow my laughter, loving the disappointment in his voice, and nearly choke on the last bit of my mint. “I also said it’s pretty out here.”

“I remember,” he says. We reach the end of the trail, a secluded place with an ancient, moss-covered log lying on the ground. He gestures to it with the flashlight. “You want to sit?”

Glancing at the log, I realize my brother’s ties to Leslie are the least of my worries right now. I detest moss, which is ironic seeing as how moss and mildew are practically Oregon’s state flowers. And there are probably millions of bugs crawling on that log. Just because I don’t see any doesn’t mean they’re not there.

“It looks like it’s wet,” I lie. “You know, from all the mist and stuff.”

“Oh.” He points the flashlight at the log and peers at it like he’s never seen it before. “You could sit on my sweatshirt, I guess. I’m not cold.”

The flashlight is on the ground at his feet and he’s grabbing the hem of his sweatshirt before I can tell him it’s not a wet spot on my pants I’m worried about, but slimy slugs and giant centipedes. The words die in my throat. Sam’s gray t-shirt bunches up around his shoulders for the five glorious seconds it takes him to tug the sweatshirt off and smooth the thin fabric back down. I’m so stunned by the hint of a tattoo on his shoulder blade, my “skin phobia” forgets to kick in.

“What?”

I rack my brain for any mortifying thoughts that might have slipped out while I drooled over the thought of seeing the rest of that tattoo, but draw a blank. “I didn’t say anything,” I tell him. “Did I?”

“No, but you’re looking at me funny.”

Only because you’re gorgeous. And I really, really want to touch that tattoo. “I’m sorry.”

“Why? You didn’t do anything wrong.” He drapes his sweatshirt over a particularly offensive patch of moss and sits on it. “This okay?”

Eyeing the remaining fabric, I realize there’s only enough sweatshirt left to protect me if I’m halfway on his lap. This is Sam, though. I don’t believe for a second he expects me to curl up in his lap like a purring kitten.

I’d like to, though.

Instead, I gingerly settle on the very edge of his sweatshirt, more balanced on my toes than actually sitting. If something wriggles too close, I’m ready to run like hell.

“If you’d rather we go back to the house, I’ll understand.”

I look at him—well, I try to look at him. I can’t turn enough to see his face with seriously twisting my neck because, if I do, I’ll wind up touching the moss. Still, I know what he’s thinking. The insecurity in his voice says everything.

Never in a billion years would I have expected Sam Donavon to be insecure about anything related to me.

“Oh, no,” I say as soon as I recover from that revelation. “I just don’t like bugs. Or moss, actually. It’s slimy.”

Sam doesn’t say anything. Even his fingertips which I’ve been able to feel fiddling with the edge of his sweatshirt by my hip have gone still.

Then he bursts into laughter.

It’s so crazy unexpected that I laugh, too. “Don’t make fun of me!”

“Sorry. You looked pissed off the whole time we were walking, so I was worried you only came out here with me because James ditched you,” he says. “And then when you got uncomfortable about the log…I’m just relieved it’s the bugs you’re scared of and not me.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not very scary,” I say, still grinning like a fool. I haven’t smiled this much around someone other than James in…well, forever. “Scary people don’t typically hold hands with the person they’re about to kill in the middle of the forest.”

He laughs again. No matter how many times I’ve heard it tonight, I still can’t get over how the sound makes me feel. Or how chaotic my breathing becomes when he reaches across his lap to hold my hand again.

Neither of us says anything for a long time. It’s a comfortable silence, though. With his warm hand wrapped around mine, it doesn’t take long for my breathing to even out and my nerves to settle. Which is insane, because I’m holding hands with Sam Donavon, but he must feel the same way, because his deep sigh sounds content. Relaxed.

A gritty techno-rock song wafts up to us from further down the hill and mixes offbeat with the swarm of crickets chirping in the ferns. We’re not far from Leslie’s, despite the winding, five minute walk uphill. The lights on her trailer blink through the branches shifting in the light breeze.

“So, you’re a senior now,” he says. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks, but all I care about is graduating so James and I can get out of here.”

He turns my hand over and traces a line from my palm to the tip of my middle finger and back. “Where are you guys going?”

I barely restrain my shudder when he moves onto my ring finger. “I don’t know, but hopefully far, far away from Granite Falls. James didn’t tell you?”

“No, but—”

Something flutters against my cheek before he can finish, and I nearly jump out of my skin swatting at the air around us. Sam laughs, wraps his arm around my back, and rests his hand on my hip, not-so-subtly pulling me against his side. The same crackling static I felt inside Leslie’s comes back full force, or maybe it’s the lack of oxygen in the forest now that he’s so close. So much for being calm.

“What about you?” I manage.

“Not sure,” he says. “I’ve been working nights loading freight for a couple years and took some classes at GFCC, but I’m not getting much out of either. Maybe I’ll follow you guys around for awhile, keep James out of trouble.”

“I’d like that.”

I’d also like him to kiss me. The sleepy way he’s looking down at me feels so intimate. It wouldn’t take anything for him to close the small distance between us, or to reach up and touch my face. He shifts closer, and for a second, I think he’s going to do it.

Before anything happens, he clears his throat and looks up at the night sky. “Sorry.”

“For what?”

“I have no idea,” he says, chuckling. “You make me nervous.”

I make him nervous? This night couldn’t get more surreal if unicorns tromped across the trail. “Is that why tonight is the first time we’ve talked? We’ve known each other forever, but you’ve never given me the time of day.”

He doesn’t say anything for a long time. Maybe I’ve made his nerves worse.

“I’ve wanted to talk to you for years,” he finally says. His voice is quiet, barely audible over the thumping beat now pouring out of Leslie’s. “James isn’t big on the idea of us being friends. On you being friends with anyone, for that matter.”

Friends. The word sits in my gut like a jagged piece of lava rock and I shrug out from under his arm. “If you wanted to be my friend, you could have been.”

“Have you seen what your brother does to people who piss him off?”

Over the years, there have been a few guys who limped into class Monday morning after fighting my brother behind the Armory over the weekend. Stitched up lips, swollen eyes, mottled blue and purple bruises blooming on their cheekbones…James swears up and down they’re only messing around, but somehow I don’t think the other guys felt the same way.

“So, why are you talking to me now?” I ask. “What changed?”

“I don’t know. Just seemed like the right time to make my move.” He bumps shoulders with me, and his crooked smile turns my brain to scrambled eggs.

His move? As in…“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

I feel his intense gaze skimming my face and force myself to look him in the eye. This time, when he leans closer, I know what he wants. He traces my jaw with his fingertips, then moves lower to my chin. My eyelids flutter closed when he tips my face up.

Oh my God. Sam Donavon is going to kiss me.

The forest holds its breath.

I hold my breath.

Our lips brush, light as eyelashes. His fingers trail back into my hair, tilting my head. Hot cinnamon dances across my mouth.

I’m drowning.

And then my name, roared at the top of familiar lungs, cracks the silent night.

Eight

I stumble away from the log and Sam and the warmth of his lips, which were so close to being pressed against mine. Part of me registers my brother’s voice, but my thoughts and emotions have scattered in a zillion different directions, dusting the trees and ferns crowding around us with undiluted awe.

Sam almost kissed me. He actually almost kissed me.

Even if I die five seconds from now, I’ll have this memory—and Sam’s cinnamon breath—to take with me.

“Sarah!” my brother yells again.

“Coming,” I call back, then force myself to look at Sam. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He smiles and catches one of my hands and holds it between both of his. Heat seeps from his palms into my cold fingers like a soft sigh.

I blink at our hands. James crashed into a tree on the drive up here and now I’m in Heaven—that’s the only explanation for what’s happening.

I love Heaven.

The rustle of undergrowth yanks my mind out of Heaven and my hand free from Sam’s. In the glow of the flashlight, I see disappointment flash across his face.

“Did I interrupt something?”

Sam stands up and slowly, I turn around. James is waiting in the middle of the trail with his feet shoulder-width apart and arms folded across his chest. Even in the dim light, I can tell he’s furious. I never have to see his face to know what James is feeling.

“We were just talking,” I say before I can stop myself.

Not a lie, but apparently the wrong answer. Sam grunts and James moves closer, his menacing expression now murderous. When he steps into the light and turns his dark look on Sam, I expect Sam to shove me away. I expect him to laugh and pretend he’s not the one who asked me to go for a walk. To say I’m the one who wedged myself into his side, almost kissed him, and then lied about it.

He doesn’t do any of this. He doesn’t do anything.

The longer Sam stands there glaring at James, the guiltier we look—especially with me wearing his sweatshirt. This isn’t the time for a stare-down. Judging by how hard my heart is slamming against my ribs, I’m about to explode.

“Calm down,” I say, more to myself than anyone, though neither of them look very calm at the moment. I reach for my brother’s elbow. “Are you ready to go?”

James nods, his gaze still fixed on Sam. “Sure.”

I want to tell Sam we’ll continue this later, that I’ll never be able to eat a cinnamon mint again without thinking about him, but I can’t. Not with James right here.

Without waiting for either of them, I pick my way back down the hill and hope to God I don’t step in a pothole or trip over a wayward root. The shadows up here are thicker than puddles of spilled ink. Maybe I should have asked Sam for his flashlight.

Heavy footsteps follow me, thudding closer and closer on the pine-needle-strewn dirt trail until they’re so close, I can hear my brother’s uneven breathing.

“Sarah, wait up.”

I keep my head down, picking up my pace while I try to acclimate my eyes to the filtered moonlight streaming through the misty tree canopy. It doesn’t matter that I’m headed for a truck I won’t let him drive—if James and I get into this now, it’ll ruin the memory of my almost-kiss with Sam.

“Damn it, I said wait!”

He grabs my arm and yanks me around to face him. I slam into his chest with a thud that jars my bones and knocks the fight right out of me. I stumble back, away from him, and fold my arms across my chest to cover as much of Sam’s sweatshirt as I can.

“Why weren’t you at the party?” he demands. “I’ve been looking all over for you!”

“Sam was showing me the trails.”

“It’s not safe to hang out with random guys in the middle of the forest.” He waves his arms at the trees on either side of us, as if they’re hiding an army of rapists and murderers.

“Sam’s not a random guy,” I remind him. “And what did you expect us to do while you were off getting high? God, I can’t believe you’ve been taking that crap!”

His gaze drops to my chest. To Sam’s sweatshirt. He doesn’t flinch when I hurriedly move my arms higher, but I see the flash of shock that morphs back to rage.

“What did I expect?” He gives me a frosty laugh. “I expected you to be grateful I brought you along so you didn’t have to hide in our room all night. Not sneak off and fuck my best friend.”

A lump of fear rises in my throat. “I didn’t—”

“Shut up!” He closes his eyes and rolls his shoulders, trying to shake off his anger like the boxer I know he wants to be. When he finally looks at me again, his eyes are dead calm. “You know what? Go home and have fun with Dad. I’m done.”

He stalks off into the thick trees, disappearing in the darkness. His rage I could have handled. A screaming match over how badly he’s overreacting would have been a nice release. But to be deserted by the only person who cares whether I live or die…

One foot in front of the other. That’s what I tell myself as I resume my trek down the trail to the driveway. He didn’t mean it. He never does. If I wait in the truck, he’ll eventually calm down and drive us home. It might take awhile, maybe an hour or two, but we’ll be fine. We’ll go home and lock ourselves in our room, then he’ll crawl into my bed just like he always does when he hurts my feelings. We have a pact. Nothing will ever come between us. I have to believe that or I’m going to start crying.

Someone falls into step beside me.

“Are you okay?” Sam asks quietly.

I nod, even though I’m not, and scrub away my tears. As long as he doesn’t turn on his flashlight, my lie will be safe.

“You know you can talk to me, right? About anything.”

Tremors of hope and relief shudder through my body, but I quickly shove the feelings away and shake my head. If I open up to Sam and my brother finds out, he’ll never forgive me.

“Then, can I at least give you a ride? I’m heading home anyway, and it’ll probably be a while before James levels out.”

I hesitate. Riding with Sam will make my brother even angrier, but I don’t know if I can face two hours of waiting in the truck. For the first time ever, I just want to go home.

“Okay. Thanks.”

As we walk down the hill, Sam reaches for my hand and laces our fingers together. It’s nice. Comforting.

Too nice. Too comforting.

As wonderful as it felt to almost kiss him, Sam and me…it can’t happen. I’m not worth ruining his friendship with James. My place is in the kitchen, fishing recyclable beer cans from the garbage and cooking lame boxed dinners for my father and brother. If not there, then locked in my bedroom, listening to my mother and father fight when he stops by her room to “visit.” Hoping he doesn’t try to “visit” my room as well.

Mine is not a world Sam belongs in.

Before we reach his car, I wriggle my hand free. I feel his searching gaze on my face, but I won’t look at him. I refuse to see any more disappointment directed my way.

Sam holds open the passenger door while I slide into the seat, then closes it carefully behind me. His car may look like a junkyard reject on the outside, but the floors are clean and the smooth, charcoal-colored seat covers beneath my fingers feel new.

I jerk my hand away. Charcoal-colored seat covers, charcoal-colored eyes. I need to forget those eyes.

He opens his door far less gingerly and folds his long body into the cramped seat. For several excruciating moments, we don’t do anything but sit and stare at the shadowy forest in front of his car. If this is how the entire one-hour drive is going to be, my disaster of a night just went from bad to worse.

“Do you mind if I sleep?” I ask. “It’s been a really long day.”

“Was it that bad?”

His disappointment makes me feel worse. Irritated, I wrap the drawstring of my—no, his—sweatshirt around my finger and mumble, “Not all of it. Some of it was…nice.”

When he doesn’t say anything, I chance a quick glance in his direction. The way he’s staring at me—like he’s five seconds away from dragging me into his arms—sends tingling zaps of light shooting through my body. There’s no way can I break eye contact when he looks at me like this.

He leans closer, one hand plucking my fingers from the noose I made of the drawstring while the other moves to cup my cheek. “I almost didn’t come tonight. For the first time ever, I almost didn’t come. But James called while you were at the hair place and said he might be bringing you, so…”

His gaze roams over my eyes, my lips, my cheeks. We’re going to kiss—I can feel how much he wants to straight down to my toes. And judging by the heat in his eyes, it’s not going to be as simple as what almost happened in the forest.

Despite the logical part of my brain screaming at me to run and hide in the trees—seriously, what does he see in me?—I melt into his touch, face upturned, waiting for the moment Sam knocks my world off its axis.

That moment never happens.

An explosion louder than a dozen shotguns blasts through the trees and nearly sends me scrambling into Sam’s lap. Cheering and laughter cuts through the dim ringing in my ears. A string of shrieked curses that sound very much like Leslie quickly follow.

Sam closes his eyes and lets out a frustrated cinnamon-tinted groan, but he doesn’t pull away. Even when another blast rocks the forest, he holds me close, a mere breath away from kissing, his gaze boring into mine.

That’s all my logical side needs to take over.

I recoil, removing Sam’s hand from my face before curling in on myself in the passenger seat. What the hell am I doing? James could have seen us. Even now, he might be in the woods watching.

“We should probably go,” Sam says. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the cops all the way back in town heard those.”

Maneuvering a small sports car through trucks and SUVs wedged together like a twenty-car pileup is a nightmare. Sam curses a lot, mainly at the latecomers who boxed him in and the people streaming out of Leslie’s trailer who don’t seem to care if we run them over. Eventually, after a twelve-point turn that includes a pass over an ill-placed mound of dirt and branches, we get free.

As his car bumps and bottoms out along the winding gravel driveway, I close my eyes and try to get comfortable. It’s not easy. Every time Sam hits a pothole, my forehead and elbow smack into the glass.

“Here,” he says when we’re halfway down the driveway. “This should help.”

A warm, balled-up t-shirt lands in my lap. I stare at it in the darkness, horrified at the possibility he took off his own shirt to make me comfortable, despite how I blew him off.

Upon closer inspection in the dim light from his headlights, the soft fabric is red, not the gray that I noticed matched his eyes earlier. I tuck it between my cheek and the window and offer him a small smile. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Pine trees, dryer sheets, and a hint of musty car smell soothes me. I burrow deeper into the t-shirt and let the weight of what’s turned into a very long day shut down everything—my eyes, my hearing, my heart—and drift off into blackness.

Nine

Sam walks me to the door, though I ask him not to. I don’t want to do the what-might-have-been thing with him tonight, and standing on my front porch in the dark with him only makes the way the night turned out worse. In my Sam fantasies, I’d wrap my arms around his neck and thank him for the evening with a kiss. A long one. He’d kiss me back and I’d go to bed with a happy smile on my face and plenty to dream about.

But this isn’t one of my fantasies, and I can’t even meet his eyes, let alone kiss him.

“About tonight—” he begins.

I shake my head. “Don’t.”

There’s no way I’ll let him apologize for something that’s my fault. Sam doesn’t realize how lucky he is my brother didn’t see us on that log. No dating, James always says. I’m pretty sure “don’t kiss my best friend” is implied in there somewhere, especially since I’m not even allowed to talk to his friends. He’ll turn Sam into a limp pile of flesh and bones if he ever finds out.

I’ll never be able to live with myself if that happens.

One by one, I force my newly formed daydreams of Sam and I holding hands in the forest to shrivel and die. What was I expecting to happen? He doesn’t know anything about me. And no way does he like me enough to face off with my brother.

But when I reach for the doorknob, Sam grabs my hand. “Wait. I’ll see you again, right?”

He’s just being nice. Nothing more. I am invisible.

But the heat of his hand enveloping mine and the worry in his voice still stings, no matter what I tell myself. “I don’t think so.”

His stormy gray eyes bore into mine, imploring me to do…something. I don’t know what. I don’t think he does either, because after a long moment of staring at me, he lets go. Shoulders slumped, he turns away and heads back to his car.

I can’t see him drive away. Won’t. I stumble through the front door into the dimly lit kitchen, fist pressed into my stomach again, and collide with the open refrigerator door.

The door slams into my father’s side, knocking the can of beer he just opened out of his hand. It sloshes all over the ketchup and mustard bottles in the door and hits the linoleum with a dull thud-fizz. Sour yeast and hops taint the air.

“Damn it!”

Cursing my carelessness, I throw myself against the wall, out of his reach, and inch slowly toward the hallway like a shadow. The only light is coming from the open refrigerator and the television in the front room. Maybe he won’t see me. Maybe he’s too busy swearing at the condiments. Maybe he didn’t hear Sam’s car outside.

In the living room, a loud bratwurst commercial dissolves into the same cheering and jeering I’ve heard all my life. The Armory announcers are all racked up over the match they’re calling. The big name is either winning by a landslide or getting his ass handed to him. Since I’ve been forced to watch this particular video hundreds of times, I know the big name is winning by a landslide.

My father never lost in his prime.

He slams the refrigerator door and glares at me with bloodshot eyes.

Oh, no. I try to melt into the wall, but it’s no use.

“Don’ jus’ stand there, clean it up!”

I dash down the hall to the bathroom and grab my shower towel. He’s waiting for me, arms folded across his chest, still standing in the middle of the beer puddle in his holey tube socks. I drop to my knees at his feet and mop the spill up as best I can, trying to ignore the fact that James stood with his arms folded the exact same way an hour ago on the trail.

My father’s socks soak up a lot of the beer, but he makes no move to take them off. Maybe he’s waiting for me to offer? I won’t. No matter what he says, I’ll never touch him willingly. With the floor mostly dry and all the condiments cleaned off, I scramble to my feet hoping to escape to the garage where I’ll toss the dripping towel in the washer.

His hand snakes out and catches my elbow, bloodshot eyes fighting to focus on my hair.

“So, you’re tryin’ to look like your slut ma now, huh?”

I’m close enough to the living room to make out his rust-orange armchair and the pyramid of crushed beer cans on the coffee table in front of it. I can always gauge his mood by the number of cans in the pyramid. He’s already through two six-packs.

This is going to be very, very bad.

“It’s summer,” I say feebly. “Short hair is comfortable in the summer.”

The fifth round begins. Pausing in the foyer, my father watches his younger, blonder self land a wicked right hook that sends the other guy, a sinewy Hispanic that looks way too small to be fighting my father, to the ground in a shower of spit and blood. Shortest final round ever, my father always brags. I mouth the words along with him and hope he leaves it at that tonight.

He doesn’t.

Deceit, loss, rage. It’s all there in his glassy eyes when he turns to me. “Your ma used to keep her hair short like that.” He reaches for me, his meaty fingers digging into the soft flesh of my upper arm. If I try to run before he’s gotten in his first blow, or do anything to draw attention to the fact that I’m wearing a boy’s sweatshirt, this will be much worse. “She’d do anything to get a man to look at her.”

Coppery blood explodes inside my mouth when he knocks me to the ground. I’ve bitten something—my tongue, my cheek, my lip, probably all three. Now I can try to escape because he loves the chase. It’s like I’m a little girl all over again, scrambling backward across the faded carpet into the dining room as he stalks toward me and I plead for mercy that’s never going to come. He loves it when I beg.

I’m sick of begging.

Staggering to my feet, I focus all my fear and anger on his grim face. “Leave me alone, Daddy. I’m serious.”

He ignores me. “So where’d you whore yourself out tonight? The Armory? Those little shits they got fightin’ might talk big, but they ain’t never gonna be as good as me. How much they payin’ you girls nowadays? Twenty bucks? Thirty? Your ma used to let me screw her for a pack of cigarettes.”

The thought of him paying our mother for sex in cigarettes sends me over the edge. “I would never whore myself out to an Armory loser!”

My words hang like fumes in the eerily silent room.

I forget to breathe. My heart forgets to beat.

There are no bratwurst commercials to save me—the video is over.

My father already won.

When his eyes narrow and he takes a hesitant step closer, I know I’ve provoked the monster that lives inside of him. He follows when I back away.

My back hits the wall. In my frantic scrambling across the kitchen, I missed the hallway by three feet. Instead of the relative safety of my locked bedroom, I’m in the shadows of the entryway. Shadows that aren’t dark enough to hide the way my father’s eyes flash when his hand moves to his belt.

“Seems to me we’ve got a problem,” he says. “No way am I gonna let you sass me, and no way are you gonna ruin my reputation whorin’ yourself all over town. Maybe I oughta teach you a lesson. That’d be the honorable thing to do, and I’m honorable head to toe.”

No. No, no, no. I’ve heard him say the same thing to our mother. Heard the “lessons” he’s taught her.

I don’t want to lose my virginity to my father.

When he grabs me and drops to his knees, I fight with everything I’ve got and wail for James, for the mother who’ll never come, for Sam.

The front door slams open. My father rockets to his feet and spins around, fists cocked and ready to take out whoever had the nerve to interrupt.

James is faster.

His solid left hook sends our father staggering into the hallway. I watch, horrified, as he regains his footing and lurches toward my brother, a bloody grin on his face. “You’re gonna regret that, boy.”

“Get up, Sarah,” my brother urges.

I don’t know how he got here, or why he came at all. I just know when the warmth drains from James’s voice, he sounds exactly like our father. For a moment, I curl even further in on myself, shaking and clutching Sam’s sweatshirt to my body.

James throws another left hook, but our father ducks out of the way and laughs. Gritty determination fills my brother’s face. “Get up, Sarah!”

Sobbing, I get up and run.

Ten

There aren’t enough pillows. Not enough blankets. I wedge myself into our tiny closet and try to smother the sounds with James’s rumpled coveralls and soft white t-shirts, but their muffled curses bleed through. I cover my mouth and scream to fill my ears with something other than the dull thud of bodies slamming into the walls.

How could I be so stupid?

The closet blurs as I pass out and slip into the all-too-familiar nightmares. My father punching James in the mouth, the sharp thwack of a leather belt against naked flesh, my mother’s ear-bleeding scream as my father drags her across the living room by her hair.

And then new images pour in—ones I know aren’t real, but destroy me all the same. My father, swollen and bloody, shoving his tongue into my mouth, Sam lying on the floor limp and unblinking, James forcing me to swallow handfuls of our mother’s pills.

Weeks pass in a span of minutes. I feel his warmth and love before he touches me. Rough hands gently pull me out from beneath his bed where I somehow wound up with Sam’s sweatshirt wrapped around my head.

“It’s okay,” James whispers, smoothing hair matted with tears, blood, and God knows what else out of my face. “Everything’s okay.”

It’s not okay. It’s never going to be okay.

The way my father’s eyes flashed with something more than anger—I unleashed the monster I’d only seen glimpses of. The one that wants more than a daughter should ever give. What if he never goes away? James won’t always be around to stop him. He shouldn’t have been tonight. I barely make it to the tiny garbage can between our beds before I throw up.

Blackness.

A wet paper towel, cool against my forehead. A plastic cup of lukewarm water pressed to my lips. A peppermint candy slipped into my mouth.

James.

We’re lying in his bed. I’m trembling against his chest, drawing the warmth he’s throwing off like a furnace into the cold void of my heart. He runs his fingers up and down my arm, whispering our lullaby in my ear.

I suck in a breath of cooler air. How long have I been out this time? My lungs hurt. I’ve finally suffocated in my own skin. Maybe James did, too, because he’s holding me tighter than ever.

“I’ll never let him touch you like that,” he says. “He’ll have to kill me first.”

“Don’t.” I choke on the image of James dead at our father’s feet. “Just…don’t.”

“Look at me.”

I shake my head, shake it harder than the rest of my body shakes. After what just happened, if I see any of the blood or bruises on his body, I’ll lose it.

“You gotta look. You gotta see I’m okay.”

Thick fingers curl around my jaw and force my face upward. Other than the mostly dried blood at the corner of his mouth and a purple-ish tinge to his temple, James looks fine. There’s even a faint sparkle in his blue eyes as he smoothes more wayward hair from my face.

“Dad’s gonna have a nasty headache when he wakes up,” James tells me, barely suppressing a grin. “Sore ribs, too. Just watch where you step if you need a drink tonight.”

He did it. He finally took our father. I wish I could smile—James, the Avenger—but his cockiness quickly fades.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers. “I didn’t mean what I said at the party.”

“I know.”

“I won’t be an ass like that again, promise. Do you believe me?”

“I do. And I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have gone into the forest. I should’ve stayed with you.”

He stares at me for a long time. Long enough to make me nervous. His gaze traces my face, my hair, my mouth, the same way Sam’s did. This kind of intimacy never bothered me before, but tonight…I don’t know if anything will ever be the same.

“Stay away from Sam,” he finally says, rolling a strand of my hair between his fingers. “I can’t handle the thought of him touching you.”

My heart skips a beat. “What are you talking about?”

When his gaze meets mine, hot and unfamiliar, I’m suddenly very aware of how close he is. How tightly our bodies are pressed together. How he’s keeping us that way with one of his strong arms locked around my back and my legs trapped beneath one of his thighs.

He’s touching me everywhere.

I panic.

And then James closes the last bit of distance between us and kisses me.

Eleven

It’s over almost as soon it begins. The press of his chapped lips against mine, hot peppermint pushing into my mouth, then nothing. While I shove at his chest, trying to dislodge his body but getting nowhere except deeper into the sagging bed, James presses his forehead hard against mine and closes his eyes.

“What— Why?” I sputter.

“I’m sorry.” His eyes are still shut, his breathing uneven. “It just felt right.”

No, it felt wrong. My emotions, fear and horror mostly, swirl in dizzying circles when I think about exactly how wrong kissing my brother is. I’ll need the garbage can again if he doesn’t get off me quick.

He must feel the heaves I’m barely holding back because he lets go. Falling to my knees beside the bed, I glare at him. “Don’t ever do that again.”

Hurt flashes across his face. At least, I think it’s hurt. It’s gone before I’m sure I’ve seen it. An easy smile takes its place—the one that usually comforts me when nothing else can. It doesn’t comfort me today. I may never be comfortable again.

“It was just a kiss, Sarah. It’s no big deal.”

“It is to me.”

Rolling his eyes, he swings his long legs over the side of the bed and grabs his cell phone off the desk. “Whatever. I’m going to make a call and then we’ll go to bed.”

He stretches, fingers brushing the ceiling, and I allow myself to see the damage he hid from me—damage that looks too fresh to have come from anywhere but our father’s hands and fists. The bottom of his t-shirt is ripped at the hem, leaving a gaping hole in the black fabric that exposes too much of his bruised stomach. An angry red line runs the length of his arm and ends with a gash that’s still seeping blood. Our father’s high school ring, probably. I have scars from gashes just like it.

I force myself to look. To let the guilt and disgust tunnel through my insides like worms. Those bruises and gashes should be mine. I might as well have put them on his body myself.

James grabs a new shirt from the closet and pauses at the bedroom door. “You know why I do it, right? Why I let Dad do this to me instead of you?”

I close my eyes, my brain too full of lead for this conversation.

“Because I love you,” he says without waiting for my answer. “That used to mean something to you, Sarah.”

As soon as the door clicks shut, I crawl into my bed fully clothed, bury myself beneath the ratty quilt, and hug my knees to my chest. Through our thin walls, I hear my father’s rattling breaths out in the hallway and James’s hushed voice in the dining room. I can tell he’s irritated, but not what he’s saying or who he’s talking to.

That used to mean something to you, Sarah.

He’s right. James’s love used to mean everything to me.

But as the press of his lips against mine replays in my head, that love starts to feel heavy, like stones pulling me under the water.

Twelve

James isn’t in his bed when I wake up the next morning.

I glance at the clock. 8:12. I’m starving, but all I can think about is washing last night off my skin. Our father doesn’t get out of bed until at least nine-thirty on the weekends. Later, if he drank the night before. I should have plenty of time to take a scalding hot shower and get out of the house before he wakes up.

Sometime during the night, he must have dragged himself from the hallway into his room because there isn’t a hulking body for me to step over. I hear the quiet rasp of a spoon scraping up cereal and sugar, muffled crunching. James loves cornflakes, but he’ll only eat them with half a bag of sugar dumped on top. Most mornings, he sits at the table for at least forty-five minutes eating bowl after bowl of cornflakes, finishing off half a gallon of milk at a time.

Knowing I’ve got the bathroom to myself for a little while, I take my time in the shower—lather, scrub, rinse, repeat—over and over until my skin is pink and raw to the touch. My first palmful of shampoo sloshes to the bottom of the bathtub when I reach for hair that’s probably in the Dumpster behind the salon by now. I miss my hair, but rather than dwell on why, I tell myself I’m saving us money on shampoo. Every dollar saved is a dollar closer to us getting out of this house.

Except, after last night, I’m not sure the original plan is a good idea anymore.

I shake my head. No. Of course James and I should still move in together. Taking on my father last night made James extra emotional, that’s all. Or he might’ve still been high. He never would’ve kissed me if he’d been in his right mind.

I shut off the shower.

Squeezing the last of the water from my hair, I slide the tattered curtain open and reach for my towel—

“Oh my God!”

I tear the curtain shut. The bathroom door—which I lock and double check five times before turning on the water every time I take a shower—is open a crack, just enough for me to see a flash of white fabric and then nothing.

When I get my breathing under control, I clutch the curtain to my chest and peer into the bathroom.

The door is closed.

Scrambling out of the tub, my shaking hands fumble with the doorknob. I didn’t imagine the whole thing—I know what I saw—but everything is exactly how I left it. Locked.

I hastily towel off and throw on my clothes, blood burning my cheeks up from the inside. Before I brush my teeth or run a comb through my hair, I dash down the hall into the kitchen to scream at James who I know will be wearing a white t-shirt. Kissing me was bad enough, but spying on me in the shower? I don’t care how emotional he is!

“Hey, Sar-bear.”

I blink at him from where I’ve skidded to a halt in front of the stove. He’s sitting at the puke-green dining room table, dumping the last of the milk into a bowl of cornflakes already drowning in sugar.

In a bright green t-shirt and jeans.

He pauses mid-bite, dripping spoonful of milk and flakes poised above his bowl. “Something wrong?”

“No, nothing’s wrong,” I say.

His face is pale, his expression empty.

He looks guilty.

But the counters are clear. There aren’t any white t-shirts hanging from the back of his chair or stuffed into the corner. I consider looking in the refrigerator, but its hinges squeal when the door opens and closes. I would have heard that from the bathroom.

Oh, God. Of course it wasn’t James.

“Have you seen Dad?” I croak.

His gaze drops to his bowl of cornflake glop. “I think he’s still in bed. Why are you so freaked out?”

“I’m not.” But I am, and we both know it. I can’t stop searching the room for white t-shirts or glancing over my shoulder at the dark hallway. Trying to focus, I glance at the clock.

8:54.

Denial wells like lava in my gut. Maybe he got up early to use the bathroom. When he realized I was in there, he went back to bed. No harm done.

But what about the locked door?

I sink into the chair farthest from my brother and watch him methodically shovel cereal into his mouth. Watching his mouth only reminds me of where it’s been and what it felt like.

Firm. Dry. Warm.

That’s the last thing I should be thinking about, so I force myself to grab the box of cereal and study the nutrition information. I’ve gotten all the way through the daily supply of iron when James gently takes the box away and reaches for my hand.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I know you’re still pissed about me kissing you last night, but I can’t stand thinking you’re scared to be around me now. Are you scared?”

I pull my hand away and mumble, “No.”

“Yeah, you are. You can’t even look at me.”

Without warning, he shoves away from the table, knocking his chair over in the process. I flinch away from the sound of dishes being slammed into the sink, my eyes on the clock—8:56—and my hands over my ears. If I can’t hear the sound, maybe my father won’t either.

“This is killing me,” he says, throwing open the pantry cabinet so he can cram the still-open box of cornflakes back in. Cereal spills onto the shelf and rains to the floor. “I know I fucked up but, God, can you really blame me for freaking out? For all I knew, Sam dragged you off into the trees and fucked you like he fucks all the girls at Leslie’s parties.”

My stomach churns when I picture Sam coaxing girls like Claire up the trail to our log. No, not our log. There’s no our anything. Even though I shouldn’t, I start to ask James which girls and how many, but he’s too caught up in his rant.

“And then when you left, all I could think about was what Dad might do to you if I didn’t get here in time to stop him. I thought I’d find you messed up and bloody and—”

James chokes on whatever image is in his head, his eyes fiery and wet. When I stand up, he backs away. “I actually prayed the whole way home. I prayed the cops wouldn’t pull me over and throw me in jail for driving high. I prayed Sam would be smart enough to stay here until I got home instead of leaving you. I prayed I’d stay sane long enough to make Dad pay if I got here too late…”

This time he actually does lose it. In seventeen years, I’ve never seen my brother cry. He grinds his palms into his eyes and hunches over as he tries to keep it in. Seeing him like this shreds me to the core.

He doesn’t shove me away when I slip my arms around his waist and bury my face in his chest. “God, James, please don’t.”

“You’re everything to me,” he says. “I’ll never forgive myself if something like that happens because I fucked up. Never.”

Listening to his broken words, feeling his back tremble beneath my hands, I forgive my brother for everything he can’t. “Shh…you saved me, just like you always do.”

He nods and squeezes me tighter. “Love you, Sarah.”

“I love you, too.”

And I do.

Thirteen

Someone knocks on the door a few moments later. James is slow to release me, but I know it’s because he’s embarrassed about crying, not because he wants to stay close. Though I’m no longer sure last night meant anything to Sam—or whether this makes me relieved or sad—I run back to the bathroom to comb my hair and brush my teeth, just in case it’s him.

I’m pathetic.

Whoever it is has already knocked three times by the time I accidentally swallow my mouthwash and race back to the entryway, just as James answers the door.

For the first time ever, Sam looks uncomfortable standing on our doorstep. “Hey,” he says, his eyes passing from me to my brother. “I, uh, came to check on Sarah. She seemed pretty upset last night, so…”

Beside me, James has gone rigid. “She’s fine, no thanks to you.”

Sam gives him a dark look. “Right. Because she would’ve been much better off hanging out with Alex and his idiots until the cops showed up? Hell, I’m surprised you’re even here.”

James grumbles something highly inappropriate under his breath. I glare at him. Clearly they’re incapable of handling this like adults. “I’m walking to the library. Why don’t you guys hang out today? You know, remember that you’re actually best friends. There’s probably a baseball game on.”

Baseball games remind me of the Dodgers, which reminds me that I still have Sam’s black sweatshirt balled up somewhere on my bedroom floor. After all the crying I did last night, there’s no way I can give it back until it’s been washed.

“I gotta work,” my brother says.

“Me, too,” Sam says. “Next weekend, maybe.”

James ignores him and gives me a hug. “I picked up a half shift today. Figured we could use the money. Promise you’ll leave?”

“Promise.”

“I’ll come by the library when I get off.” He hesitates on the doorstep, shooting Sam a sideways glare, then stalks down the walkway to his truck. “You and me need to talk,” he tosses back over his shoulder.

“Yep,” is all Sam says. As soon as James is out of earshot, Sam turns to me, his eyes the serious, storm-cloud gray I love. Used to love, I correct. “I don’t want things to be weird between us,” he says, “but if I made you uncomfortable—”

“You didn’t.” And then, because I can’t help myself, “Why? Have things gotten weird with all the other girls or something?”

He frowns. “What other girls?”

I desperately want to finish this conversation, to see if the perplexed look on his face means what I hope it does, but James backs his truck into the street and honks the horn way too loud and way too long for nine o’clock on a Saturday morning. All the dogs on our street start barking, and someone a few houses down screams profanities out their window.

Still frowning, Sam says, “I better go before someone calls the cops.”

From the doorway, I watch him cross our scraggly lawn and climb into his beat up car. My brother lets up on the horn as soon as Sam starts the engine, then guns it down the street toward the mill. I wait until Sam’s car disappears in the other direction before giving up hope that he’ll come back.

Sighing, I close the door and get started on the cereal and dish mess James left behind. I wash and dry his bowl and spoon, throw the milk carton into the recycling bin in the garage, wipe down the counters, sink, and table, and I am about to sweep up the last handful of crushed cornflakes when I hear it.

My father’s bedroom door.

I freeze, my eyes on the microwave clock.

9:21

He’s early. He shouldn’t be out of bed for another nine minutes, at least. Nine minutes that I now desperately need because I’m running behind and will be lucky to get all my things together and out the door by 9:30.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

The bathroom door clicks shut. I hear the toilet seat flip up and hit the tank, his groan of relief—

My hands fly to my ears and the broom clatters to the floor. I’ve got thirty seconds, tops, before he staggers out to the garage to get his morning beer fix. Maybe he’ll be in a better mood now that he’s gotten a full night’s sleep. Maybe he won’t punish me for James kicking his ass. Maybe he’s already forgotten about the spilled beer and the lesson he wanted to teach me.

I make a run for my room. I’ll just lay low until this blows over. If I give him a few days, enough time to lose his mind to the beer and come back around, I’ll be safe again.

The toilet flushes. I’m shaking too hard to open my bedroom door, let alone grab the keys, my purse, and a pair of shoes that are lying somewhere inside. He’s at least ten feet away, but I can sense him through the walls.

Someone knocks on the front door. I give up trying to get my stuff and dash to the foyer.

Please let it be someone I can let in to distract my father long enough for me to get out. Please, please, please.

The floor feels like it drops out from beneath my feet when I open the door and Sam gives me a timid smile. “I didn’t want to tell your brother, but I don’t have to work until five tonight,” he says. “Can we talk?”

I’m not at all prepared for my reaction to him. Sure, I’d been on the verge of grabbing whoever it was—Mrs. Espinosa, the FedEx guy, one of the local church missionaries—and throwing them into my father’s path, but this…this is something else altogether.

A choked cry escapes from somewhere deep inside my chest, and I fling myself into his arms. “I need to go to the library right now. Can you take me?”

His smile vanishes. “What’s going on?”

Behind me, I hear my father’s raspy morning cough that’s been getting worse for as long as I can remember. The bathroom door opens. Shuts. More coughing. And then my bedroom door opens. “Sarah? Where you at, baby girl?”

My stomach convulses, and I cover my mouth to keep in the panic threatening to escape. My bedroom is the only room in this house where I’ve ever felt safe. He’s never apologized for anything in all the years I’ve been alive—not for the beatings, not for the horrid things he’s called me, not for any of the lessons he’s tried to teach me over the years—so he sure as hell isn’t in there to say sorry.

Sam’s lips tighten into a grim line. He’s staring so intently into my eyes, I’m positive he sees my soul. “Do you have everything you need?”

I’m barefoot and my purse is still inside, but I nod anyway.

Keeping me locked to his body, Sam silently closes my front door and slips down the path to the driveway. I’m in the front seat of his car and we’re racing down the street toward the park before I dare breathe again. There’s no way I’m buckling up. Even the thought of being strapped to a seat freaks me out—no escape, no control, no room to breathe.

Sam must understand because he doesn’t force me.

Part of me hopes a U-Haul truck will slam into my side of Sam’s car so I don’t have to face another second in that house. The other part is dying to lean across the small emergency brake console that’s separating us and lay my head in Sam’s lap. James used to hold me like that when I was younger, but I stopped asking years ago. It feels too close now. With Sam, after the way I reacted to his touch last night, close is what I need.

But dragging him into my private hell isn’t an option. I need to get it together before he starts asking questions I can’t answer. Somehow, I doubt he’ll understand when I tell him about my father, or that James kissed me afterward. And, oh yeah, I’ve been in love with him forever, but now that he’s actually paying attention to me, we can’t be together because I’m too afraid my brother will kill him.

When we pull into a never-used gravel parking area behind all the trees, near the picnic table and shed where he, Alex, and my brother used to hang out after school, Sam cuts the engine, reaches across the console, and pries one of my hands from my knees. I’m shaking so hard, he probably thinks I’m trying to wriggle free of his grasp.

Calm. Collected. Apologize for acting like a freak, then send him on his way.

Except, when I see our fingers laced together, and how small my hand looks trembling in his, I burst into tears.

Crying in front of him is horrible and humiliating and I don’t want to do it. If I stumble off into the trees and wait until it’s dark, I can sneak into my house through the bedroom window. “Please let go,” I whimper. “I really need to go.”

Gaping emptiness swallows me the second he drops my hand. I barely comprehend him opening his door, storming around to my side of the car, and hauling me out into his arms. Even though I’ve wanted Sam to hold me for as long as I’ve liked boys, there’s no way to shut off the panic attack that’s been brewing since James left me alone in the middle of the woods and told me to go home to our father.

Sam has to feel me fighting against him, but he just holds on tighter.

My sobs get lost somewhere in the fistfuls of his brown t-shirt, which I’m clutching to my face and making a splotchy mess of with my tears. Big, dark splotches the same color as his hair. I want to tell him I never cry and he should leave me in the car until I get it out of my system so he doesn’t have to see me crumble into a blubbering mess, but I can’t get the words out. They’d also be a lie. James is the only person who can calm me down.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Sam breathes into my ear. “I will never hurt you.”

When he lifts me onto the hood of his car and stands between my legs, his hold on me becomes tender instead of restraining. I listen to him murmur the comforting things I’ve only ever heard out of James’s mouth.

“Sarah…”

I close my eyes and breathe in the sound of my name on his lips. I’m so selfish. Now that I’ve felt this, I never want to let go. The blistering heat pouring into me from every part of him replaces the memory of James lying on top of me. The hard lines of his body erase the memories of my father’s threats and fists.

I forget my father. I forget the hell I live in. I forget James. Even if it’s only temporary and I can’t allow myself to return it, I want to know what it feels like to be comforted by someone who doesn’t have to love me back.

I’m not prepared when he leans back to wipe the tears from my cheeks with his thumbs and pins me with an intense look that screams something I don’t understand.

I’m even less prepared when my body responds.

Heart pounding, my arms wind easily around his neck.

Breath catching, I stretch to meet him halfway.

Our mouths fit together perfectly, just like I always knew they would.

I should pull away.

I don’t.

Fourteen

I have no idea how long we’ve been kissing. Five minutes? Forty? Sam’s like a drug, kissing me higher and higher until nothing and no one matters anymore. Three times, he’s tried to apologize for taking advantage of me. Three times, I’ve shut him up with one of the deep kisses I learned by copying him.

I never want to come down from where he’s taking me.

Eventually, Sam slides me off his car and tries to lead me to the picnic table. One too many jagged rocks bite into my bare feet when he sets me down in the gravel, ending that plan. Instead, he scoops me up, says something about needing to buy me flip-flops, and wedges us into the front seat of his car.

I almost laugh when he reaches for the lever to lower the seat and we fall backward, but coherent thought vanishes the second he pulls me down on top of him. Soon, we’ll need to stop kissing long enough to talk about why we can’t do this. Soon, but not now. Not when Sam’s tongue is exploring my mouth, and his hands are in places I’ve never been touched before.

“This feels so good,” he whispers between kisses.

“Understatement.”

He chuckles against my lips, then kisses me even more deeply.

The sun is high and hot by the time I pull away. The long-sleeve shirt and jeans I have on cling to my skin in a hundred wrong ways until all I want is to rip them off.

Sam runs his hands through my short hair and watches me for several long minutes. Eventually, he says, “Talk to me, Sarah. Tell me what happened back there.”

The way he’s watching me kills my buzz. Like he knows just how close to crumbling I still am. I squeeze them shut and lean in, desperate to feel his lips again, wanting that high.

“No,” he says. “Not until you tell me what’s wrong. I’ve known you for a long time and I’ve never seen you that freaked out.”

“I don’t want to talk about it, okay? I just want to forget.”

“Is everything okay? I mean…” He hesitates, tracing one of the thin scars on the back of my hand. “Is everything as okay as it can be, considering?”

My mouth drops open. He knows. I can hear it in his voice, see it in the way he looks at my hand. For years, I’ve wondered how he could be James’s friend and not know what goes on in our house. All the bruises and cuts and broken bones…only an idiot with no knowledge of our tree-less yard and stair-less house would believe all the stories our father told the doctors.

“You knew?”

Sam looks away. “Not that your brother would ever admit it, but I suspected.”

The quiet voice in the back of my head that’s been whispering this is too good to be true gets a lot louder when I realize what he’s saying. “So, wait,” I say, my anger rising. “Is that why you’re doing this? You feel sorry for me?”

“Hell no! I told you—I’ve wanted this to happen for a long time. And if it means I can help keep you safe, even better.”

The hot way he looks at me is nearly my undoing. I manage a weak, “Oh.”

Luckily, he suggests we sit at the picnic table to get some air. I wince just thinking about the thirty yards of gravel I’ll have to cross to get there when he squats in front of me. “C’mon. I’ll give you a ride over.”

No one’s ever offered to give me a piggy-back ride before. It’s something normal parents give their kids, or even better, boyfriends give their girlfriends. Something I’ve never thought I would actually experience for myself.

When we’re settled, him on the table and me sitting in front of him, he takes my hand into his and traces each of my fingers and the lines of my palm. Neither of us says anything for a long time, just content to be close and enjoy the sunshine.

“So if we can’t talk about your father, maybe you can elaborate on the ‘other girls’ thing?” he asks after awhile. “I hope you don’t mean what I think you mean.”

“My brother says you’ve been with a lot of girls at Leslie’s parties.” Realizing I sound like a jealous girlfriend—not that I’m his girlfriend—I quickly backtrack. “It’s okay if you have. I mean, I’m not reading anything into this.”

“Wow,” he says, then shakes his head. “Until last night, I’ve spent every party wandering around by myself. The girls that hang out at Leslie’s aren’t exactly my type.”

I attempt to hide my relief and the flare of giddiness over the prospect that I might be Sam Donavon’s type, but the grin on Sam’s face tells me I’ve failed. I can feel us dancing around the inevitable. Heart-to-heart talk in the kitchen or not, I know my brother will go after Sam. “I don’t think I’m worth how mad he’s going to be when he—”

Sam cuts me off with one of those intense looks that make my heart stumble. “If I didn’t think you were worth it, we wouldn’t be here right now. That’s why I came over this morning—to tell your brother to go to hell if he has a problem with this.” He frowns and touches the strand of hair that’s fallen into my face. “I should’ve just blurted it out before he took off.”

Had Sam said anything about last night, there would’ve been a brawl on my front lawn. The police would’ve been called for sure. “We can’t tell James. I mean, not that there’s anything to tell,” I add immediately, “but if there is…?” I look at him, unable to keep the hope out of my voice.

“There is.” But his frown deepens and his hand falls away. “Unless you don’t want to be with me?”

“No, that’s not it at all,” I say. “I just don’t want him to kill you.”

He blinks at me for a few moments, then laughs. “Won’t happen.”

“Don’t underestimate him.”

His smile turns cocky. I love it. “I’ve been able to take James since we were kids. You’re going to have to trust me when I say we’re safe.”

While I’d like to trust him, I’ve lived with James and our father long enough to know the difference between fighting for pride and fighting because you’re terrified of losing something you love. I’d bet my life on my brother in a fight like that. “Please,” I say and press my body against his. “Keep this secret for me.”

He turns his face into my cheek and breathes me in. “Fine, but it’s taken me long enough to get here, so you’re going to have to let me savor whatever time I get.”

“Deal.”

He grins and kisses me. No preamble, no pausing, no warming into it. My finger hooks around the thin ball chain I’ve seen peeking out from beneath the collar of his t-shirt for as long as I can remember. His breath catches. Slowly, without breaking our kiss, I slide the chain out until two dog tags swing free and into my palm. Only then do I pull away to read the name.

“Joe Donavon?”

“My dad. He died when I was twelve.”

What do I say to that? Somehow “I’m sorry for your loss” doesn’t feel like near enough when I’ve spent the last hour kissing the guy. Plus, I have no idea what kind of dad Sam had. If he was like mine, Sam’s probably relieved. If he wasn’t, I have no idea how he feels. I try to imagine James dying. No one matters to me as much as James.

While I struggle to come up with the right thing to say, he watches me with a half-amused, half-disappointed smile curling the corner of his mouth. “Don’t worry about it,” he says. “He was great and I miss him, but that was a long time ago. I’m okay.”

I can’t make myself drop the dog tags. There’s an energy pulsing through them that reminds me of a heartbeat, or maybe I’m just feeling Sam’s heart pounding in his chest. Whatever the case, dropping them will feel like I’m dropping something important. I’m still clutching them when his warm hand closes around mine and he leans in to kiss me again.

Eventually, he pulls away and glances at my bare feet. The reminder of how fast we left my house hangs heavy in the air. I open my mouth to apologize again, but he shakes his head.

“Let’s buy you some shoes.”

Reluctantly, I let go of his father’s dog tags.

Fifteen

Two hours later, we’re sitting at one of the dozen or so black wrought iron bistro tables outside Slice of Heaven, munching on two slices of double cheese pizza. My feet, clad in new pink flip-flops, swing back and forth. The warm breeze on my toes must be what freedom feels like.

I watch Sam pick a piece of burnt cheese off his crust and flick it to the black birds hopping around a few feet away. They fight over the crumb, squawking and nipping at each other until one of the smaller birds snags it and flies off toward the trees in the parking lot.

James’s truck pulls into one of the open spaces several storefronts away. I gasp and quickly scoot my chair away from Sam’s, gesturing frantically towards the truck.

“I’m going, I’m going,” Sam grumbles and pushes his chair away from the table. The painful screech of iron grinding against concrete has nothing on the hard look on Sam’s face as he picks up his pizza plate and walks into the building.

By the time James flops into the chair next to mine, Sam is gone and I’ve managed to fill my head with mostly non-embarrassing thoughts. Like how good Sam looks today, and whether the waitress who followed him inside was noticing, too.

James reaches over to tousle my hair and tap my chin. “Hey, was that Sam I just saw walking away?”

While he’s smiling, I hear the warning lying just beneath the words. I force myself to laugh. “I don’t know. You told me to stay away from him.”

“Guys are bastards,” my brother says. “It’s for the best, trust me.”

“You’re a guy.”

My brother snatches the last of my pizza from my plate and shoves it into his mouth. “Yeah, but I’d never hurt you. You should’ve left me a note, by the way,” he says. “I’ve been looking for you for hours.”

I hardly think leaving a note telling my father where to find me would’ve been a good idea, but I’m not going to tell James that. “Sorry. I left in a hurry.”

He freezes. “Why?”

Heat rises in my cheeks. I hadn’t wanted to tell James this part. Not at all. “Dad opened our door looking for me—”

“How do you know? You should’ve been gone before he woke up.”

“Yeah, but—”

“I told you to leave before he got up!”

The daggers in his voice prick my skin all over, even through my long-sleeves and jeans. “He got up early. I didn’t know he’d get up early!”

“So, what, you just welcomed him into our room?”

My mouth falls open, but before I can lash out, Sam appears beside me. He plants his palms on the table and leans toward my brother. “Stop yelling at her!”

James rockets to his feet. “Mind your own fucking business!”

Two tables over, a group of mothers chatting over smoothies glares at us as they get up to push their strollers away. The busboy from inside the pizza joint pokes his head out the door.

“I don’t care whether or not you want me and her to be friends. I’m not going to watch you treat her like shit,” Sam says. “Let’s go, Sarah.”

He holds out his hand to me. A challenge, a hot fierceness I so desperately want to wrap myself up in, flashes across his face. If I take his hand, James will go ballistic. I won’t risk Sam getting hurt, or him deciding that dealing with my overprotective brother isn’t worth it. We haven’t even been together a whole day.

“It’s okay,” I say, looking anywhere but at Sam. “Don’t you have to leave for work?”

His hand drops to his side. I meet his eyes and the disappointment I see swirling in their gray depths hurts. “Yeah, I guess I do.”

I watch him walk away toward his car, which we left parked on the other side of the mall. Where he had stopped at the little shoe store to buy my flip-flops. I feel like an awful person, but why didn’t he stay away? I was stupid to think we’ll be able to hide this from my brother.

“You lied to me,” James says quietly.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t want to make you mad.”

“Is something going on between you and Sam? First the sweatshirt last night, and now…whatever the hell that just was.”

I shake my head a little too urgently. “No, nothing’s going on. He forgot to tell me something and showed up right as Dad was waking up, so I got in his car and we took off. We were at the park for a little bit, and then we came over here and walked around for the rest of the afternoon.”

James’s gaze turns appraising. I feel him dissecting every detail of my expression, feel his eyes slide further down, to my neck, my rumpled shirt, and finally to my arms clasped tight around my knees. “You sure about that?”

No, but I’m not about to tell him what we’ve been doing. “Sam’s your friend. Why can’t he be my friend, too?”

James grunts. “I don’t like the way he looks at you.”

“You can’t be my only friend forever.” I reach for his hand and squeeze. “One of these days you’ll meet ‘the one’ and you won’t want your little sister hanging around. And then, when you get married…”

He’s staring at our hands, a hint of the frustration and the need I saw on his face last night in his eyes. He laces our fingers together. “That’ll never happen.”

Though I don’t want to lose him, the thought of my brother alone for the rest of his life makes me sad. I squeeze his hand. James and I have been joined at the hip for as long as I can remember. He’s always been there for me, protecting me, loving me. He deserves to have someone do the same for him. Someone other than his sister.

Gently, so he doesn’t think I’m rejecting him, I slide my hand out of his and stand up. “Triple Scoop’s running a special today. Buy one milkshake, get one free. Interested?”

“Do I ever turn down food?”

When he smiles at me, I see the brother from my memories. Maybe, if he stays this way, believing I can have the two things I want most—my brother’s love and Sam—won’t feel so impossible.

Sixteen

I’m having the strangest dream.

Like a ghost, my mother glides into the room. She picks up one of James’s CDs, sets it back down, and runs her palm across the bristles of my brush. The four-by-six picture of James and me on our dresser that has been listing to the left for months catches her attention next. She rights it, then drifts toward James’s bed.

A thin, white t-shirt drips from her tiny frame like silk, and the shorts she’s wearing look like ones James hasn’t worn since middle school. Her features are so soft in the dim glow of our night light, I nearly mistake her for a bruised-up, long-haired version of me. Or maybe that’s my mind’s way of filling in the blanks since I haven’t seen her for more than a couple seconds at a time in years.

If she sees me watching her, she takes no notice of it. I watch her gaze down at James and trace the outline of his foot hanging off the edge of the bed through the thin blanket. He stirs. I hold my breath when she pulls her hand away, but he doesn’t wake. Slowly, she moves to the head of his bed and touches his hair.

I want to wake up. Dreams like this do too much damage. Already, I can feel hot tears pooling in the corners of my eyes, remembering the shouts I heard coming from her bedroom earlier. Crying over a mother who couldn’t care less about us? I won’t do it. I refuse.

When she turns to me, I close my eyes and try to redirect the dream. She’s in here to steal my things like she always does when I’m not home—that’s all this is. If I open my eyes, I’ll see her rummaging through the closet, and since it’s my dream, she’ll be stealing James’s clothes instead of mine. The warmth streaking down my cheek onto the pillow isn’t real.

I can’t remember my mother’s touch. If not for James insisting I’ve blocked out all the good things about her, I’d swear she’s never touched me. Which is why, when I feel the first hesitant brush of her fingers on my cheek, wiping away a tear, I forget how to breathe.

Her fingers are soft and smell like old tobacco. I guess that makes sense since she’s always smoking. Against my will, I lean into her touch until she’s cupping my cheek and I open my eyes. There is an odd sense of wonder buried behind the bruises on her face. Pained, longing wonder. As she hesitantly caresses my cheek, her mouth turns up into a small smile so like my own.

“Sarah,” she breathes.

How can a dream feel so real?

Her eyes water when my trembling hand reaches for hers. I’m going to touch my mother. Even if this is a dream, every part of me craves this contact. Will her skin feel like mine? Will her knuckles be bony like James’s? Dream or not, touching her will change everything.

Before I’ve done more than feel the heat emanating from her skin, she yanks her hand away and shoots a terrified gaze at the door.

“Mom?”

Her eyes are frantic when she looks from the door to me and back again. She shakes her head, opens and closes her mouth like she wants to say something, but I can’t hear the words. I sit up in my bed and reach for her hand again, sniffling and scrubbing the stupid tears from my eyes.

But just like every other dream, no matter how hard I wish, what I want is just out of reach.

“Save James,” she whispers to me.

And then, just like that, she’s gone.

Seventeen

Screaming.

“Sarah, you gotta get up.”

I burrow deeper into my pillow and reach for James. He’s the only one who can make the nightmares go away. I find his arm and hug it to my chest underneath the blanket.

He groans. “Ah, God. Don’t do this now.”

The screams escalate into gurgling screeches that curdle the air in the room.

“Please,” James says in a broken voice. “Something’s wrong. I need you!”

Before I’ve opened my eyes, I’m on my feet. Stumbling, clinging to James as he drags me along, I make it into the hallway and down to our mother’s wide open door.

Nothing could prepare me for what I see.

Our mother lies skewed and twisted in the middle of her bed, one leg hanging off the side. Arching away from the mattress, she lets out another scream.

Agony, my sleep-muddled mind tells me. This is what agony sounds like.

Her thin, white t-shirt sticks to her glistening skin and rides up around her thighs. I recognize the t-shirt by the ancient brown stain on the bottom hem. Years ago, my father wore it under his scratchy red flannel coat while working on his car. I remember that particular day, how dismal and drizzly it had been, because it had been one of the few times James didn’t show up in time.

The ancient brown stain is my blood.

Another shriek of agony. Convulsing that shakes the floorboards beneath my feet. James yells at me to call for help, to find our father, to get a neighbor, something.

I barely hear him. I’m too busy staring at my mother, trying to piece together the bits of my dream that are scattering in the face of her screams. Familiar bruises. Fingertips on my cheek. Her whispered words.

The memory is so vivid and painful, I refuse to hang onto it. To distract myself, I force my attention back to the room I haven’t set foot in since James and I snuck in to steal those pills. There are pictures on the wall opposite her bed. The old Las Vegas Strip, Times Square at night, the Hollywood sign—all magazine fold-outs judging by the creases—hang from multi-colored thumbtacks. I didn’t know she had pictures. Then again, for years, I’ve done nothing but open the door a crack and peek in to make sure she’s still alive.

Wadded up tissues, bottles, and empty cigarette boxes lay strewn all over the floor and sit heaped on the table next to her bed. Dozens of orange medicine bottles sit in various stages of emptiness on the old dresser that used to be James’s when we were kids. All but one of the knobs are missing now and the top drawer sits crooked in its track. The pair of silky blue panties dangling from the corner look completely out of place.

Cursing at me, James barrels out into the hallway.

Morbid curiosity draws me farther into the room, toward the ghost who’s inhabited my mother’s body for as long as I can remember. Her head wrenches right. Left. Though her eyes have rolled up into her head, I know they’re the same pale hazel as my own. Small, freckled nose. Same pointy chin James says makes me look like a pixie. Stringy dishwater blond hair so like my own sticks to her bruised face and fans out across the pillow, the strands changing patterns every time she thrashes the other direction.

Even our screams sound the same.

And then it occurs to me that this still might be a nightmare. That, this time, I get to watch myself die in a dingy, disgusting bed instead of experience it.

When James runs back into the room, he’s tearing at his hair and looking like he’s going to cry or throw up or both.

Save James.

I’m across the room and in his arms within seconds, trying to protect him from our mother’s screams by covering his ears. Clinging to each other, we watch helplessly as she clutches at the sheets, the last of her screams more gurgling screeches as she drowns in whatever is filling her body. Something white and sticky leaks from her mouth.

James shoves me away and throws up all over a pile of rumpled laundry at our feet. More t-shirts. An old pair of my pants. The shorts from my dream. My white Easter dress with its torn hem.

Before he’s done, the room falls into an abrupt, eerie stillness so alarming after all the shuddering and shaking. James climbs to his feet, wiping his mouth on his shirt, and stares at our mother. I’m staring, too.

She’s not dead. Not yet. Through the viscous white foam, she hitches and sputters through her last two breaths. Her fingers relax.

“Oh, shit,” James whispers.

I can hear the sirens screaming toward us. They’re probably rounding the corner by the park right now, and soon, our house will be overrun by uniforms and swirling red lights. They’ll be too late. Will the police come? Will they sense the bruises hidden under our clothes? Will they ask about the ring of burn marks that form a perfect band around my mother’s ankle? I sink onto the side of the bed and touch her bare foot. See the chipped nail polish on her toes. It’s the same sparkly blue color James bought me last year. The tiny bottle disappeared a few days later.

From the doorway, wearing a pair of old pinstriped boxers and a blue, beer-stained t-shirt, our father gazes at her now still body. I get up and move closer to James, who doesn’t seem to see anything but our mother, and study the complete lack of emotion on our father’s face. I expected him to gloat or at least crack open a beer and toast to his freedom. He just stares.

Sick as it sounds after what I just watched her go through, I’m relieved. My mother’s in a place where he can’t hurt her anymore.

His gaze meets mine and holds it for several long seconds.

I shiver.

And then he walks out of the room.

Eighteen

There won’t be a funeral. Not even a wake. Who would come? As far as I know, my mother doesn’t have any family, and my father hasn’t talked to his since he ran away to be a boxer when he was my age. Phantom aunts and uncles and grandparents haunt me now, whispering promises of what our family might have been like if only we’d been in contact.

All I can think about are my mother’s blue toenails.

All James can think about is her dead body.

“Do you think caskets are expensive?”

With how often he gets stuck being the man of the house, it’s hard to remember James is only nineteen. Perched on the arm of the couch, his hair sticking out every which way from how many times he’s raked his fingers through it, he looks every bit the teenager he is.

“We should just cremate her body and dump the ashes somewhere in the middle of the forest,” I tell him, irritated that our father isn’t handling this. “She’d probably prefer being alone than rotting in a graveyard full of dead people. Plus, it’s probably cheaper.”

He looks horrified, but nods.

Eight different drugs—that’s how many the medical examiner found in our mother’s bedroom amongst the sea of orange bottles. We watched him march past us, all of the bottles sealed away in a huge plastic baggie. None of the paramedics knew which she’d overdosed on—James asked—but my guess is the one he and I took all those years ago.

“We’ll let you know what we find out,” the medical examiner says in a clipped voice on his way out the door.

I think he’s just as pissed off at our father as we are. Ol’ Knockout has been in his armchair ever since the paramedics arrived and carted her body away, the same beer in his hand. Sometimes I see him bring it to his lips. Other times he just looks at the can. At least he put on a pair of rumpled jeans so he’s wearing more than his thin boxers.

When all the strangers finally clear out of our house, I force James to sit down with a bowl of cornflakes at the dining room table. He’s pastier than normal and hasn’t stopped shaking since this morning. Not even an extra dose of sugar in his cereal snaps him out of his trance-like state. After pouring him two bowls only to watch each turn to soggy, sugary slop, I give up.

He lets me take him by the hand and lead him into our bedroom. Forcing my squeamishness over seeing his skin aside, I help him out of his t-shirt so he doesn’t have to deal with the smear of drying vomit across the chest. Before I can find him a replacement, he wraps his arms around me and begins to sob—harsh, guttural sounds ripped from deep inside his chest. I close my eyes and hug him as tightly as I can. James’s skin against my cheek—hot and smooth and enveloping—is comforting in a way layers of clothes wouldn’t be.

By the time we’ve moved to his bed and he huddles against me, wet and sticky from all the crying, I feel like I’m the only one in the world who can anchor him.

Seeing him like this, I know without a doubt I’ll never break my half of the pact. How could I? The few times we’ve made eye contact, the terrified little boy from my memories has been the one staring back at me. The tough nineteen-year-old that works way too hard and loves way too deeply is gone, at least for the night.

When I finally cry, the tears are for James, not for our mother.

Dinnertime comes and goes without our father shouting at me to make him something to eat. The television clicked on hours ago and I’ve heard the creaky hinges of our refrigerator opening and closing at least half a dozen times. I can’t believe he’s moved on so quickly, though I suppose it makes sense. Can’t mourn what you never loved.

Or what you killed.

The cold look he gave me before leaving her room?

It was a warning.

Closing my eyes, I force all the violent, bitter thoughts from my mind and focus on the warmth of my brother’s body and his soothing fingers threading through my hair. His warmth, his heart, his life—all three feel more vital than ever. If he knew what our father did, he’d lose it. I have to hide this from him. I won’t let him snap and throw away everything.

Save James.

It’s my turn to protect my brother.

Instead of nightmares like I expect, my dreams that night are filled with Sam—his smooth skin, hot kisses, and gentle touches. We’re tangled together in the front seat of his car again, but this time he’s shirtless. I can’t get enough of how his skin feels sliding against mine when he pushes up my shirt.

His hot palms are on my ribs. His mouth travels lazily from my hair to my cheeks to my closed eyes. When he finally kisses me, I’m stunned by how loved and treasured I feel. Kissing him in my dreams is almost better than kissing him in person.

Almost.

I wake up at 2:17 in the morning, lying next to my snoring brother but aching for Sam. Comforting James drained all my strength, and now all I want is for Sam to hold me. I’ve always had my brother to help me figure out what I’m feeling, but maybe Sam can make sense of the dark thoughts twisting my mind—my anger, and the twinge of grief I’m feeling over my mother, father, and James. If he can’t, maybe he can make me forget.

Closing my eyes, I try to find my way back to Sam and my dreams.

Nineteen

I haven’t heard from Sam in four and a half days. Not that I’ve been counting.

By the time our father reluctantly exchanges “mourning” with his family for the boys at the mill, and James finally drags himself to work, I give up thinking I mean anything to him. But even if I don’t, his dad died, for God’s sake. He knows how this feels.

I’m so disappointed. Both in him and in me.

Which is why, when he finally knocks on the door late Thursday morning, I refuse to answer. He’s persistent, though. After enduring his incessant knocking and pleas for nearly half an hour, I toss the book I’m reading onto my bed and stomp to the front door.

I open the door and glare at him. “What do you want?”

“Thank God.” He yanks me into his arms. “I just found out this morning. What happened? Are you okay?”

Glare still firmly in place, I wedge my arms between us and shove. “Maybe if you stopped by or called or something, you would’ve known sooner.”

He frowns. “I’ve been working. And every time I drove by—which was a lot—your brother’s truck was out front. I would’ve shown up anyway if I’d known, though. Why didn’t you call me?” Frown deepening, he says, “Hell, why didn’t James call me?”

My anger bleeds away. Of course he didn’t stop by. I made him promise to keep this—us—a secret. I slip the ball chain out from under his shirt and rub one of the steel dog tags with my thumb. “I’m sorry,” I say.

“I wish I could’ve been here for you.”

Me, too, though I can’t imagine where Sam would’ve fit into my life these last few days. James hardly let me out of his sight, like he was afraid I’d die every time I stepped into another room. I gave up on privacy when I realized we weren’t leaving his bed unless it was to grab food or use the bathroom.

Not that I’ve been much better. All I can think about is James and the stupid drugs Leslie gives him. Our mother’s death has seriously messed him up. What if I leave him alone and he overdoses by accident? No way am I letting that happen.

“So, do you want to talk about it?”

Not really. I drop the dog tag and pick at the white paint peeling away from the doorframe. “They’re calling it a suicide.”

He frowns and seems to analyze my expression. I do my best to keep my face neutral.

“You don’t believe them,” he finally says.

This is a defining moment for us. Either I open up to Sam and let him into the mess that is my head, or I push him away. He stands eerily still, watching me, like he knows how important this moment is, too. Looking into his eyes, seeing the kind of affection I’ve craved my whole life, I find my answer.

“I think my dad did it,” I whisper. “James doesn’t know.”

Though he doesn’t move, relief flashes across his face. “What can I do?”

I know what I want him to do. Four nights of kissing him in my sleep has left me achy and desperate for more. I don’t know whether it will help, but I’m willing to find out. I look up at him through my eyelashes, feeling embarrassed by what I’m about to ask. “Can you make me forget?”

I expect him to back me into the doorframe and kiss me senseless, but he doesn’t. Instead—after checking to make sure I have shoes on—he reaches behind me and closes the door like he did the last time we were standing in this exact spot. I take his outstretched hand and let him lead me down to his car.

When we’re five miles outside of town on the road that leads deep into the mountains, I realize he’s taking me to Leslie’s. Anger and hurt seep into my heart. Does he seriously think buying me drugs is a good idea after I watched my mother die of an overdose?

But then he turns onto a service road that takes us away from Leslie’s and down into the small valley below.

“We’re going to the river?”

“Yeah.” He smiles at me. “I thought maybe we could have a secret place. Somewhere we can spend time together without worrying about someone coming to look for us. I thought it might be nice to get away.”

My cheeks get hot, and not just because I feel like an idiot about the Leslie thing. Total seclusion, zero interruptions, and Sam. So many possibilities.

But then I realize that this is what James has wanted to do for a while now—take us away from everything—and I feel guilty for saying no so many times. When he comes home tonight, I’ll tell him I’ve changed my mind. Screw the money.

Sam pulls into what looks like a wide, pine needle-covered campsite that slopes sharply away into a fast-moving stream—one of many that wind away from the Rogue River in these hills. The trees here are thick and cast an ominous darkness over the forest around us, but the rocky ledge and the water are bathed in the beautiful morning light. I’m out of the car running toward the sunshine before Sam can cut the engine.

The slope is too steep for me to make it down in flip-flops. If I slip, I’ll land in one of the many patches of slimy moss and lichen tucked into the millions of crevices and mucking up the stones’ smooth surfaces. It’s pretty, though. Even prettier is the little deer trail that leads from the rocks through the ferns along the edge of the slope and back into the forest. I’m going to need to buy a jug of bug repellant before we come up here again.

“This is beautiful,” I breathe when Sam finally catches up.

He wraps his arms around my waist and rests his chin on top of my head. “Do you want to walk around for a bit, or should we get right to the ‘make you forget’ part?”

The ferns and the trees and the clear water gushing over the rocks look inviting, but they’re no competition for the warm body pressed against mine. “Make me forget.”

He scoops me up and carries me over to a worn flannel blanket lying neatly in the middle of the pine needle clearing. In the few seconds I spent looking at the water, he’d been busy. My heart flutters at the thought of how sweet he’s being. We stretch out on the blanket, me on my back and Sam hovering over me. Judging by the serious look on his face, any hope of me forgetting is doomed before it can begin.

“The more I’m around you, the more I realize just how much James didn’t tell me,” he says. “How much I don’t know.” He closes his eyes. When he opens them, they’re the dark, thunderstorm gray I love best. “If I had any idea, I never would’ve waited this long.”

He leans closer and threads his fingers through the hair above my neck. My breath catches in anticipation—so close, so very close—but he doesn’t kiss me.

“You don’t have to worry anymore,” he whispers. “I’ll keep you safe.”

That he cares enough to make a promise like that—even when I’ve heard it a million times from my brother—burns in the very best way. It’s too bad that, short of gluing himself to my side, there’s nothing Sam can do to protect me from my father. Rather than ruin the moment, I just smile and say, “I know you will.”

When he kisses me with more tenderness than I’ve felt in my entire life, let alone my recent dreams, I almost believe myself.

Around two, when our empty stomachs grumble loud enough to be heard over the burbling stream, Sam and I tear ourselves apart and head back into town in search of food. He doesn’t protest when I lie across the seat with my head on his lap like I wanted to the first day he rescued me from my house. It’s so tempting to fall asleep when he strokes my hair.

I must have, because the next thing I know, we’re parked in front of a cheerful florist shop called Enchanted Garden with the rich aroma of teriyaki chicken, tangy pineapple, and hot rice curling like steam from the three bento boxes sitting on the dashboard. With my mouth watering and stomach singing with anticipation, I gape at the food. “Where’d we get that?”

Sam nods to the old coffee drive-thru across the parking lot that now houses a Japanese food stand. “You were sleeping, so I picked up lunch. You like bento, right?”

“I love bento,” I say, scrambling into an upright position so I can grab the closest box. “You didn’t have to buy three meals, though.”

“Yeah, I did.” He gives me a sheepish, please-don’t-hurt-me smile. “We’re having lunch with my mom today.”

Twenty

Sam lets me carry two of the bento boxes. Maybe he saw the look of panic in my eyes when he opened the shop’s door and set off the pair of ominously cheerful wind chimes hanging from the door handle. The two boxes and the distraction of my growling stomach are all that keeps me from bolting when he nudges me into the paradise of wildflowers and tropical foliage.

At least his mother isn’t right inside the door, waiting to pounce. I duck under a broad leaf that would be more at home in the Amazon than in a rural Oregon flower shop and gawk at my surroundings. One corner of the room reminds me of the gold and peach wildflower fields James and I pass on the way to the coast. The opposite corner looks freshly ripped from the rainforest, complete with mammoth leaves and flower stalks that look like fancy parrots. Between the two, a huge display of roses and dahlias bloom from vases mounted to the wall, all bright reds, oranges, and yellows. A single pink rose nestled between two bright bouquets looks as out of place as I feel.

Now I understand why the shop is called Enchanted Garden—I’ve never been anywhere this magical in my life. Juggling the bento boxes into one arm, I move closer to the wall so I can reach the pink rose. The upturned bloom seems to smile at me, begging to be stroked. Sam beats me to it, snagging the pink rose out from beneath my fingertips.

“Here,” he says and coaxes the bento boxes away from me. The pink rose quickly takes their place in the crook of my arm. “Doesn’t do you justice, but still.”

“I’ll be right there,” a voice calls from the back room.

I freeze in place, terrified of who might emerge from the small doorway. A ghost of a woman like my mother? A mourner dressed in widow black?

Sam’s mother is neither of these things.

In a word, Mrs. Donavon is adorable. Her light brown hair is cut short, at least three inches shorter than mine, which only makes her big, brown eyes look bigger. When she grins, it’s like I’m looking at a tiny, feminine version of Sam with lighter hair and a much louder voice.

“Sarah,” she booms and draws me into a bear hug. “I’m so happy to finally meet you. Sam has been talking about you for years.”

“Um, hi, Mrs. Donavon.” I blush and look over the top of her head at Sam, focusing on him so I don’t yank myself out of her arms. The embarrassment on his face makes my fear of meeting her and my discomfort around her after what just happened to my own mother slightly more bearable. “We brought you bento,” I blurt out anyway.

She laughs and pulls away, patting my shoulder. “Great, but please—call me Liz.” Her expression shifts like a light bulb flickering out, one second warm, the next…empty. “I heard about your mother. I’m so sorry. How devastating.”

I choke out an unintelligible response. Devastating? James must not talk about our family much, or she’d know better. I still can’t feel a thing, but I bet my father has spent the last four days raising a beer to the heavens and thanking his lucky stars he didn’t get caught.

“I’m sorry,” she says and touches my shoulder. “If you’re not ready to talk about it, I understand.”

I can’t seem to respond. If only I were grieving like James. Grieving would feel better than this emptiness.

“So, I tried calling on the way over,” Sam says as we follow her through the curtain of sparkly beads into the back room, which is wallpapered with peg board and a million miniature gardening tools. “You too busy to answer your own son’s call now?”

He sets the bento boxes on the one clear edge of an enormous concrete tabletop covered in squat, round vases, buckets of flowers, and piles of greenery, then slides out a pair of stools. After dusting off what looks suspiciously like dried moss, I settle onto one and pick at my food.

Starving or in a hurry—maybe both—Liz digs into hers without waiting for anyone else to settle in. “Today has been ridiculous,” she says between bites. “This wedding is killing me. Who waits to order their wedding flowers until the last minute? And God only knows what all the people who’ve been leaving voicemail want. You’d think it was Mother’s Day.”

“You need to hire somebody,” Sam tells her. When she grimaces, he turns to me. “My mom is a control freak. The thought of anyone touching her flowers makes her crazy.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Liz grumbles. “I don’t have time to train anyone else, that’s all.”

“How hard is it to answer the phone and take orders? I was eleven the first time you made me help out and it only took five minutes to show me what to do.”

“Not everyone is as bright as you are, Sam.”

“Yeah, well, that’s a given.”

A pang of jealousy sours the bento settling in my stomach. Their bickering feels comfortable. Practiced. Even the jabs they throw at each other resonate love.

I want that love.

“I can answer your phones, Mrs. Donavon. I don’t have to touch your flowers if you don’t want.”

“It’s Liz, sweetie. And are you sure? I don’t want to ruin your summer.”

Sam snorts and takes another bite. “Sure she does,” he says through his food and nods toward his mom. “Just look at her. You made my mom’s whole day.”

Sure enough, Liz is on the edge of her seat, fork poised over her bento box, as if she might bolt across the room to grab me an application any second. I can’t help myself—I giggle.

“Shush, Sam,” she snaps, but the light in her eyes hasn’t dimmed a bit. “It would only be a few days a week,” she tells me. “Just enough hours to help me catch up on all these arrangements. I’d pay you, of course.”

My own money. A way to contribute to James and my meager savings account. A safe haven away from my father’s warning gaze.

My smile must be as huge as it feels, because Sam is grinning, too.

I set my fork down and fold my hands in my lap. “When can I start?”

Twenty-one

Sprinting up the driveway, I force myself to acknowledge the setting sun and the chirping crickets. I’m at least two hours late. Though I had a surprisingly good time learning about seedlings and fluffing flower arrangements while Sam and his mom bickered, coming home late is inexcusable.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Sam dropped me off a block away and I hit the sidewalk running—no kiss goodbye, no plans for tomorrow, no nothing. I’d been far too freaked out for any of that. Since my brother started at the mill a year ago, I’ve never missed his arrival home, never missed having his dinner at least cooking if not finished when he walked through the door. Of all days to screw up, his first day back at work after being utterly devastated over our mother’s death is hands down the worst.

At least our father’s truck isn’t in the driveway. Maybe he’s at Smoke Jumpers, Granite Falls’ only dive bar, schmoozing another woman already.

I barge into the foyer and glance at the clock.

6:46.

Make that almost three hours late.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

James isn’t in the kitchen or the dining room or the bathroom. Seeing our bedroom door open a crack, I creep closer. The lack of Godsmack blaring from inside is alarming. My brother is never this quiet. Maybe he’s sleeping?

When I slip inside, I find him lying on his back in my bed, hands resting on his chest, eyes locked on the ceiling. “You’re late,” is all he says.

“I’m sorry.” I slip my now-dusty, pink flip-flops off and kick them under his bed. If he’s ever paid attention to the reddish dirt on the ground around Leslie’s place, he’ll know I was in the woods for at least part of the day. “I lost track of time. Want me to fix dinner really quick? We’ve got mac n’ cheese, peanut butter and jelly, some of those pizza roll things—”

“Where were you?”

“At the mall. And then I went to the library for awhile.” In the mirrored closet door, I see James watching me. He’s on his elbows now, his expression dark. Keeping my face neutral, I slip one of my sleep shirts from a hanger and drape it over my arm. “What about you? How was work?”

“I drove to the mall. And the library. You weren’t there.”

Lying has never been my forte, but I’m desperate—especially when I notice a bit of dried moss in my hair. “Maybe we crossed paths in the middle someplace?” I say, casually brushing it away. “I stopped off at the gas station to pick up a pop on my way to the library. I might have been inside when you drove past.”

James doesn’t say anything. Hoping that’s the end of things, I grab a pair of a flannel pants from his drawer and a pair of nondescript white panties from mine and practically run to the bedroom door.

“What were you doing at the mall?”

Slow, even breaths, I tell myself. “I was looking for a job.”

He doesn’t say anything, so I push forward.

“If I had a job, we’d be able to save even more money. Plus, you wouldn’t have to worry about me being stuck at home with Dad—”

“No job.”

Taken aback by the force in his tone, I whirl around. “Why not? You have one.”

“We’re not having this conversation.”

“Don’t you want to hang out with your friends this summer? What about the Armory? If I had something keeping me busy, you could work out whenever you want.”

“No.”

“We need the money, James!”

My brother pins me with a hard look. “If I’m at the Armory, who’s gonna drive you to work?”

Sam. “I could get my license—”

“No job, no license.”

Anger like molten metal churns in my chest. Rather than get into an argument about a ridiculous job or that I’m secretly dating his best friend, I redirect my irritation back to where it should be. “How is it fair that you get to have a life when I don’t?”

I flounce out of the room before he answers, then dash into the bathroom and lock the door behind me, checking and double-checking the lock like I always do. Closing my eyes, I sink to the floor.

Something dark and nasty sparked in my brother’s eyes when I lied about where I’d been—the same dark nastiness I’m used to seeing in our father. Anxiety crackles across my skin but I refuse to succumb to a panic attack.

James is not our father. I can trust him. He would never hurt me.

After what feels like an eternity of deep breathing, I climb to my feet and start the water. My shower’s going to be extra long tonight so James has time to cool off.

And then I’ll cook him dinner and lock us in our bedroom until we’re sure our father isn’t going to snap. Bed sharing will likely be involved. It always is if I let James get his way.

Maybe it’s just me, but the life I’ve been leading for years suddenly seems…off.

Twenty-two

“He won’t let me have a job or get my license or anything,” I grumble in the middle of the Shop Mart canned foods aisle the next morning. “The whole overprotective thing is starting to get old.”

“Can you really blame him?” Sam plucks the can of raviolis out of my hand and puts it back on the shelf. “You’re not exactly being honest about any of this. Maybe if he knew you were working with my mom, he’d be more open to the idea. Maybe if you told him about us—”

“No.” No way am I telling my brother about Sam—not yet, anyway—and James would connect the dots way too fast if I told him I worked at Liz’s florist shop. I won’t risk it.

“Here. Get this instead of that canned Chef Boyardee crap.” He hands me an enormous jar of spaghetti sauce. A FULL SERVING OF VEGETABLES IN EVERY HALF-CUP! the label proclaims. “You know, if he doesn’t trust you with me, he’s probably not going to trust you with anyone.”

James has made how he feels about me and Sam dating perfectly clear. Rather than explain this again, I blink at the display of dried noodles he positions me in front of. Flat-end tubes, pointy cylinders, curly-cues, and bowties—all in various shades of orange, green, and paste-yellow. None of which look like the canned ravioli my brother loves. “Are you sure about this? I’ve never cooked anything homemade before.”

Sam snorts. “Boiling pasta and dumping a jar of sauce on top is hardly homemade.” He grabs a blue box of the flat-end tubes—RIGATONI the label says—and tosses it into the cart. “You should come over for dinner this weekend. My mom’ll probably make a five-course meal to celebrate you helping her out at work.”

The warmth in Sam’s voice when he mentions his mother slips past my usual defenses. I grab a few more boxes of noodles and force myself to smile. “Your mom’s so nice.”

“Is that a yes?” He slides his cell phone out of his pocket. “Because I could call her right now. Now that she knows you, I think she loves you more than she loves me.”

I highly doubt anyone could love me more than they love Sam, least of all the person who knows him best. She lives with the side of him I’m just beginning to uncover.

“I wish I could, but I can’t.”

“Why not? Why can’t we just tell him already?”

I’m not sure how to explain without going into all the gory details of the pact James and I made. My brother will see me going out with Sam as desertion. Missing last night’s dinner was bad enough, and while I’m still irritated about the job thing, I feel awful about pissing him off. Without James, I’d be dead.

“It’s complicated,” is what I settle on. “I’m sorry.”

We walk up and down the narrow aisles, neither of us saying anything. I’ve hurt his feelings—though apparently not enough to stop him from snagging most of the cans and boxes I pick up out of my hands and swapping them for what I assume are healthier options—but I don’t know how to make things better without lying. I’m sick of lying, so I don’t bother.

“I don’t like how possessive he is of you,” Sam finally grumbles when we reach the small bakery section. He swaps the loaf of white bread I just picked up with whole wheat and tosses a loaf of French bread into the cart with it. “I’m not the only one who’s noticed, either. There were some pretty nasty rumors about you two back when we were in school. James got into a lot of fights. I got into a lot of fights.”

Embarrassment pricks my skin. “A lot of fights” implies a lot of people. Is this why it’s so easy to keep everyone away?

Stunned, I stare at the wheat bread in the cart. “James hates wheat bread.”

“James hates a lot of things,” Sam says, leaning against the display case. “He doesn’t own you. Why not do what you want, and tell him to fuck off?”

The bakery woman who’d been carefully lining up donuts in the display case a few feet away clears her throat and shoots Sam a dirty look. He mumbles a quick apology.

“My brother’s always had friends,” I say carefully, “but I’ve only ever had him. The way we are used to work fine, but everything’s different now that…” I hesitate, hoping he doesn’t laugh at what I’m about to say. “Now that I have you.”

The smile Sam gives me could melt the North Pole. Thank God for the shopping cart. If I didn’t have it to cling to, I’d be on the floor doing a really good impression of a swooning, love-sick puddle. I don’t even protest when he leans in and kisses me. In public.

“Yes, you do. And when you’re ready to tell him, I’ll be there.”

“Thank you.”

Though I’m giddy over what he said, I can’t tell him it’s not “when” I tell James, but “if.” He doesn’t need to know I’m still terrified he’ll dump me in a week or maybe a month and I’ll have gotten James mad at me for nothing. While being with Sam is every bit as incredible as I’d dreamt it’d be, he’s temporary.

James is permanent.

Twenty-three

Sam’s house is exactly the kind of place I’ve always dreamed about living in. Surrounded by a perfectly manicured hedge of red rhododendrons, and painted the warmest shade of yellow I’ve ever seen a house painted, it looks like it belongs on the cover of Cozy Cottage Living. There’s even a picket fence.

“Are you coming?” he asks from the porch.

I clutch the small bag of groceries I offered to carry to my chest. Perfection like this is bound to be breakable. I’m afraid to get too close and have everything I’ve imagined inside crumble before my eyes. “Maybe we should drive out to the river instead.”

Sam sighs, sets his armload of grocery bags on the porch swing, and walks back down to where I’m standing frozen on the sidewalk next to his car. “Sarah,” he murmurs, leaning close. “I want to be with you somewhere other than in the middle of a forest or in the front seat of my car. They’re…limiting.”

His warm breath caresses my neck and makes me shudder and tingle. If by “somewhere” he means his bed or even a couch…he has no idea how dangerous this is for me. How little control I have where he’s concerned. How badly I want to give him what every boy wants. If I do, maybe he’ll forgive me for not telling my brother. Maybe we can stay together. Maybe the weekend looming in front of us won’t feel like a death sentence because he’ll have something to remember me by until Monday.

He reaches for my elbow and leads me up the walkway to the porch, in the door, and into the tiny foyer, where I stop dead in my tracks.

There are flowers everywhere. Hundreds of them. But unlike the magic she created in the florist shop, Sam’s mom has transformed their house into a mausoleum.

My eyes immediately begin to water and I choke on the thick perfume of flowers past their prime that has settled over the room like mist. Slightly drooping dahlias and lilies sit in vases on every table, oil and pastel paintings of roses line the walls, and cast iron vines snake across the archway into the kitchen. The couch and loveseat are floral, the kitchen wallpaper is made of tiny lavender and yellow pansies, and the rug under the oak dining room table is a dusky red and green flower and leaf pattern. Any leftover table space is occupied by a bowl of dried flower petals and pinecones.

As if a house stuffed with dying flowers needs potpourri.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” I gasp, “but how can you stand living here?”

He shrugs. “Every time the shop gets another shipment, we get all the leftovers. My mom has this thing with perfectly good flowers being thrown away when they’ve still got ‘life’ left in them, so don’t be surprised if she tries to send you home with some.”

Trying not to sneeze, I finger one of the doilies on the entry table—floral lace, of course—and wonder what our house would look like full of flowers. Probably still a shrine to the boxing career my father refuses to leave behind. The thought of title belts decorated in floral garlands and wildflowers sticking out of his old boxing gloves makes me smile a little. Maybe I’ll take Liz up on her leftover flowers.

“My room is far less offensive,” Sam says, a nervous smile on his face. “Unless you’d rather hang out in the rotting garden?” He gestures to the nearest vase of wilted flowers.

“I want to see your room,” I say. And I do. I can’t imagine what his bedroom looks like. Not the emo-punk darkness I used to expect, that’s for sure. Despite his intensity, Sam’s far too hopeful for that. “But aren’t you going to give me the grand tour first?”

He looks so disappointed, I almost laugh.

“Fine, fine,” he grumbles. He points to the room with the couches. “Living room. The kitchen and dining room are behind you. Bathroom’s on the way to my room. Got it?”

This time I do laugh. “That’s it?”

He glowers at me, which only makes me laugh harder. While he deposits all the groceries in the kitchen, I wander into the living room, eagerly taking everything in. This is the part of Sam I’ve always wondered about, the part I didn’t have a chance to eavesdrop on when he hung out with my brother.

I wasn’t counting on how sad seeing this side of him would make me. Where my house is a shrine to boxing, everything in Sam’s house is dedicated to his father. The mausoleum feel suddenly makes sense.

On the end tables scattered around the room, framed pictures of a man that looks strikingly similar to Sam sit beside more flowery decorations. There is a five-by-seven picture of Sam as a toddler curled up on his father’s lap next to a bowl of potpourri. A round frame rimmed with shiny brass daisies surrounds Sam as a little boy, sitting on his father’s shoulders. A collage frame with four pictures of Sam and his father in various baseball jerseys sits next to a thin vase of neon blue irises. In the last baseball picture, Sam looks like he’s around twelve. His father, smiling as always, has his arm around Sam’s shoulders.

It’s the most recent picture of the two of them together in the room.

Everywhere I turn, I see another picture of this man, Joe Donavon, who is every bit as handsome as Sam in an older, chiseled sort of way. I let my eyes skim the framed set of medals and pins, a picture of his father wearing a bulky tan and cream-colored camouflage vest, helmet, and sunglasses, with a rifle slung over his back, and candid pictures of Sam’s mother and father together looking pretty close to our age. The two largest pictures hang over the brick fireplace. One is of Sam’s parents and Sam as a little kid—the kind of picture I used to wish hung on the wall in my house, though I’d wished for different parents. The other is of his father in a military uniform with a flag in the background. His steel-gray eyes, even more stunning paired with the uniform, stare back at me, searching and intense, so like his son’s.

On the mantle below the two pictures is a box holding an American flag folded into a neat triangle and a gold medal the shape of a star commemorating his death.

Behind me, Sam takes a slow, uneven breath.

“How did it happen?” I ask softly.

“His helicopter got shot down in Afghanistan. They were trying to get some of their guys out in the middle of a pretty nasty fight. They almost made it, I guess. He got the helicopter up and was on the way out when it happened.”

I relax into Sam when he pulls my back to his chest and rests his chin on the top of my head. “He’s so handsome,” I say. “You look just like him.”

“My mom says the same thing.” He kisses my hair and gently turns me around to face him. The sadness in his eyes is like a knife to the chest. “So can we go to my room now, or do I have to show you the backyard and garage, too?”

“We can go to your room.”

He reaches for my hand and leads me down the short hallway. “I used to make up excuses for why you’d have to come over with James. They were all pretty lame.”

“I’m here now.”

“Yes, you are.”

We’re at his door, which has a small dry-erase board nailed to the front. “Off at 8. Be good!” is scrawled diagonally across it in red marker. I hadn’t noticed at the florist shop, but even his mother’s handwriting is flowery.

“Be good, huh?” I give him the flirty smile I’ve been practicing.

“Mmm-hmm.” The heat in his eyes burns my skin. He slips his arms around my waist and kisses a path from my ear to my throat. “We’re very good together.”

I agree. Not that I can tell him this, because I’m about to pass out from how good what he’s doing feels. All of the sadness from a few moments ago quickly melts away. Thank God he’s fumbling for the doorknob behind him or else I’m going to tackle him to the floor right here in the hallway.

We stumble through his door mid-kiss. Already, I’m thinking about how hard it’s going to be to keep my clothes on and whether I actually want to this time. Before today, our touching has been tentative exploration at best—backhanded caresses, palms sliding beneath shirts, fingertips skimming the most private of places. I can tell he’s holding back, maybe even trying to get me used to the idea of being touched. He doesn’t know how badly I need this. How much I’ve come to crave his hands on my body, loving instead of hurting.

I don’t want him to hold back anymore.

My hands go to the hem of his red t-shirt and tug it upward. He breaks our kiss to yank it over his head. The fabric hits the wood floor with an anticlimactic swish but I hardly notice, and not just because Sam is standing shirtless in front of me for the first time. The flowers in the living room seem trivial compared to what surrounds me now.

Scanning his room, taking in what’s been so carefully placed inside of it, I realize just how little I know about the boy I’ve been in love with half my life.

Against the far wall, a full-sized mattress perches atop a massive frame made out of the same oak as his floor. There is a steeply slanted desk under the window with an ancient laptop sitting on top of it and a bar stool tucked beneath.

On the wall opposite the bed, a short oak bookshelf houses Calculus and Physics textbooks with little orange “USED” tags on the bindings, a snow globe filled with petrified wood, several rolls of paper, and a ton of what look like architectural magazines. A corkboard with pictures, assorted notes, and a few letters tacked to it hangs above the bookshelf.

The immaculate condition of his room isn’t a surprise, but the four enormous blue prints tacked to the wall in lieu of posters, and the dozens of intricate pencil drawings of buildings and bridges and houses covering the rest of his walls are.

I step around Sam and examine the nearest blueprint. It’s a house, I think. Bigger than mine and definitely bigger than his, with a huge master suite and several smaller bedrooms and bathrooms set like spokes coming off a long hallway. There are marks for windows on every exterior wall—dozens of windows. The small, hand-printed details are just large enough for me to read that the huge living room has vaulted ceilings and the kitchen counters are made of granite.

“My future house,” he says, sheepishly. “If I can ever afford to build it, that is.”

I drift over to the corkboard, admiring several of the sketches along the way. I recognize the picture of Sam, Alex, and my brother standing on a boulder in the middle of a clearing because an identical one sits on the dresser in my bedroom. Last summer, as a graduation present for Sam and James, the three of them went camping deep in the woods. Real Survivorman stuff. I remember pleading with James to let me go with them, and for a few days, I thought he might relent. Puppy dog eyes always slay my brother’s resolve.

Things had been quiet around our house for much of that month, though, so he decided it’d be safer for me to stay home than share a tent with three teenage guys. I have a scar that runs from my belly button, across my chest, and around the back one of my shoulders from that weekend—the unfortunate result of me trying to run away from my father. He caught me, tore open my shirt, and taught me a lesson with his leather belt when I screamed for help.

That was the last time James left me alone.

Next to the picture, a stark piece of university letterhead catches my attention.

Dear Mr. Donavon,

Congratulations! It is our great pleasure to offer you admission to…

“You were accepted to UCLA?” I practically shout, whirling around to face him. “Sam—why are you in Granite Falls loading freight?!”

Sam shrugs and looks out his window instead of at me. “I couldn’t afford the tuition. Plus, with my dad gone, my mom needs me.”

“But this means you’re super smart,” I say, jabbing my finger at the letter. “Your mom will understand. Go apply for a bunch of scholarships and tell them you change your mind! I’ll talk to James. Maybe if we go down there with you after I graduate, we can share an apartment and save you money on room and board.”

His glare, a harsh mixture of fire and ice, stops me cold. “Would this be before or after you tell him about us? Because I sure as hell won’t let you share a room with your brother if we get an apartment together, Sarah.”

My mouth falls open. Daydreams of us wandering the streets of sunny Los Angeles blur and fade until all that’s left is an incredibly hot, pissed off boy standing by his bed, looking vulnerable in the face of unrealized dreams.

I’m across the room, in his arms, and pressing my lips to his before either of us says another word. Sam always tastes so good—like icy mint toothpaste. My hands skim his stomach, feel their way across his hard chest to his shoulders, and fist the dark waves of his hair at the base of his neck.

When he tosses me onto the wide bed and lies on top of me, my ability to think shatters.

For the next couple of minutes, he barely lets me breathe. I pluck at the clingy fabric of my shirt, wishing I’d worn something loose like flannel pants instead of my cute, but way-too-tight-for-kissing-a-hot-boy jeans. Neither have stopped Sam from touching me, though.

Feeling every inch of his back beneath my palms, knowing how much he’s loving my touch, makes me crazy. I can’t feel enough, taste enough. My fingertips dig into his shoulders, pulling him closer, deeper. I imagine how pale my hands must look against all that tanned skin—

Wait.

A grin I can’t contain spreads across my face. “Roll over, please.”

“What…now?” He frowns. “I kind of like what we’ve got going this way.”

When he tries to kiss me again, I laugh and push on his chest. “It’ll just be for a second, I promise.”

“Fine, fine.” Still grumbling, he untangles his body from mine and flops onto his stomach next to me. “Is there a massage involved? Because I might forgive you if there is.”

I roll onto my side and let my fingers trail from the small of his back up his spine to the place my gaze has already settled. I wasn’t imagining it that night in the forest. Sam Donavon has a tattoo, and holy crap, is it sexy.

I trace the front blades of what I can only assume is his father’s helicopter, captured in perfect, miniature detail on Sam’s shoulder blade. My fingertips circle the gun sticking out of the side door, touch the tiny man wearing a helmet inside the cockpit, and trace the letters of his father’s name and the date he died beneath, which look like they’ve been burned into his skin.

Sam shudders and presses his face into the mattress.

“This is beautiful,” I say. “I think your dad would’ve loved it.”

He doesn’t say anything for a long time. Long enough for me to worry I’ve invaded his privacy and he’s trying to compose himself so he doesn’t lash out at me. I scoot away, hoping I haven’t screwed everything up, and hug my knees to my chest.

I’m in his arms and pinned beneath his body before I can process that he’s moved.

“I think he would’ve loved you,” he whispers.

The next few minutes are lost to kisses so sweet, I want to cry for the little boy who lost his father. But the sweetness doesn’t last. Ever so slowly, the need flaring between us builds until we’re both panting and plucking at my clothes. I squirm beneath him, desperate to be closer, and my shirt rides up. When I finally feel my stomach press against his, I choke on a desperate sob.

Sam curses. “Do you trust me?”

I blink up at him, lost in a lips-swollen-from-kissing haze. “Yes.”

He kisses me once, gently, relief and desperation obvious in his smoky eyes.

When his hands find the hem of my shirt, I turn away. I can’t handle seeing the look on his face as he peels the pale blue material upward, exposing one scar after another, inch by horrifying inch. My flaws. He curses softly each time another is revealed and I feel him wincing, which is bad enough.

“Arch your back,” he says in a pained voice. I do, and the shirt moves past my white cotton bra, and comes off completely in one gentle tug.

For several long moments, neither of us moves or speaks. I keep my head turned to the side, my eyes squeezed shut, and bite my bottom lip against the emotions threatening to escape. I can feel his eyes on my body, feel them lingering on each mark I bear. When he traces the largest scar, the one I got while he and my brother were camping, from my waist to my shoulder with his fingertip, I lose it. Tears, silent and hot, slip down my cheeks onto his soft flannel bedspread.

Rather than say anything, Sam kisses the same path his finger traced in reverse, stopping to nuzzle and kiss the smaller scars he passes along the way. My body is trembling like a rubber-band stretched too tight by the time he reaches my stomach and pauses with his fingers on the button of my jeans, waiting for permission.

Part of me still wants to grab my shirt and run out of his bedroom. The other part wants him to strip my painfully twisted jeans from my legs and throw them onto the floor. I don’t know if I can do it. He seems to be handling the scars he’s already uncovered well enough, but taking off the rest of my clothes—showing him all of me—would be giving away a piece of myself. The last piece I have to give. The only piece I’ve managed to keep safe.

Sam watches me carefully. There’s no impatience in his eyes. No irritation when he realizes my answer—no—is pressing against my closed lips.

He starts to pull away. The warmth of his hand disappears from my skin and I can’t handle the gaping emptiness it leaves behind.

I grab his hand.

That last piece of myself… I want it to belong to him.

“Yes,” I whisper.

I’m pretty sure the scars on my legs aren’t as bad as my chest, so when he peels my jeans away and curses again, I think it’s a good thing. He’s gazing down at me with a mixture of heat, awe, and only a teeny bit of horror. I watch his eyes trace paths along my legs and arms, across my stomach to my chest, and back up to my face. My body flushes with embarrassment.

“I’m too skinny, I know. You don’t have to say it.”

Frowning, he sits back on his heels. “Yeah, but that’s not what I was thinking. Not at all.” He traces my bellybutton with his fingertip. “I was thinking you’re beautiful. I can’t believe I wasted five years caring what your brother thought when I could’ve had this.”

I smile. “Five years ago, I was twelve.”

“Still.” He lets his finger trail lower and I gasp. “Beautiful.”

James is the only person who tells me I’m beautiful. While it feels nice when he says it, he’s my brother and family is supposed to say stuff like that. Hearing it from Sam…it’s like a drug. He’s like a drug. I drag him down to me.

“We should probably slow down,” he blurts out a few minutes later.

We’re stretched across his bed diagonally, legs tangled and bodies glued together. By this point, my bra has joined the pile of clothes on the floor and I’ve gone for the button of Sam’s shorts twice before he’s stolen my ability to focus with one of his deep kisses. I don’t want to slow down. It’s like I’m on the verge of something that doesn’t make sense to me at all, but I really want it to. Desperate, I push him onto his back and touch him through his pants.

When he groans, I know I’m playing with fire. He doesn’t have to say it—the spark in his eyes is hotter than Hell, which is where I’m sure I’m headed after what I’m about to do. With shaking hands, I work the button of his khaki shorts through its buttonhole, and draw down the zipper. His breathing quickens when I slide my hand inside and tentatively touch what I’ve come so close to exposing.

“Oh, shit,” he gasps.

The more I touch him, the more desperate he becomes, until his body trembles like a moth beneath my fingers. And I love every second of it. Feeling reckless and alive and in control of something for the first time in my life, I climb on top of Sam. The stricken look on his face makes me laugh.

“I’ve got condoms,” he says in a strangled voice. Like he’s trying really hard not to lose control. “I swear I didn’t plan this, but if you really want to…”

Do I want to? With every item of clothing we’ve peeled from my body, I’ve shed another part of the life I’m so desperate to forget. I told myself I’d already given Sam the last piece of myself I had to give, but that’s not true. I have another piece. One I’d assumed would be taken from me against my will. “I want you to be my first.”

I expect him to jump me the second the words leave my mouth, but Sam only stares at me. Emotions that I can’t comprehend flash across his face as his fingers trail from my cheek to my neck, then down my side to my hip. Nothing feels rushed. Not even the way he removes the last of our clothes.

Though he goes slow, it still stings more than I expect. He freaks out every time I whimper, and I have to beg him not to stop more than once, but there’s no way to keep my tears from leaking onto his bedspread. How could I possibly explain what I’m feeling? Sam Donavon is taking my virginity, not my father. I want to laugh and cry and run around the room and none of it—not a single emotion—makes any sense to me.

Until fifteen minutes ago, Sam felt like something I’d never be able to hold onto. Like cupping my hands under a faucet and watching the water slip through my fingers. Now, it feels like maybe being with him could be permanent. At least for a little while.

Afterward, Sam pulls me against his chest and smoothes my hair away from my forehead.

“Do you regret it?” he asks, a tinge of worry in his voice.

Listening to the steady thrum-thrum-thrum of his heart, I realize he has no idea what he’s given me. What he’s saved me from. If I get my way, he’ll never know.

“I’m glad it was you,” I tell him.

His shaky smile turns warmer than summer sunshine. This incredibly smart and selfless boy, with his strong arms, enormous heart, and addictive kisses, wants me.

If ever there was something too good to be true, this is it.

Twenty-four

By the time Sam drops me off, I’ve bitten my nails down to the quick. I spent the entire drive home worrying James will take one look at my flushed cheeks from his place across the dinner table and know exactly what I’ve done.

Instead, he spends most of dinner making excuses for why he showed up three hours after I did, with a split lip and a rapidly swelling eye.

“There’s a guy down at the Armory who hasn’t been paying his tab. Leslie asked me to scare him a little, so I did.” He grins, seemingly oblivious to the fact that all this smiling is wreaking havoc on his split lip. A drop of blood falls to the table with a near-silent plop. “You should’ve seen him, Sarah. He must’ve weighed two-seventy-five!”

“You were with Leslie?” I ask from where I’m standing in front of the microwave.

“Yeah, but we didn’t do anything, I swear. I even told her I wasn’t going to her party this weekend.”

The microwave dings. While he wipes the blood off the table with his sleeve, I heap another serving of reheated rice and cream of mushroom chicken onto his plate and carry it to the table. “I’m not mad, James. Unless you took something?”

He shakes his head vehemently, and grabs the plate from my hands. “I’m not taking anything anymore. Promise.”

When he’s done eating, we lapse into easy conversation. Mostly about the new job they’ve put him on at the mill, and my plan to clean out our mother’s room before our father drags everything to the dump.

Miraculously, I manage to skirt any mention of what I did that day or what I plan to do the next morning. James doesn’t mention Leslie again until we’re putting away the dishes he just washed. “I won’t go see her again,” he says. “You have to believe me.”

This is obviously really bothering him. My first instinct is to slide an arm around his waist and give him a peck on his swollen cheek, but stop just short of touching him. What if he takes it the wrong way?

James looks from my arm, hovering motionless halfway between us, to my face, his expression drooping. The sadness and regret in his eyes is too much to bear. Sighing, I give him a hug. “I do believe you.”

He rewards me with a dimpled, sparkly-eyed smile that makes me feel slimier than squishy moss inside. No matter what I tell him, he’ll believe me. Worse, I’m already planning all the ways I can use his trust in my favor. Alone time with Sam. A job at the florist shop. Maybe even a night away without him if I play things right.

I’m an awful person.

My guilt doesn’t go away. Not even after an unnervingly calm week around our house.

Now that it’s just the three of us, our father doesn’t come home until eight or nine, by which time James has already eaten all the leftovers. If this pisses our father off, we haven’t heard about it. He’s been hanging out at Smoke Jumpers, regaling the local drunks and tourists passing through town on their way to California with his best Knockout Jimmy stories. They’re probably plying him with an endless supply of beer nuts and buffalo wings to keep him around.

Maybe the ego-stroking is what he’s been craving because, on the rare night he is home, our father is shockingly non-confrontational. I still creep around the house, sticking to the shadows and drawing as little attention to myself as possible, but rather than come after me when I make too much noise or burn part of his dinner, he ignores me completely. We crossed paths in the hallway twice this week—I shrank back against the wall, expecting to be smacked or at least yelled at for breathing his air. He didn’t say a word. Just looked straight through me.

For the first time in our lives, James and I don’t have to rush through dinner. He chats about his day at work while I dish up his food and make up story after story about what I do all day while he eats. The library is my most-used lie—where else could I be getting all these recipes? A piece of my heart dies every time I lie to him, but I can’t bring myself to risk everything I’ve found with Sam by telling the truth.

I should be grateful things have been so quiet, but it’s hard to be grateful when I know why my father’s so happy. Must be nice not having a conscience after killing your wife. Plus, I know him too well. No matter how innocent he’s acting, the other shoe will drop—I don’t know when or how, but it will. It has to. Some small, sick part of me hopes it drops soon. At least with the yelling and hitting I knew what to expect.

Twenty-five

Talking to James has always been easy, but there’s something about Sam that drags random thoughts and ideas out of my head. Like, how I want to major in something science-related if I ever decide to go to college. Biology was my favorite class sophomore year—the only subject that’s ever come easily to me, unlike my brainiac brother—but I never really thought of it as something I could do until Sam. He makes me feel like maybe I have a future outside of this bedroom and my father. Like maybe I have a future outside of James.

It’s a dangerous thought.

“How can you harass me about UCLA when you’re not even applying anywhere?” he asks the following Friday morning. “That’s pretty hypocritical, don’t you think?”

“If you promise to call UCLA and try to get in this fall, I promise to apply next year.”

“Really?” He hesitates, the victory in his eyes dimming. “Wait, you’ll apply at UCLA, right? Or at least somewhere nearby? I’m not going to L.A. unless you’re with me.”

I smile. “I’ll be with you.” Somehow, someway, I’ll find a way to follow him to Los Angeles.

“Then, you’ve got yourself a deal.”

Sam leans across the seat and gives me one of the chaste pecks that means his mom is watching us from her place behind the cash register. “I’ll pick you up at two. That’ll give us an hour and a half before I have to be back to set up. Are you sure you can’t sneak out tonight?”

I groan. Not only is sneaking out on James’s watch impossible, I’ll be losing six whole hours of Sam time working with his mom while he picks up all the last minute supplies for the caramel apple stand she’s running with one of the neighboring shops. Granite Falls celebrates its 125th birthday this year. You’d think a parade or maybe a new WELCOME TO GRANITE FALLS sign would be in order, but apparently a mall-sponsored weekend carnival is the best they can do.

“He’d catch me if I tried,” I grumble. “What if I call in sick? Can I stay with you?”

He chuckles. “You’re the one that offered to help out. If things had gone my way, we’d be in your bed right now.”

My smile falters. In bed. But doing what? When Sam knocked on my door right after my brother and father left for work on Monday morning—two hours earlier than I thought he’d show up—I assumed he wanted sex. That’s what boys expect once they’ve done it with a girl, right? And I wanted to be with him again. I dreamt about it all weekend, and had to force myself not to leap into his arms when I answered the door.

He took my hand and led me into my bedroom. Hummingbirds had nothing on how fast my heart raced when he ran a hand across my unmade bed. Thinking about sex while Sam stood in the room I share with James felt…strange. Maybe too strange. Whether I wanted it or not suddenly didn’t matter. When he tugged off his work boots and shirt, climbed into my bed, and asked me to join him, I didn’t think I could go through with it.

But instead of ripping off my clothes, Sam wrapped his arms around my waist, buried his face in my hair, and fell asleep.

Which was right about when I’d decided, yes, I absolutely would go through with it.

The rest of the week was more of the same. On Tuesday, he made us toasted cheese sandwiches in my kitchen, forced me to eat two of them while he did the dishes, then drove me to the grocery store. On Wednesday, he clutched me to his chest and passed out immediately. On Thursday, we kissed and touched until I thought I’d go crazy with needing him. Finally, I thought. But no. He pulled away, asked to use the shower, and took me to work as soon as he was finished.

This morning was another pass-out-immediately day.

I can’t be mad at him. It’s my fault he’s so tired. Sam works just as hard as James, but on way less sleep because of all the time he spends with me. Still…it’s getting harder to ignore the little voice in my head telling me I’m doing something wrong.

With a sigh, I cross through the cordoned-off parking lot and make my way into Enchanted Garden. The hulking carnival rides being unloaded and set up look alarmingly rusty in the daylight.

Sure enough, Liz is waiting behind the counter with a pair of ratty gardening gloves in her hand and the phone pressed to her ear. “That’s wonderful, sweetie. We’ll talk more tonight, okay? Love you.”

She hangs up the phone and grins. “Right on time,” she says cheerfully, “though, judging by how happy he sounded on the phone, my son probably did his best to convince you to skip out on me today. Not that you’ve been apart for more than thirty seconds, but he says to say hello.”

I smile and follow her into the back room, deciding it’s probably better if she thinks Sam is dating a wholesome girl who’d rather work than corrupt him. “So what do you need done? I dreamt about stabbing buckets of apples with Popsicle sticks last night.”

Liz laughs. “That’s Sam’s job. You’re going to be doing the seedlings this week so I can finish up some last minute orders before tonight.”

She gestures to the low wooden table set up beneath the only windows in the back room. Dozens of black plastic trays that look like egg cartons filled with dirt sit in orderly rows across the top. From the center of each cup, a gangly green vine sprouts toward the windows like a light-seeking jack-in-the-box.

“You’ll be putting them in the green pots,” she says, pointing to the cheap plastic cups I’m already familiar with. I cut my thumb open on the edge of one in front of a customer my first day on the job.

“That’s it?” I ask, frowning. There’s no way this will take six hours. Twenty plants, five minutes each…I’ll be in Sam’s arms before lunch.

“Actually, I was hoping you’d help me with the arrangements today.”

My eyes widen. Sam hadn’t been kidding when he said Liz hated people touching her flowers. So far, all I’d been allowed to do is hand her the glittery white tulle when she added the final touches to basket bouquets. “Really?”

She smiles and squeezes my hand. “Anyone capable of convincing my hardheaded son to choose his future over babysitting me is plenty capable of manipulating a bunch of stubborn flowers. Don’t you think?”

Man, he’s fast. Unease and a tiny bit of guilt erase my surprise over the flowers. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t any of my business and if you need him here—”

“No, no. I’m glad you talked to him. I’ve been trying to get him out of the house for months, and when UCLA accepted him… God, Joe would’ve been so proud.”

When her eyes well with tears, I turn away. Crying mothers are almost as foreign to me as mothers who love their children. To keep myself in check, I picture the tattoo on Sam’s back.

She follows me over to the trays of seedlings and plucks a tool off the wall. It looks like an ice cream scoop, but its value is clear when she uses it to remove one of the seedling pods from the tray with a flick of her wrist. Ten seconds later, the seedling is nestled in a new green pot, tucked into the fresh dirt and moss like a newborn.

“Nothing to it,” she says, handing me the ice cream scoop as if we hadn’t just had the world’s most awkward moment. “As soon as you finish these, we’ll get started on the funeral arrangement for tomorrow. Those are always fun.”

I blink. Is she serious? Before I can ask, she leaves me to my thoughts, which are overflowing with all the reasons making funeral arrangements will not be fun. The last thing either of us need to be thinking about is death.

I’ve repotted almost half of the seedlings when I hear the tinkling wind chimes on the front door.

“We’ll be right with you!” Liz yells, frowning at the elaborate bouquet she’s creating out of pink and white stargazer lilies, purple irises, and bright yellow roses. “These greens aren’t fluffing quite right,” she grumbles. “Can you help that customer for me?”

“Sure.”

I pocket the miracle ice cream scoop and slip off the ratty gardening gloves. Cellophane crinkles out front. This will be easy if all the customer needs is a bouquet. Pasting a happy-to-help smile on my face, I part the curtain of sparkly beads and—

Blond hair. Broad shoulders.

The black Godsmack t-shirt I gave him on his seventeenth birthday.

I stagger back through the beads and flatten myself against the wall. His back was turned, so I know he didn’t see me, but I can’t stop my knees from shaking or slow my thrumming heart. The look on James’s face when we argued about me working haunts my dreams.

He’s not our father. He loves me.

And he’ll be furious when he finds out I disobeyed him.

On wobbly legs, I pick my way around the table to the far side of the room, stumbling over a plastic pot that I must’ve dropped earlier. It clatters across the floor and hits Liz in the ankle.

“What the—” When she sees me, Liz drops her floral tape and rushes to my side. “Honey, what’s wrong?”

“I can’t go out there,” I whisper. Why isn’t he at work? He’s supposed to be at work.

Liz hurries over to the beaded doorway and peeks through the strands. When she sees James instead of the masked gunman she probably expected, her eyebrows shoot up. For several uncomfortable moments, she stares at me huddled in the corner of the room. How can I explain this without saying too much?

Or maybe I don’t need to say anything. By the time she pushes aside the beads and greets my brother with a warm hug, I get the distinct impression she knows exactly what’s going on.

“Two bouquets?” she asks, amused. “Who’s the lucky lady?”

James chuckles. I imagine him running a hand through his hair like he always does when he’s embarrassed. I picture the way his worn t-shirt pulls at the thick bicep that has gotten thicker with each trip to the Armory. “You know me,” he answers. “Can’t keep the ladies away.”

“Yes, well, as long as you’re being careful.”

It’s such a mom thing to say, and for a second, I’m irritated that he’s always had Sam’s mom to guide him while he kept me locked in our room. My hand strays to my pocket and wraps around the ice cream scoop. Running my thumb along the warm metal curve calms me down just enough to keep quiet.

Cellophane crinkles again, closer this time. He’s at the cash register.

Crawling closer, I strain to hear their voices over the chirping register as she punches in his order, and the clunking release of the cash drawer. From my place on the floor behind the table, I can see my brother through the beads, but I doubt he can see me.

“You know, I don’t get to see your sister as often as I’d like,” Liz says, handing him his change. “How is she?”

“She’s fine.”

“Oh,” she says. “I’m looking to hire a part-time assistant. Maybe she’d be interested?”

James’s smile never falters. “She’s allergic to flowers, but I’ll tell her you said hi.”

As soon as the chimes confirm his exit, I bolt to my feet and peek through the beads. He’s already across the parking lot, two bouquets of multi-colored roses in his hand, sliding into his truck.

Liz studies me from her place at the cash register, arms folded across her chest. “I wonder how many times he’s lied to me over the years without me knowing it. Your brother being the charmer he is, I’m guessing hundreds of times.”

I shift my weight from one foot to the other and finger the ice cream scoop again.

“Let me guess. He doesn’t want you working?”

I shake my head.

She reaches for my shoulders and pulls me through the beads into one of the motherly hugs I love, but don’t think I’ll ever get used to.

“Oh, honey, I know exactly how you feel. Dealing with overbearing men is a specialty of mine.”

I close my eyes and breathe in the smell of lavender and the little white flowers she calls baby’s breath, a scent my mind equates with “mother” now. If James bossing me around is all she thinks is going on, my secret is safe. “Thanks for not telling him about me working here.”

“Little sisters have to stick together.” She releases me, keeping her hands on my shoulders. “If you ever want to talk about it, call me, okay? Some of the stuff my brothers have done in the name of protecting me will make you cringe. You’d think I was made of glass.”

Somehow, I doubt any of her stories can beat the one where James kisses me. “James isn’t that bad.”

“Well, don’t let Sam give you hell, either. Lord knows he tries to give it to me.” She holds the curtains of beads out of our way and gestures for me to go first. “Like father, like son. Or maybe it’s like uncles, like son. Who knows?”

Back at my station, I slip the ice cream scoop out of my pocket and reach for the gardening gloves. There are a dozen seedlings left. Gangly, green vines with puny leaves locked in their tiny egg-carton prisons. The way they reach for the small square of light on the wall feels way too familiar.

“Let’s work on the funeral arrangements for a little bit,” she says from behind me. “Nothing cheers me up like a good funeral wreath.”

Twenty-six

I’m not looking forward to seeing James. Not looking forward to confronting him about why he wasn’t at work today, sitting across from him with the words “she’s allergic to flowers” playing through my mind, or lying about the hours I didn’t actually spend at the library, either.

When he finally shows up an hour later than usual, eyes sparkling with excitement, irritation that I could have stayed in Sam’s arms just a little longer kills me. If I had shown up late, he would’ve been furious.

It doesn’t help my mood that, unless my brother decides to work an extra shift at the mill, I won’t get to see Sam again until Monday.

Living under his thumb is starting to get old. Lying is getting old.

I slam the microwave door on his cold dinner and open my mouth to tell him he has no say in what I do or don’t do with my life anymore, no matter how much I owe him.

But then I get a good look at him. Unzipped coveralls, scuffed work boots, and a white t-shirt.

A clean white t-shirt.

Unease flutters in my stomach. “So…how was work?”

“Great. One of the guys brought in a bucket of flowers from his wife’s garden,” he says cheerfully and holds out two suspiciously thorn-less red roses. “I grabbed these for you.”

I clipped the thorns from those stems two days ago.

Glaring at his outstretched fist, I note the lack of paper pulp that’s usually caked under his nails and in every crevice of his skin. Why would he lie? Twenty-two of the roses are missing, so obviously he gave the others to someone. Maybe he has a girlfriend and is too embarrassed to tell me?

And why did he change out of the jeans and the black Godsmack t-shirt he’d been wearing when he came into Enchanted Garden?

Unless he’s lying about going to work, too.

I nearly choke on the irrational fury burning my chest as I say, “thanks,” but don’t accept the roses. Instead, I grab a Tupperware cup from the cabinet, fill it with tap water, and hand it to him. Lying about a girlfriend is one thing, but as far as James knows, he’s our only income.

He made sure of that when he turned down Liz’s offer today.

“Oh, um, okay.” Smile wavering, he puts the roses in the cup and sets them in the middle of the table. Neither of us mention what used to sit in their place when we were kids. Back then, we never paid attention to our mother’s favorite vase—more a congealed mass of superglue than ceramic after being pieced back together so many times—and the bouquets of cheap white carnations that used to materialize as soon as the superglue set, and died as soon as the last of the water leaked away.

“You okay?” he asks cautiously. “You look really pissed off.”

“I’m fine.”

I stomp back to our bedroom, not waiting for the microwave to finish. At least the plate of food will keep my brother out of my hair long enough to figure out how I can sneak out later. Because there’s no way I’m staying home tonight.

He catches my arm just inside the doorway. “What’s wrong?”

Whirling around, I knock his hand away. “You can’t walk through the door in clean clothes and expect me to believe you went to work.”

“But I did—”

“Stop lying to me!”

In the distance, the microwave pings. Neither of us moves. I’ve never won a stare-down with my brother, but if he thinks I’m going to back down first this time, he’s got another think coming. I step closer, bringing us toe to toe, my chin almost to his chest, and glare as hard as I can.

He looks away ten seconds later.

“I called in sick to take care of some stuff,” he mutters. “You weren’t supposed to find out until later when I figured out how to show you what I bought.” From the back waistband of his coveralls, he withdraws a balled-up towel tied with twine. “Don’t freak out, okay?”

“Why would I freak out?”

He moves over to his bed and sets the bundle on his knee. Sitting beside him while he unties the twine reminds me of watching him unwrap birthday presents. Especially with how bright his eyes are shining and the excited smile curling up the corners of his mouth. When James gets excited about something, I usually get excited, too.

But what he gingerly lifts from the towel makes my blood ice over.

“Isn’t it awesome?”

The silver and black gun he’s holding is definitely not awesome. I scramble backward, off the bed and across the room, until my back collides with our closet doors. In the filigree mirror sitting on the shelved headboard behind him, my horrified self is reflected in miniature. “Why do you have a gun?”

“Relax,” he says. “Come take a look.”

There’s no way I’m peeling myself from the mirrored doors with that thing in his hands. What if it goes off? Panic roils through me at the thought of bullets riddling James’s body. “Please,” I beg. “Put it away. Get it out of here before you get hurt.”

He sighs, sets the gun on the bed, and comes over to where I still stand rigid, peeking around his shoulder at something I never thought I’d see in our bedroom. Cupping my cheeks in his hands, he forces me to look at him. “I only bought it so I can protect you,” he says. “It won’t leave the closet unless something happens. Promise. It’s not even loaded.”

That’s not good enough. I try to shake my head, but he holds me in place.

“Promise,” he repeats. When he reaches up to smooth the hair out of my face and I cringe away, his face falls and he gives up. I stay plastered to the closet until the gun is safely wrapped in its towel and tied up tight.

James sighs and leans back on his bed, hands resting on his broad chest, and regards me with a disappointed look on his face. “I was planning on me and you hanging out at the carnival tonight, but if you’re not up to it…”

Oh, I’m up for it. Anything to get out of this room and away from that gun. “I’ll go.”

I grab the first clean shirt I can find and I’m halfway to the bathroom when he sits up and asks, “What is with you today? One second you’re pissed that I got home late, the next, you’re acting like you can’t wait to get out of here. You’re making my head spin.”

If anyone’s head is spinning, it’s mine. Between nearly being caught at Enchanted Garden and him coming home late with a gun, my sanity is far too fragile to pick a fight with my brother. Not when a gun lies on the bed between us. As soon as he leaves for work Monday morning, I’m taking that thing and hiding it in our father’s shed.

“Nothing,” I lie. “I’m just sick of sitting at home all day. Are we going, or not?”

He eyes me warily for a few long moments, then rolls off his bed to put the gun on the top shelf of our closet. Giving him a wide berth, I snag my flip-flops from behind the door and hurry out of the room before he can ask any more questions.

Twenty-seven

Through sheer force of will, I manage to stick by my brother’s side for forty-seven long minutes. All I can think about is the look of awe in James’s eyes when he held up the gun and how badly I need Sam to tell me everything will be okay.

For the first time in my life, I think I need some time away from my brother.

Ten dollars worth of ride tickets and a severely queasy stomach later, we’re scoping out the game booths for the ones James knows he can win. I decide to begin my siblings-shouldn’t-spend-this-much-time-together campaign while he’s in a good mood.

Step one: Find the caramel apple stand.

Step two: Get out of the camping trip he’s been babbling about since we got in the truck.

The caramel apple stand is easy. We’ve passed it at a distance three times on our whirlwind tour of the rides, and all three times, Sam’s been inside, helping his mom and the lady from the mall gift shop hand out orders. From where we’re standing in front of the ring toss game, I can almost make out the top of his dark head at the other end of the row of stalls.

The camping trip this weekend is a different story.

“I think a day trip is far more practical than a whole weekend,” I say. “We’ll have plenty of time to swim and toast marshmallows or whatever.”

James hands the girl at the booth—a whimsical-looking redhead about his age who ogles him the same way every girl does—a five-dollar bill and accepts the handful of scratched, red plastic rings. I open my mouth to protest him spending more money than we have already tonight, but think the better of it.

His first toss plinks off the top of the narrow-mouthed glass bottles and shoots off into the back of the booth somewhere. “But that’s only one day. Don’t you want to hang out with me?”

Not when I’ve got two enormous secrets that I’m hiding from him. Especially not alone. He’s too good at getting things out of me, and I’m not ready for him to know about Sam or what our father did.

His second toss plinks off another bottle and nearly hits the redheaded girl.

“Of course I want to hang out with you,” I lie. “But don’t you think we’ll get bored? Maybe we should invite some of your friends to come along and make a party out of it.”

“You mean invite Sam.” The next ring flies into the bean-bag toss booth next door.

“No,” though that’s a great idea. “All the people you hang out with, whoever they are.”

“I’m not blind,” he says, undeterred. “I see how you look at him.”

Lying isn’t going to work this time—I can tell by the stubborn set of his jaw. Digging the toe of my flip-flop into the asphalt, I try a half-truth. “You know I’ve had a crush on him since I was a kid. Maybe if we went on a date, I’d get it out of my system.”

Instead of tossing the next ring, he throws it overhand and nearly breaks one of the bottles. The attendant frowns, his spell on her broken.

“I don’t want him touching you,” James snaps. “How many different ways do I have to say ‘no’ before you get it? We’re going camping—for the whole weekend—and we’re going alone.”

The next ring he tosses plinks across the first few rows of bottles and settles around the neck of one in the seventh row. Immediately, at least on his end, our whole conversation is forgotten. He beams at me and snags one of the baby blue teddy bears off the ledge beside him. “For you, m’lady,” he says, handing it to me with a little bow.

I’m still reeling from the hatred in his voice when he talked about Sam touching me. I take the teddy bear, a brittle, plastic smile rigid on my face. “Thanks.”

He tosses his last ring, misses, and decides against playing another round. When he spots the red water guns and the clowns with gaping mouths in the booth next door, my brother’s eyes sparkle in anticipation. “Don’t get too attached,” he says, nodding at my little bear. “I’m about to win you something even bigger.”

He hands the tall guy manning the booth another five-dollar bill and takes the stool next to two little boys who are pretending to shoot each other with their water guns. Just before the round starts, something brushes against the small of my back.

“I’m in,” says a voice that both horrifies and excites me.

Knowing I shouldn’t but unable to stop myself, I look up at Sam. There’s no way my brother will miss the heat in his eyes or how I sag on weak knees when I feel Sam’s gaze caressing my lips in a visual kiss. There’s so much want in how he’s looking at me, I almost forget that he hasn’t been interested in doing it since our first time a week ago.

“Finish this while I kick your brother’s ass, will you?” He holds out a half-eaten elephant ear fritter. “My mom made way too much batter. I’ve eaten, like, ten of these things.”

“Game’s already starting,” my brother grumbles. “Wait until the next round.”

“I’d rather play against you.” Sam shoves the fritter into my hand and manages to catch my eye for half a second before I look away. As if challenging my brother wasn’t bad enough, he adds, “Sarah needs something bigger than a teddy bear, don’t you think?”

James scowls at him, then spins around on the stool, his back to us.

I grab Sam’s arm and hiss, “What are you doing?”

The challenge I see flashing in his eyes makes me dizzy. “I’m not doing anything.”

“Why don’t you guys invite me anywhere anymore?” a familiar voice says behind us. “You’re giving me a complex.”

My brother shifts his glare to Alex and the group of friends clustered around him, but Sam grins and gives him their slap-slide-punch. “You’re an annoying bastard, that’s why. But you already knew that.”

The booth guy has already pocketed Sam’s money, and the little boys are getting antsy. “You guys playing or what?” the older of the two complains. “We don’t got all night.”

“C’mon, Sarah,” James grumbles. “I’m done.”

Alex bursts into maniacal laughter. “Seriously? James O’Brien is afraid of getting his ass handed to him in front of a couple kids?”

I want to hit him, but the guys hanging out with Alex think this is hilarious. James doesn’t budge.

Ignoring my protest and James’s glare, Sam takes the stool right next to my brother and grins at the boys. “You ready to lose?”

“Yeah, right,” the younger boy says with a grin.

I figure out how the game works pretty quickly. Whoever gets the most water into the clown’s mouth using the ridiculously overpowered water guns wins. As James and Sam take a clear lead over the two boys, I watch the clowns’ cheesy rainbow hats rise higher and higher.

I know Sam’s going to win three seconds before the lights in the booth flash and his clown lets out a terrifying computerized laugh.

“Now, we’re leaving,” James growls.

With a triumphant hoot, Sam ruffles both boys’ hair, then snatches the blue teddy bear from my hands and gives it to the booth guy. “She’ll take one of those,” he says, pointing at the worst possible prize—a giant, stuffed heart with KISS ME scrawled across the front in cheesy, white embroidery. Handing it to me, Sam murmurs, “My heart.”

I’m torn between the urge to stuff the stupid heart under my arm and slap him for flaunting our secret in front of James and all of their friends, and my earlier desperation to wrap myself around him like a blanket. If my brother hadn’t been onto us before, he’s going to be now.

James grabs my arm. There’s no way I’m going to let him drag me away in front of everyone. Sam’s gaze is challenging, daring me to do something about the way my brother is treating me. If I don’t, I know he will. And that will be disastrous. Keeping my eyes locked on his, I say the first thing I think of. “James and I are camping up at Mack Lake this weekend. If you guys wanted to come, we could make a big party out of it. We’re heading up tomorrow.”

“Wait—Sarah—no,” James stutters. “It’s too short notice. No one’s gonna be free.”

“I’m free,” Sam says.

“So am I,” the short guy next to him says.

“Us, too.”

I recognize the dark-haired guy who chimed in. Jesse Morgan is standing with his curly-haired girlfriend, Melinda. All last year, I witnessed their daily cuddling session from two seats away in fifth period Civics. Neither of them ever looked in my direction, let alone smiled at me like Jesse is now.

“Hell, yeah!” Alex cheers when another three of his friends confirm that they, too, can come. “There’s no way I’m missing this. We haven’t done shit this summer!”

All the plotting and planning going on around me is lost to the screams of people on the Tilt-a-Whirl, and the computerized laugh of the clown behind us as one of the boys beats the other in round two. I almost don’t hear Melinda’s quiet voice. Only her fingertips brushing across the stuffed heart Sam gave me and the scent of vanilla when she leans closer alert me to our “conversation.”

“Jesse and I can bring a bunch of hot dogs and hamburgers. He bags groceries at Shop Mart and they let the employees take home any meat that’s past its expiration date.” She gives me a shy smile. “It still tastes fine, so why waste it?”

Someone is talking to me? Planning with me? “Oh, um. That would be great, actually. Thanks.”

“Do you think it’ll get really cold at night? Jesse only has one sleeping bag, but maybe I can borrow one…”

The worried expression on her face draws my attention to how worn her shorts and tank top look against her tanned skin. Every few seconds, she folds the frayed hem of her tank top in on itself. I see why when it comes undone almost immediately—a hole the size of my thumb. Melinda must live in the neighborhood behind the mill, which is even crappier than my neighborhood. Only a kid from the south side would be caught wearing holey clothes in public.

If things were different—if I were different—maybe Melinda and I could’ve been friends. I return her shy smile from earlier and wonder if maybe things will ever be different enough. “You know, I think we have an extra sleeping bag. I’ll make sure James packs it with ours.”

“Thanks!”

Jesse slides his arm around her waist and she melts into his side. Anyone looking at them would see the love in his eyes when he kisses the top of her head and murmurs something about tents. My heart aches for the openness Sam and I can never have.

Sam’s watching me from where he stands barely an arm’s length away. Even surrounded by all these people, I feel the pull between us, the draw I haven’t been able to ignore since the night James parked in the gravel outside of Leslie’s and I saw him standing in the dingy green light.

Miss you, he mouths.

I hug the stuffed heart to my chest and try to suppress the smile that breaks across my face.

“Well, if anyone wants any caramel apples or elephant ears or anything, you know where to find me,” he says to everyone else before looking back to me. “Looks like I’ll see you all up at the lake tomorrow?”

Several confirmations and a few slap-slide-punches later, he heads back to his mom and the line of hungry carnival-goers twisting through the crowd like a snake. Taking a shaky breath, I turn back to James, ready to face my fate.

Just in time to see him shove his way through the last of the crowd in front of the two-story “haunted” funhouse at the edge of the parking lot.

“See you guys tomorrow,” I mumble before dashing after my brother. When I get to the funhouse entrance at the top of a tall ramp on the second floor, I fish my last ride ticket from my pocket and hand it to the scary-looking man guarding the door.

He waves me in with a grand gesture. “Watch out for beasties…”

The idea of ghostly lights and freaky Halloween costumes doesn’t bother me, but I can’t stand funhouses. My sense of direction is horrible, and what good could possibly come of wandering around in a dark maze of mirrors that make me look even worse than I already feel?

Three turns, two guys in zombie costumes, and a narrow hallway later, I’m lost. Which is ridiculous even for me because the place can’t be very big if it’s crammed into the mall parking lot with a Ferris Wheel, a vomit-inducing spinning ride, concession stands, and all the game booths. What if there’s a fire? A natural disaster? I’ll die in here with all the cheap plastic spiders before I find my way out. Feeling a panic attack coming on, I swat away a guy dressed as a vampire and rush further into the maze, up and down ramps, and shout James’s name.

No answer—just more of the crazy creepy carnival music. Cobwebbed mirrors taunt me with hundreds of disfigured reflections that laugh at me, sounding exactly like Sam’s clown when he won the game. Scared, they whisper. Unworthy. Weak.

I am never setting foot inside a funhouse again.

Somewhere up ahead, someone grunts and James curses. Maybe he punched the annoying vampire? I dash around the next bend and run smack into his hard chest. He’s breathing hard, and when he grabs me by the arms and wrenches me against him, I see our father in his eyes. Frantically, I search the ground behind him, expecting it to be littered with bodies. If he hit someone, whoever it was is gone.

“How could you invite them?” he demands. “Shit, Sarah—did you even stop to think how I’d feel about it? I’m all fucked up about Mom and needed to get away, just me and you!”

My stomach churns with guilt as I stare up at my hurting brother. I hadn’t cared why he wanted to get away. Why he only wanted me there. I was only thinking about me, about the gun in our bedroom closet, and Sam. Wasn’t this exactly what I realized James and I needed when Sam took me to the river?

I’m so very selfish.

The stuffed heart falls to the ground when I throw my arms around his neck, to hell with the consequences, and hug him as tightly as I can.

“I’m so sorry,” I tell him. “I’ll tell them we changed our minds or cancel altogether and go somewhere else by ourselves. To the coast, maybe, like you wanted.”

James buries his face in my hair and groans. “I wish we could, but we can’t.”

“Yeah, we can. Just let me—”

He doesn’t let me finish. Hands holding me tight to his chest, he brushes his lips across mine. “No. We’ll go with my friends.”

Stunned, I blink at him. There isn’t any heat in his eyes and I’m not feeling any of the weird tension coming off him at all like the last time. Instead, I feel…calm. Soothed. I’m not sure what to make of that and he doesn’t give me the chance to decide. After picking up the stuffed heart without so much as a sneer, he hands it to me and leads the way out of the not-so-funhouse.

We pass Sam on our way to the gate. Just before James and I are lost to the crowd, Sam pushes away from the booth he’s leaning against, catches my eye, and gives me another look so full of want, I feel it dance across my skin.

When he sees my hand in James’s, the want shifts abruptly to determination. James complains when I pick up the pace and haul him toward the exit. I ignore him because I know exactly what Sam’s determined to do, and there’s no way I’m letting him ruin everything.

Twenty-eight

By the next day, James is acting like a totally different person. Maybe it’s because he slept like the dead last night, his scraggly blue blanket tucked under his chin and one of his arms thrown over his head. Too bad I hadn’t been as lucky. Most of my night was spent staring at the shadows perched on the top shelf of our closet, wondering which one hid the gun.

Two weeks ago, if someone had told me I’d feel safer in the forest with a bunch of people from school than in my bedroom, I would’ve rolled my eyes and walked away.

Funny how fast things change.

I spend the two-hour drive to Mack Lake tired and thinking about things I’ve tried very hard not to think about. Like the fact that it’s been eight days since Sam and I had sex.

The first and only time we had it.

After an hour of listening to my brother’s off-key singing, I come to a horrible conclusion. What if Sam’s not interested because the first time was so awful, he doesn’t want to repeat it? Sam’s probably been with lots of girls already. Girls with more experience than me, probably. What if I did it wrong?

A few minutes later, I’m slammed by an even worse thought. We’ve kissed and touched plenty since that afternoon, but Sam’s always been careful to keep my clothes in place.

What if he was grossed out by my scars?

My brain churns through the possibilities, each more disastrous than the last, until I think I’ll be sick. Not that my brother notices. As soon as the ignition is cut and the emergency brake is set, James hops out of the truck, strips off his t-shirt, and barrels toward the lake where Alex and some of their friends are doing crazy dives off a floating log. The yellowed bruise on his stomach is nothing compared to the softball-sized ones that mar his back; angry, purple splotches that glare at me from the base of his neck to beneath his left shoulder blade.

Razor blades of panic slice my skin. I have no idea where those came from or what I could’ve done to piss our father off enough to beat him up.

Where was I when this happened?

Before I can stagger over to the nearest bush and throw up, Sam saunters over in a pair of low-slung shorts and flip-flops, temporarily blanking out my fears.

“That’s a pretty small tent,” he says, frowning at the two-person tent James picked up from Goodwill that morning. “You know, me and Alex are sharing his family’s twelve-man tent. You guys should bunk with us.”

I grab the extra sleeping bag I brought for Melinda and set it on the picnic table. It takes everything I have to force words out when he follows me back to the truck, hovering close enough to touch. “There’s no way James will agree to that and you know it.”

He leans closer. “Leave that part to me.”

He’s going to kiss me. Right here in front of James and all their friends. Try as I might, I can’t make my body move away to prevent this catastrophe. My eyes flutter closed like they did that first night and I hold my breath.

Sam’s bare chest presses against me, but his lips never find mine. From the back of the truck, he lifts out James’s duffel and our two sleeping bags. “Mmm,” he murmurs in my ear before pulling away. “Hold that thought.”

Stumbling through the pine needles with the plastic sack of hamburger and hotdog buns dangling from my wrist, I follow him across the main campsite, through a sparse row of pine trees, and into another clearing which houses an enormous blue and gray tent. He gestures me into the empty interior and dumps James’s bag onto the floor.

We’re alone—very much so. The sound of Sam quietly zipping the tent shut is drowned out by the splashing, shouting, and hoots of Alex’s laughter coming from the lake. The bag of food is on the floor and I’m in Sam’s arms before I can think twice about what we’re doing. The thrill of knowing how dangerous this is tingles across my skin as we kiss deeper and deeper, more desperate by the second.

“I missed you,” he groans.

“I missed you, too.”

Only one thing will give us what we both need, and I don’t care that he’s been resistant, or that now is neither the time nor the place for my brother to catch us together. I unbutton his shorts and try to drag him down onto the dusty tent floor. He doesn’t try to stop me.

“Oh, God,” he groans when I touch him. “I want this so bad, but not here. Later. I promise.”

My mouth drops open. Before I can ask if he means it, someone tromps up to the tent and unzips the door. I drop to my knees and pretend to be looking for something.

“You seen my goggles anywhere?” Alex asks, scanning the floor until he spots me fumbling with James’s duffel bag. “Oh, hey Sarah. You sleeping in here?”

I glance up at Sam, who has his back turned to Alex. The zipper on his shorts appears to be stuck, but his shoulders are shaking with barely contained laughter despite what will happen if Alex puts two and two together. Turning away from him, I give Alex my brightest smile. “Is that okay? The tent James bought is tiny, and Sam said you guys had plenty of room.”

“I’m fine with that,” Alex says with a sly grin. “You’ve gotta share a sleeping bag with me, though. It’s only fair.”

Zipper unstuck and zipped, Sam grabs something from the floor and chucks it at Alex, who ducks. The goggles sail past his head and land in the dirt several yards away.

“Good luck convincing James,” Sam snaps. “He’ll be sleeping in here, too, asshole.”

Alex narrows his gaze on Sam, then shifts it to me. I don’t like the conclusions I see forming in his bright green eyes. Not at all. Especially not when those conclusions solidify and he gives us a shrewd grin. “So… whatcha doing in the tent by yourselves, anyway?”

“Bugs,” Sam says matter-of-factly. “I told Sarah I had mosquito repellent in my bag.”

I shudder for good measure and nod. “Mosquitoes freak me out.”

“Riiight.” Alex shakes his head, then gives my body a thorough once over. “You’re going to have a hell of a time camping, if that’s the case. And I don’t think it is.”

As soon as he’s gone, I stagger to my feet, grabbing onto Sam’s shoulders for support. If Alex figures it out, we’re as good as dead. He’d never purposely hurt me or Sam or James—I’m sure of it—but no one in Granite Falls has a bigger mouth than Alex Anderson.

“He’ll tell James,” I gasp.

“Alex doesn’t know anything,” Sam says, and kisses me on the forehead. “He just wants you to think he knows something.”

Except, I know what I saw in Alex’s eyes.

On edge, my hopes for the weekend officially ruined, I follow Sam down to the shore and sit in the shade. Mack Lake, ten acres of sparkling, blue water ringed by tall pines and fir trees, stretches out in front of us. There aren’t any families here today, just a group of giggling, bikini-clad sophomores watching the guys dive off two floating logs in the center of the lake. I’m not surprised. The Logan High kids claimed Mack Lake as the school’s summer hangout years ago, scaring away any normal campers with their loud parties. I’ve heard so many stories about this place. To be here in person feels… surreal.

“You shouldn’t miss out because of me,” I tell Sam. “Go swim. I’ll be fine.”

“I’m good,” he says.

He’s lying, but I doubt he’ll admit it. I’ve heard enough about Sam’s back-flip diving prowess over the years to know he’d much rather be out there than sitting on the shore with a girlfriend too scarred to wear a swimsuit. I see the way he scrutinizes everyone’s jump.

“Sam…please?”

He examines the soft, reddish-brown silt and prickly pine needles at our feet as if they’re the most interesting things he’s ever seen. “Is it so hard to believe I want to spend time with you?”

No, but James keeps glancing in our direction, a concerned look on his face. Sighing, I grind the heel of my flip flop into the dirt. There’s only one way to win this battle of wills. “I want to spend time with you, too, but if you don’t get out there right now, we’re breaking up.”

His head snaps in my direction. “Don’t even joke about that.”

My smile doesn’t help the stern impression I’m trying to make, but I try anyway. “I’m not.” I nod toward the water and my brother, who quickly turns away when he sees me looking at him. “James doesn’t look like he wants us sitting together, and he will break us up.”

“Like hell he will.” Sam shields his eyes from the glaring sun, barely disguising the glare he gives the back of my brother’s head. “If you don’t tell him soon, I’m going to. Fair warning.”

He kicks off his flip flops and stomps toward the water, looking more like a predator stalking its prey than a guy on his way to having fun with his friends. Only after he wades into the lake and swims out to the logs do I let myself breathe again. I need a plan. One that’ll sway him back to my way of thinking—secrecy—before he, or Alex, ruin everything.

For someone who’s mad at my brother, Sam does a great job of pretending everything’s fine. From his perch atop the longest log, he laughs at Alex and James pummeling the hell out of each other in the water.

And then he stands up to jump, looking like a tan, athletic god.

My heart trips all over itself. The sophomores are ogling him too. Before I can march out there and slap the scheming, boyfriend-stealing looks off their faces, Sam jumps headlong into the melee and lands on top of James and Alex. They welcome him with fists to the gut. Unfazed, he dunks them both.

I settle back onto my elbows, mindful of the trail of prehistoric-sized ants marching past less than a foot away, and try to get comfortable. It’s only noon and already way too hot for my jeans and long-sleeved t-shirt. If there’d been a breeze, the eighty-five degree weather might be tolerable, but the thick trees surrounding the campsite block out whatever relief the mountains might’ve had planned.

Melinda waves to me from the log, her small body drowning in one of Jesse’s t-shirts and a pair of shorts. Hmm…maybe I could jump in with my clothes on.

James’s laughter pierces the already noisy air and draws my gaze. The sophomore girls must’ve waded close enough to catch our group’s attention, because two of them are riding around on the guys’ shoulders. Alex dives off the log and pops up between the legs of another, who shrieks and clings to his neck. Once Melinda hops onto Jesse’s shoulders, and everyone but Sam and James grab their own sophomore playthings, it doesn’t take long for a Mack Lake wrestling match to break out.

Watching James splash around, officiating the match without a girl on his shoulders, makes me sadder than I expect. It’s not for lack of partners. There are three girls sitting on the log to choose from, but James has turned down all three. Sam did, too, but he has a reason to keep his distance. Me.

My brother can’t say the same thing.

The match turns pornographic when the girl on Alex’s shoulders is pushed by one of her friends, somehow dislodging her bikini top before sending her face first into the water. Alex falls with her and resurfaces with her bikini in his hands, whirling it around his head like a lasso and whooping triumphantly.

If the only thing keeping my chest covered was in Alex Anderson’s hands, I would scream and swim for shore. Not this girl. She throws her arms around his neck, presses her bare chest to his, and giggles.

I can’t tell who’s more shocked—me or Alex.

His surprise doesn’t last long. Sinking just low enough to keep what he’s doing with his hands hidden, Alex eagerly kisses her. The other guys jeer and whistle, but the girl’s friends flash each other knowing grins.

Oh, yeah. That was planned.

Disgusting.

Hating that I’m jealous Sam and I aren’t doing the same thing, I get up, brush the dirt and pine needles off my jeans, and trudge back up to the main campsite. If I can’t kiss my boyfriend or swim with my brother, I might as well make everyone lunch.

I spot the old cooler with MORGAN printed across the top in fading black letters and head in that direction. Inside, half a dozen expired hotdog packages and two bags of premade hamburger patties sit nestled in ice.

A cold hand covers mine on the lid.

“I want you to swim with us,” my brother says gently. “It’s hot out, and I hate knowing you’re up here by yourself in all those clothes.”

I give him the most even smile I can manage before focusing on my lunch plans again. “I’m fine, really. Lunch will be ready in fifteen minutes if I can figure out how to start that camp stove. Do you know if anyone brought any beans?”

He steps closer and grasps my chin gently, forcing me to look him in the eye. Water droplets trickle from his hair into his face, but the sadness swirling in his usually-sparkling blue irises is like a jab to the gut. “The only thing I want is to make you happy. You know that, right? Everything I do is because I love you.”

Heat rises in my cheeks, pooling under his thumb and forefinger cradling my jaw. Terrified this conversation is going to lead to him trying to kiss me, I nod and pull away.

The sadness in his eyes abruptly fades to mischief. “Good,” he says. “So you’re not going to hate me for this.”

Before I can get away, James tosses me over his shoulder and takes off at a dead run for the lake, ignoring my flailing legs and arms.

“James!” I shriek. “Put me down!”

He laughs. “Not a chance. You ruined my weekend, so now I’m ruining yours.”

I try to kick away his hand, but he still manages to pry my flip-flops from my feet and chuck them into the trees. With his uneven footfalls jostling me around, I can’t get my bearings.

Landmarks. I need landmarks.

Pine needles and dirt, pine trees that all look alike from upside down, generic boulders…

I’ll never find my flip-flops in this forest.

The splashing and cheers are getting louder. Somewhere in the chaos, I hear Sam bark out an order that my brother ignores.

And then I’m airborne.

Twenty-nine

I hate my brother.

At least, when I’m sitting by the fire later that evening, wearing a pair of his flannel pants and one of Alex’s sweatshirts—but not my flip-flops—I want to hate him. Swimming in the cold water of Mack Lake would have felt wonderful if not for my jeans and long-sleeved shirt immediately tugging me under. Apparently, James forgot that I don’t know how to swim.

Sam fished me out. Sam, who has been scowling at me from across the fire for the last hour because I won’t sit next to him in front of Alex or James, and refused to wear his sweatshirt.

If that wasn’t bad enough, James is drunk.

This camping trip is turning out to be the worst weekend ever.

Not for Alex, though. He and Kelly—the sophomore has a name, apparently—haven’t stopped kissing since she lost her top in the lake. They’re sitting on a blanket on the darkest side of the fire, Kelly’s hands threaded through his bright red hair and her legs wrapped around his waist. At least she’s wearing clothes now.

I feel a little bad for her five friends who are ogling the other guys in our group. The girls are all pretty in a fake sort of way, but they might as well be invisible for all the attention they’re getting. Sam and James want nothing to do with them, Jesse is busy trying to dig a splinter out of Melinda’s thumb, and Alex’s friends have been drooling over Kelly ever since they got an eyeful of her perky C-cups earlier in the lake.

“James, man, you laid that guy out yesterday,” one of Alex’s friends says with a snicker. Corey, I think his name is. “When are they moving you to nights? They’ll make a fortune off that shit.”

James is fighting? How did I not know? My brother grins, but I’m analyzing Sam’s face, which has gone pale.

“No idea,” James says lightly and grabs one of the sophomore girls’ cell phones. “But Alex is gonna wind up starring in his own porn video if he and Kelly keep it up. Take her top off, Alex. I’ve got the camera pointing right at her chest.”

When Kelly laughs and reaches for the hem of her t-shirt, Alex jerks her hands away, scowling. Everyone but Sam and I get sucked into the will she/won’t she debate after that. I stare at him, hating that he’s hiding something from me about James, until he looks away and pretends to get in on the betting. At least he sides with Alex, who stopped kissing Kelly and seems disgusted by everyone else for a change.

My brother gives up the cell phone in favor of another beer, handed to him by one of the sophomores who plunks down beside him. He ignores her. Something about that image—my glassy-eyed brother with a beer in his hand, ignoring the girl groveling for attention—makes me dizzy. I shoot to my bare feet, wondering how many pine needles I’ll have to pluck from the soles of my feet tonight, and head for the tent.

“Goodnight, everybody,” I call over my shoulder.

“’Night,” comes the unison response. They’re all too busy discussing Kelly’s boobs to care about me, thankfully.

The quick shuffle of footsteps behind me sounds too light to be my brother or Sam. I hesitate and look over my shoulder at the person bouncing toward me with a small flashlight.

“Hey,” Melinda says with a nervous smile. “I wanted to say thank you for the sleeping bag and bring you these.”

She shoves a pair of worn sneakers into my hands. I’ve seen her wear them at school enough times to know they’re hers. “Thanks,” I say. “You’re welcome for the sleeping bag, too.”

Before I can stop her, she gives me a warm hug. “Thanks for inviting Jesse and me up here. It’s hard making friends sometimes, you know?” She releases me before I have the chance to figure out where my arms go. “Oh, and here.”

This time, it’s her flashlight that’s shoved into my hand. “Jesse brought, like, eight of these things. He was a Boy Scout when he was a kid. G’night!”

What a strange, strange day I’m having.

Still struggling with the idea of Melinda calling herself my friend, I watch her bounce back through the trees to where Jesse waits by the fire. She flings herself into his arms, and soon, they vanish into the darkness where I recall seeing a red tent. When their flashlight beam clicks off, I slip on her shoes and make my way toward Alex’s enormous tent, wishing Sam had been the one to follow me.

Then again, I wouldn’t have made a friend if he had.

“Wait up,” my brother’s voice booms from behind me.

I unzip the door and wait, pointing the flashlight at the ground in front of me. Mosquitoes and moths flock to the little beam of light, bashing into the plastic lens and bumping into my hand. Forget this. Shuddering, I click it off.

“Could’ve left it on another ten seconds,” he grumbles when he stumbles into the tent. “Can’t see shit out here.”

Once again, he reminds me of our father. How many times has our father sat in his rust orange recliner grumbling about something or other? Sighing, I follow him into the tent and zip it up behind us.

“So here’s how this is gonna work,” he says. “You’re sleeping there—” he kicks my sleeping bag to the farthest wall “—and I’m sleeping right here.”

I blink at the tiny sliver of space left between the wall and where he’s unrolling his sleeping bag. We might as well be sharing one for how close to me he’s planning to sleep.

“I won’t be able to move if you’re that close. Scoot over a few feet.”

He ignores me and climbs into his bag. “You were right about this being more fun with friends. ‘Specially those cute little high school girls.”

As if he’s paid them any attention beyond making fun of Alex. “Glad you’re having so much fun,” I mutter. Unrolling my sleeping bag is next to impossible with how sloped the ceiling is against the wall, so I purposely trample James to get everything in place. He’s snoring before my bag is even unzipped.

When he’s drunk, James is almost impossible to wake, so I sit down, plant my feet on his hips, and shove him and his bag a foot farther away. Only then do I crawl into my bag and let the exhausting day draw me into the blackness.

Thirty

I’m having the good dream again—the one where Sam loves me and keeps me safe with his heated kisses and gentle caresses. Warm hands cradle my face. Soft lips dance across my closed eyes and my cheeks. My name, breathed softer than air, reaches my ears. Over and over he whispers my name, until I’m forced to drag myself back to consciousness and the realization that I’m lying in a sleeping bag on the cold tent floor.

The sensations don’t fade like they normally do.

“Sarah,” the whisper says again. “Wake up.”

My eyelids flutter open, his name on my lips. Before I can speak, he kisses me. It feels so good, his mouth covering mine, his tongue tracing my lips until I let him in. It feels dream good. On an impulse, I reach for his face expecting empty air.

Hot skin, sharp stubble, coarse wavy hair.

Sam.

I freeze.

He pulls away, grins, and glances over his shoulder at Alex’s empty bag and James, who has rolled another two feet away in his sleep. I snatch the flashlight Sam’s shining on my snoring brother and turn it off, my eyes wide with warnings I hope he understands.

He does.

Silently, Sam unzips my sleeping bag—maybe this is a dream, because that sleeping bag hadn’t been silent when I got into it—grabs Melinda’s shoes, and leads me out of the tent.

“Alex is staying in Kelly’s tent tonight, and your brother’s out for at least a couple more hours with how much he drank,” he informs me. “Which means you and I are going on a date.”

A date? I glance down at my rumpled flannel pants and Alex’s sweatshirt. “Can I at least put on my jeans?”

“They’re still wet. Besides, you won’t need your clothes where we’re going.”

I gape at him.

He laughs.

We spend the next fifteen minutes stumbling through thick ferns, climbing over logs, and avoiding moss infested boulders in silence. Finally, after what feels like forever, I hear water.

“The river?”

“Yep.”

Sam leads me through the last of the trees, down a steep slope to a concrete wall that juts out of the shallow part of the water and runs parallel to the embankment. With only a musty yellow floodlight illuminating the area, I can’t see how far it goes, but there’s definitely something on the other side of it. The roar of rushing water is much louder here than at our secret place.

“You kidnapped me to show me a wall?”

“Absolutely. Now, take off your shoes and roll up your pants.” I do, and he tows me into the shallow water by the hand. We stop at the base of the wall which I now see stands about six feet high. Squatting, he offers his linked hands to give me a boost.

“We’re climbing the wall?” I glance upstream, noting that the wall ends less than twenty feet away in that direction. “Why can’t we go around?”

“You’ll see. Hurry up.”

I gingerly step onto the center of his joined palms. As usual, I forget how strong Sam is. I’m in the air and scrambling onto the top of the wall half a second later. He pulls himself up behind me. It takes everything I have not to drool at how hot he looks doing physical things like climbing six foot walls.

“How’s your balance?”

“You’re just now asking me this?”

Chuckling, he walks effortlessly along the wall into the darkness downstream. “Keep up. If you fall in, I’ll need to be close enough to hear you hit the water.”

“Great. Just…great.”

Fortunately, thanks to years of walking along those bumper curbs in the mall parking lot while James and I avoided going home after school, I have excellent balance. I catch up to him immediately and nearly knock him into the water when he stops suddenly at the end of the wall.

And then I see what he’s looking at.

Below us, four square cement frames sit in a line beside a short waterfall. Water diverted from the stream swirls violently inside each of the six foot by six foot squares, spilling from one into the next until, finally free, it drains back into the stream at the base of the waterfall. They look like stairs made out of water. Or maybe a row of hot tubs that I very much doubt are hot.

“What are they?”

“Fish ladders,” he says, stripping off his t-shirt. “Fish use them to get upstream when the water’s running too fast to jump the falls. They’re great for cooling off.”

I gape at him for what feels like the hundredth time tonight. When he unbuttons his shorts, drops them, and drapes them with his shirt over the edge of the wall, my eyes feel like they’re going to pop from my head. “Naked?”

He stops short of pulling off his boxer briefs and gives me a wicked grin. “Well, I’d planned on keeping my underwear on, but you’re more than welcome to go in naked.”

“But…” I look back to the embankment and the stand of trees where we emerged from the forest. What if someone followed us? “We’re in public.”

After realizing I’m serious, Sam laughs so hard I’m afraid he might fall into the top step of the fish ladder. When he jumps in, I’m afraid he’s done just that.

“Sam!” I shriek, dropping to my knees on the concrete ledge.

He pops up, grinning, and smoothes his wet hair back from his face. “Water feels great,” he calls up to me. “C’mon in!”

Over the dull roar of the whirling water, I hear what sounds like footsteps crunching through the underbrush. Sam sees me peering into the woods and climbs the narrow metal ladder on his side of the wall.

“I thought I heard someone,” I tell him when he’s close enough for me not to shout.

When no mysterious stalkers appear, Sam shrugs. “It was probably an angler. The unlicensed ones come out at night and set up camp further upstream before the wardens start prowling the roads in the morning. They wouldn’t dare fish down by the ladders though, so we’re safe.”

Unconvinced, but even less willing to get caught standing up here, I strip off Alex’s sweatshirt and James’s flannel pants and hurry down the ladder. The water is freezing and deceptively deep, hitting me mid-chest, and I’m not prepared when the strong current sucks me toward the edge. Thank God for Sam or I might’ve fallen into the next one.

Holding me tight to his chest, he backs into the far corner and presses himself against the wall. My senses are on high alert with the cold water lashing at my legs and back contrasting sharply with his hot, smooth skin. When he starts kissing my neck, I almost forget about people following us, my father prowling around the house back at home, and James sleeping soundly in the tent.

Almost.

“I think James suspects,” I say just loud enough for Sam to hear me. “You shouldn’t have taunted him last night—you know how he gets about winning.”

“I told you. I don’t care anymore,” he says. His mouth brushes across my cheek, pausing to nibble on my earlobe. “I want everyone to know you’re mine. The sooner they do, the sooner I can get you out of that house.”

“He’ll kill us.”

“He’ll be seriously pissed off, yes, but he’s not going to kill us.”

I’m not so sure about that. Not with how unstable he’s been lately. He may not kill me, but he’ll definitely try to kill Sam. “Not yet, okay? Promise me.”

He sighs and presses his forehead against mine. Softly, so the words are almost lost to the loud water, he asks, “Do you love me?”

Hearing the fear in his voice, my breath catches. Every night since our walk at Leslie’s, I’ve lain in my bed and asked myself this exact question. My answer has gotten stronger with each day we’ve spent together. Whether he’s keeping me safe or making me laugh when all I want to do is curl into a ball and cry, Sam’s quickly becoming my everything. He’ll never replace James, but Sam is exactly what my brother can never be.

“Yes,” I whisper.

He gives me a sad smile. “Then why are you so desperate to hide that we’re together?”

I don’t know how to explain it so that he understands. Telling everyone will destroy my brother, and the thought of causing James more pain than I already have makes me sick. There has to be a better way for me to get what I want. I’ve been telling myself that if I can hold Sam off a little bit longer, if I can save up enough money to prove to James that he doesn’t need to worry about me all the time anymore, he’ll take the news better.

Maybe.

When I don’t answer, Sam’s arms slacken around my waist and he looks away. For one horrifying second, I think he’s going to break up with me. My blood runs colder than the water swirling around us and I hold onto him even tighter. “I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone.”

He eyes me. “More than James?”

“Yes.” The guilt-ridden truth of what I’m saying floods every cell of my body. I may not want to hurt James, but if I had to choose between Sam and my brother, I’d choose Sam. Several delicate threads of my sanity snap with the realization.

“Really?” Sam blinks, obviously taken aback, making me wonder just how feral I look clinging to him like this.

“Yes,” I say again.

He presses his forehead to mine and gives me the sexy little half-smile I can’t get enough of. “For the record, I love you, too.”

Every part of me melts at his words. As we kiss, first gently, then deeper and more desperate by the second, my bra comes off. Then my panties. The sight of both, sopping wet and drooping from the ladder rungs, jars loose the panicked thoughts I had on the drive up to the lake. Desperate to prove myself wrong, I grab the waistband of his boxer briefs and try to tug them off. If I can just get him naked, I’ll know for sure—

He grabs my hands and places them on his chest. “Please don’t.”

Please don’t? Is the thought of me touching him that repulsive?

I back away, arms folded across my chest, my stinging eyes glued to the swirling water in front of me. “How can you say you love me when you don’t want to be with me again? Was the first time that bad? Or did my scars freak you out?”

Sam gapes at me. “That’s not it at all. I can’t believe you thought—” He takes a deep breath and drags his hands through his wet hair. When he pins with me those intense gray eyes, my knees wobble. “I love you,” he says. “Everything about you. I was afraid you might still be sore, and I didn’t think I’d be able to stop if we got too close. I didn’t want to hurt you.”

The relief that floods my chest is stronger than I expect and my body sags. Pressing my back against the wall to keep myself steady, I stare at the boy who loves me because he wants to, not because he has to.

He wades closer and grasps my shoulders, peering intently at me. “Are you? Still sore, I mean?”

Sniffling, I shake my head. “Haven’t been for days.”

“Thank God.”

I’ll probably regret the scrapes and scratches on my back in the morning, but I love the desperate way Sam crushes me against the concrete wall and shows me just how perfectly we fit together. The intensity in his eyes, how our heated skin slides together in the cold water, the way he gasps my name at the end…I’ll never forget this night as long as I live.

“I called UCLA,” he says afterward, smoothing wet chunks of hair back from my face. “They’re letting me in. When I leave in August, I want you to come with me.”

I rest my head on his shoulder. “They’ll never let me live in the dorms with you. And school…I have to finish school.”

“We’ll get an apartment,” he murmurs in my ear, pulling my legs up around his waist again. “And then I’ll help you get a GED fall term so you can apply to UCLA, too. Say yes.”

I close my eyes and shudder. He’s offering me everything I’ve ever wanted—him, freedom, and a life far away from my father. James will be devastated.

This decision is mine.

“Yes.”

Thirty-one

Sam freezes against my body, and for a second, I think I said the wrong thing.

But then he curses and grabs my bra and panties from the ladder. “Someone’s coming. Get dressed.”

Putting on a soggy bra feels like an impossible task, but I quickly realize doing it underwater is the only way to get the fabric to stop sticking to my skin long enough to shrug it into place. By the time I resurface, I know who’s found us.

Alex.

Sam helps me up the ladder and tries to shield me from view as we scramble along the wall with, but Alex’s hoots of laughter when he sees us wake half the forest, I’m sure of it.

“Shut the fuck up!” Sam growls.

“Oh, man,” Alex says, wiping tears from his eyes. “I hope it’s worth it, because James is going to kick your ass!”

“James doesn’t know,” I say. Feeling naked, my arms snake around Sam’s waist, loving the way his stomach muscles clench beneath my hands even though I’m half out of my mind with fear. “I don’t want him to know. Please don’t say anything.”

Alex waves me off. “I’m so drunk, I probably won’t even remember this in the morning. In fact, I’m lucky I didn’t get lost in this fucking forest. You guys have the right idea, though.”

When he strips off his t-shirt, exposing his ripped abs and chest, my nails dig into Sam’s skin. He’s a redheaded, bruise-free version of my brother. Panic sets in immediately.

“Turn around so I can get dressed,” I choke out.

“Nope. I’ve always wondered what you look like under all those clothes. What’s with that, anyway? You’re hot, Sarah.”

Sam’s body clenches tighter than his jaw. Alex thinks he’s getting a show, analyzing what he thinks is a normal body hidden behind his friend in the shadows. When Sam grabs our clothes and moves toward him, I’m sure we’ll be carrying a very bloody, very unconscious Alex back to camp. Mortified, I hang my head and wait for this to be over.

Alex’s wolf whistles and catcalls abruptly die when Sam’s body no longer shadows mine.

“Oh, fuck,” Alex blurts out.

The grim look on Sam’s face when he turns around makes my blood run cold. Standing there in front of them, my hands shielding my wet bra and panties in case they’ve turned see-through in the faint light, I feel my eyes welling with tears I don’t want to shed. I lift my chin and try to meet Alex’s gaze, but his eyes are still glued to the scars on my stomach.

“Now you know,” Sam says. “And you will keep your mouth shut.”

The two of them drop back into the shallow stream on the other side of the wall and Sam reaches up to help me down. No sooner do my feet hit the ground, Alex lurches forward to yank me into his arms. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell us?”

“I thought you guys knew,” I mutter, trying to put distance between my bare stomach and his. “How could you not with all the crap he did to James?”

His massive shoulders and strong arms keep me in place. “Your dad did this?”

Who else? I want to ask, but Sam is clearly not enjoying the sight of his mostly naked girlfriend in the arms of another guy. He clears his throat and Alex backs away.

“Here,” Sam says, and hands me my clothes. “We should get back before James wakes up. Where’s Kelly?”

“I left her puking by the lake,” Alex says as I shrug on his sweatshirt. “Forgot all about her when I saw you guys sneaking off. Guess I should go find her, huh?”

We stare at him.

“Going,” he says, balling up his t-shirt. He hesitates, glancing at my stomach again even though it’s covered. “You know you can call me anytime, right?”

“Thanks,” I say, right as Sam glares at him and says, “She’ll call me first.”

“I care, too, you know.” Alex’s frown morphs into a lopsided grin. “Hey, did you know I was her first kiss?”

Drunk as he is, Sam’s menacing step forward is all the warning Alex needs. He raises his hands and backs away. “Yep. Definitely going.”

Sam says nothing while he yanks on his own clothes, oblivious to my mouth hanging open. “Alex” and “caring” are two words I never would’ve put together. And even more strange…I believe him. At least he wrapped it up with a predictably disgusting comment about the kiss I’d like to forget. When Sam takes my hand and leads me into the trees, I shake the craziness out of my head.

Up ahead, I hear Alex stumbling and cursing his way through the underbrush. He seems to be going in the right direction. Maybe that’s all Sam needed to hear, because he stops me next to a big tree and stares at the ground.

His dark eyes are barely visible in the flashlight’s dull beam, but I don’t need to see them to feel their force. He runs a hand through his hair. “I get why James kept you away from us now. I can’t stand the thought of you going to Alex instead of me. I want to be that person for you.”

I touch his arm. “You are that person. And it’s not like he was serious. He’s Alex.”

“Doesn’t matter. And it’s not Alex, it’s me. I can’t control it.” He steps closer, cupping my cheek in his palm. “Every time my dad left for a deployment, he’d make me promise to take care of my mom. He loved her so much, the thought of something happening while he was away killed him. The last time he left…”

Sam’s voice breaks and his eyes close. I wrap my arms around his waist and bury my face in his neck.

“I get why my dad felt that way, now,” he whispers.

Thirty-two

When I wake up, James is sitting cross-legged on his sleeping bag watching me. His calculating gaze flickers from my face to my hair to my olive green sleeping bag, which is still unzipped from last night. I didn’t zip it up when Sam and I crawled back into the tent, terrified he’d hear it. I paid the price by freezing all night long.

Feeling uncomfortably naked under his scrutiny, I drag the ancient sleeping bag to my chin and sit up. “What?”

I expect him to ask why I’m still in bed when everyone else is gone. He doesn’t.

“You look like shit.”

My hands go to my hair, which feels like a tangled, mangled mess. With the chaos of Alex finding us, I didn’t think about how it would dry after swimming in the fish ladders. There’s probably a bunch of crap knotted into it. Moss, even. I frantically smooth down the unruly mass of waves and scramble to come up with a good lie. “My pigtails must’ve fallen out.”

“So it seems.”

James stands up and yanks off his shirt. I focus on one of the few scars on his chest—a jagged zigzag right over his heart that came from the tree at our old elementary school and not our father—and try to pull myself together. I’m so focused, when he unties his flannel pants and drops them and his boxers to the floor, I suck in a breath and turn away two seconds too late.

He chuckles. “Jesus, Sarah. You act like you’ve never seen a naked guy before.”

A wave of panic threatens to turn my stomach inside out. There’s no way he knows. If he’d woke up while I was gone, he wouldn’t have gone back to sleep until he found me. He was still out cold, sleeping bag tangled around his legs, when we snuck back into the tent around three. To be sure, I listened to his light snores mingling with Sam’s even breathing for an hour before letting myself drift off.

The zipper on our duffel bag slides open and shut. Fabric rustles as he shoves his legs into new boxers and shorts and pulls on a shirt. It sounds like he slings the duffel bag over his shoulder, but I refuse to open my eyes until his nakedness is erased from my mind.

“You’re gonna have to hitch a ride back home. I’ve gotta be somewhere and I can’t wait around for you to pack up your shit.”

When he steps out of the tent, I flop onto my back and stare at the navy blue fabric of the tent, swaying lightly in the morning breeze. Where is Sam? Whenever we’re apart, it’s like every trace of happiness he and I worked so hard to create gets zapped out of my heart like static on a plastic slide. I feel like two different people—a normal girl with a hot boyfriend when we’re together, and then the wilted shadow I have to be at home. I hate it, now more than ever.

Things only get worse when I finally stumble out of the tent into the warm morning sunlight. Apparently Alex wasn’t drunk enough to forget what he saw last night because he’s there, waiting outside on one of the boulders.

He shoots to his feet. “So, um, your brother left, but I don’t want you to think I had anything to do with it. I swear I didn’t say anything.”

“Okay.” I look around him, hoping to see Sam nearby, but it’s just me and Alex. I choose a boulder across from his and sit down. “Where’s Kelly?”

“Don’t know, don’t care. There is something seriously wrong with that girl. Is James coming back for you?”

“No.” I avoid his probing stare and try to remember where Sam’s car was parked when we pulled up. Alex only has a motorcycle, so they would’ve had to carpool to get the tent and all their stuff up here. Hopefully there will be enough room for me.

“Hey, about last night…I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I always knew something was up, but James swore he had everything under control so I let it go. I mean, who could take care of himself—and you, for that matter—better than your brother? The guy’s a fucking maniac in the ring, just like your dad.”

I hardly have the chance to glare at Alex before he scrubs his face with his hands and lets out a half-hearted chuckle. “Probably not the best comparison. Forget I said that.”

“Hey,” Sam says from behind me.

The second our eyes meet, all the heat and love I felt last night before Alex barged in on us rolls over me like a tsunami. I hesitate—do I throw myself into his arms with Alex right here, or do I act like last night never happened?—but Sam takes charge of the situation. He slips his arms around my waist, pulls my back to his chest, and plants a kiss on my temple.

The goofy grin on Alex’s face is enough to make me smile a little.

“It’s about goddamn time,” he says. “Now, what’s for breakfast?”

Thirty-three

We leave Alex on the sidewalk in front of his house with the tent and camping stove. I’m surprisingly disappointed that Sam didn’t offer to help stow everything away because I’ve never been to this side of town—the “nice” part of Granite Falls. The two little redheaded girls running around on the lawn in front of the giant blue house are like miniature, feminine versions of Alex in their matching green dresses. I’ve never pictured him as a big brother.

“So I’ve been thinking,” I say when we pull away from the curb. “The first thing I want to do when we get to L.A. is go to Disneyland.”

Sam chuckles. “I was kinda hoping you’d want to go to Magic Mountain. The rides are supposed to be awesome.”

“And the beach. I want to go to the beach, too.”

“Only if you let me buy you a bikini,” he says with a sly grin. “Can’t go to a California beach in all those clothes. The sun will be good for you.”

I scowl at him even though I’m loving this conversation. He’ll have to work a lot harder to get me in a bikini. Still, it feels incredible to be talking about our future together like this. Like maybe things are going to be okay. “We’ll pick one up right after you buy me a guinea pig.”

“The dog I plan on buying will eat your guinea pig. Sure that’s a good idea?”

Grinning, I slide my hand across the center console to his knee, my fingers tracing a path of hearts up his thigh. “All of my ideas are good.”

When my hand reaches its destination, Sam jerks the car into a gravel parking lot. I barely register the store in the distance before he has me unbuckled and in his arms. This intense desperation is one of the things I love about Sam. Drowning in it—in him—keeps me sane.

Unfortunately, I’m losing sight of the goal. “So about that bikini…”

“You play dirty,” he grumbles. “Finish this and you can wear whatever you want and have your damn guinea pig.”

“Deal.” With a triumphant grin, I pull away and buckle my seatbelt.

“I meant now.”

Sam’s smoldering gaze could burn down a forest, and for a second, I consider giving him what he wants right here in the parking lot of Shop Mart, but no. I want all of him and we won’t have that kind of privacy here.

“Take me home, and I’ll more than finish what I started.”

We reach my street faster than should be possible without a rocket-propelled car, but the two red lights and four stop signs Sam runs probably has something to do with it. How could I have ever thought he didn’t want me? I laugh as he careens around the last corner and hits the gas. Thankfully, it’s a quiet Sunday afternoon and most of the town is holed up in one church or another.

“Wait!” I gasp.

He sees it at the same time I do—a beige, unmarked police car, the same model and color all the undercover cops in Granite Falls drive—sitting in front of my house.

“Should I keep going?” he asks. “We could go back to my place.”

It’s too late for that. The cop saw us the second we skidded around the corner and will probably pull him over for running the stop sign anyway. All I can think about is James. His truck isn’t out front and I have no idea where he is. Was there an accident on the way home? Did the cops finally bust Leslie while my brother was with her?

We pull up to the house, but the cop stays in his car. Weird. Maybe he’s not here for us? Keeping my head down, I follow Sam up the driveway.

He slides his chain out from beneath his shirt and stoops low enough to unlock the front door with the key I gave him last week. Before I slip inside, I glance over my shoulder at the car and the hulk of a man hunched over a notepad inside. He looks up, as if sensing my eyes on him, and shuts off the engine.

“Hurry!” I all but shove Sam into the foyer, then slam the door behind us.

Now that we’re inside, I should feel safe. I should, but I don’t. A film of stale nicotine clings to the walls like a ghost, stacks of boxing magazines litter the end table, and my father’s recliner still waits for us in the living room.

No, I’ll never be safe here.

Rap-rap-rap.

The sharp knock sends me scrambling into Sam’s arms. “What do we do?”

“We answer the door,” he says calmly, “and ask him what the hell your brother did now.”

Rap-rap-rap. “Miss O’Brien?”

Sam pries me from his body and moves us toward the door. One of my hands grabs for one of his, while the other dutifully reaches for the knob.

A man about my father’s age, at least six foot four with jet-black hair and the body of a weightlifter, towers like an enormous totem pole on the porch. He pins me in place with his dark brown eyes. “Sarah O’Brien?”

My mouth drops open in an attempt to answer the man, but my brain isn’t keeping up. There’s no way this guy is an undercover cop—everything about him screams ex-boxer! The way my father talks about it, they’re like the mafia, which can only mean one of two things: he’s here to kill my father, or my father sent him to kill me. Before he has a chance to make a move and just as my knees threaten to give out, Sam wedges himself between us.

“Can I help you?”

The man produces a black leather wallet that flops open to reveal a shiny brass police badge. “Detective Lilly, Granite Falls police department.” The wallet vanishes and a small spiral notebook and a ballpoint pen materialize in its place. “Your name and relation, for the record?”

“Sam Donavon. I’m a friend of Sarah and James.”

Detective Lilly nods once and scribbles down the information. “I’d like to speak with the O’Brien siblings. Individually, if possible. Is James home?”

I shake my head, but Sam must still be stuck on the first half of the statement, because he says, “I’m not going anywhere unless Sarah wants me to. What is this about?”

Those intense brown eyes give Sam a onceover before turning to me. “May I speak freely in front of Mr. Donavon?”

“Yes,” I squeak. My mind races through everything James might have done to get himself in trouble. A drug bust at Leslie’s, buying an illegal weapon, getting into a brawl at work, doing one of his stupid brake-checks in the wrong neighborhood…

“All right,” Detective Lilly says. “An investigation has been opened with regard to your mother’s death. We’d like to gather some information from your family. See if we can’t piece together a more accurate picture of what happened that morning.”

Though he’s standing in front of us—in front of Sam, who is still shielding me from the brunt of Detective Lilly’s presence—speaking directly to me, my brain struggles to process the words coming out of his mouth. An investigation? As in, maybe they suspect the same thing I do? Sam fumbles behind him for my other hand and gives both a tight squeeze.

“So,” Detective Lilly says, snapping his notebook shut. “Shall we go inside or would you like to answer my questions out here on the porch?”

I let Sam direct the detective into our living room and trail behind them both. We sit silently on the scratchy beige couch that never gets used and wait for Detective Lilly to finish perusing my father’s memorabilia.

Finally, he stops walking and smiles at us—a terrifying facial expression that resembles a grimace more than a smile. “I know your father,” he says. “Knocked me out on more than one occasion during my boxing days. How’s he doing?”

No matter how hard I try, the smile I try to give him refuses to stick to my face. “He’s fine.”

Detective Lilly keeps right on smiling, his dark gaze boring into my skull. “Good to hear. No trouble around the house then? No problems at work that you know about?”

I can feel the blood draining from my face. He knows—somehow, someway, he knows. The realization is paralyzing. Sam nudges me, which catches Detective Lilly’s eye. The man doesn’t miss anything. “James says he’s gotten in trouble at work a few times,” I say to deflect his attention. “We don’t know why. They keep James away from our father at the mill.”

Sam nudges me again. When Detective Lilly reaches for his notebook, I pinch Sam’s leg to shut him up. If the detective notices Sam jump half a foot off the couch, he makes no sign of it. Instead, he settles into my father’s rust-orange recliner and flips through the notebook.

“Tell me about the medication your mother was taking. Are you aware of how many she took? How long she’d been taking them?”

As clear as if she’d died this morning, I can picture the open pill bottles lined up like dozens of unorganized military men on top of James’s old dresser. “I know there were a lot. And she’s been taking at least some of them for as long as I can remember.”

“Who picked them up for her? Or were they mail-order?”

Uh-oh. “James brought them home.” Along with cartons of cigarettes and God knows what else he slipped into those brown paper bags. I don’t know how he pulled it off before he turned eighteen, but he’d faithfully delivered everything to her door once a week since his sophomore year in high school. Maybe that’s how he met Leslie.

Detective Lilly nods and scribbles something into his notebook. “Where did he pick them up? Which pharmacy?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know.”

“Okay.” More scribbling. “Any idea why your father didn’t pick them up? Or do you not know that either?”

“Sorry.” I’m starting to feel uncomfortable—more than when he showed up and way more than normal, which is saying a lot. “James and I have never been close to either of our parents,” I say. Hopefully that explains enough without actually explaining anything.

Beside me, Sam is getting antsy again. I can feel the tension in his body and have a pretty good idea what he wants me to do. And why wouldn’t I turn my father in? He’s not here to stop me, and I don’t have to worry about my mother getting hurt when he finds out. Even James would be proud.

But what if I tell Detective Lilly and he doesn’t arrest my father? It’s my word against an adult’s, and I have firsthand experience how badly that ends. When I was in second grade, my teacher saw the edge of a bruise I hadn’t been able to hide completely with my too-short sleeves. She coaxed the barest of information out of me—enough to deduce I hadn’t fallen down a flight of stairs or something—and hauled me straight to the principal.

Who called my father.

That had been a Friday. Even with James’s protection, I couldn’t walk until Sunday night. The memories from that weekend, how battered both James and I had been, and of having to watch my father drag our mother around the house by her hair while she screamed, keeps me from ratting him out.

I’m pretty sure that was his intention.

Detective Lilly stares at me while I replay that horrible weekend in my mind. My whole life, James has been able to read my face. I hope it’s a brother thing and not a transparency thing, or else I’ve just given the Granite Falls police department exactly what I didn’t want to tell them. Shifting closer to Sam, I try to make my face blank.

With a flick of his wrist, the detective flips his notebook shut and stows it wherever he’s been pulling it from behind his back. “Thank you for your time, Ms. O’Brien, Mr. Donavon,” he says, suddenly all business. “If I think of anything else, I’ll come by again. Do you have any questions for me?”

“No,” I say at the same time Sam says, “I do.”

I gape at him, but he grabs my hand and pulls me off the couch with him.

“Why are you investigating a suicide?” he asks. “That’s not normal, is it?”

For several long seconds, I don’t think Detective Lilly is going to answer. I don’t blame him. Sam’s question sounds like a challenge.

After trying to stare Sam down and losing, he says to me, “Your mother had been using depressants for a very long time from what the medical examiner can tell. He collected eight separate non-prescription depressant drugs from her bedroom, ones your brother has somehow been refilling for years, if what you say is true. The drug she overdosed on was an amphetamine—a powerful one, and an extremely high dose of it.”

He uses that dark gaze of his to bore into my skull again. “And yet, there was no trace of that drug anywhere in her room.”

Seemingly oblivious to my silent horror, Detective Lilly pretends to tip a hat he isn’t wearing and stalks out the front door.

I lose my mind the second the door closes.

“I knew he did it!” My whole body trembles, and I cling to the front of Sam’s t-shirt to keep me upright. “I knew it the second he looked at me that morning. I knew he did it. Oh my God!”

Sam holds me tightly against him. If there were a way to climb inside his skin and hide in his warmth and love, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Anything to take away this horrible ache in my chest. All the fighting and the burns—I didn’t think he’d kill her. Me, sure, but her?

“This is my fault,” I sob into his chest. “If I didn’t always hide or if I’d made James stay away, maybe letting him hurt me would’ve been enough. Maybe he would’ve left her alone. Maybe she’d still be alive.”

“Yeah, but you wouldn’t be,” Sam says. “I’m sure she’d rather it be this way.”

Thinking about her protecting me makes me cry even harder. My whole life, she shut herself away in her room. She heard my screams and not once did she try to stop my father, no matter how many times I cried her name. I can’t believe she’d die so I could live. I won’t.

“Your brother will be home in a couple hours,” Sam says when I’ve cried myself into exhaustion. “Want to rest for a little bit? I’ll stay awake.”

I don’t want to rest. I want to escape. I lead him back to the scratchy couch and ignore the troubling fact that he seems to know where James is and I don’t. Not even his soothing presence or the safety of his arms wrapped around me can touch the dread gurgling in my gut.

You’re next, my father’s look had said.

I know I am.

Thirty-four

It’s 5:28 when our father pulls into the garage. He’s earlier than normal, which is bad because I’m in the middle of cooking a take-n-bake pizza James was planning to polish off himself. Sharing it with me, let alone a third person, won’t sit well with him.

Pretending I don’t see our father standing in the doorway, I open the oven to a puff of smoke and inspect the overcooked crust. Damn it. Of all nights to burn dinner, it has to be the one he’s home. He’ll be pissed for sure. I’m surprised he hasn’t started complaining about the smoke.

The door clicks shut, and his keys slide across the countertop, stopping inches from where I’m stooped over trying to coax the gooey pepperoni pizza from the oven rack onto a plate. Short of burning the hell out of myself or starting a fire because I dumped sauce and cheese everywhere, there’s no way for me to straighten or twist around so my back’s not to him. The most I can do is stab the crust with my fork and drag it out faster, cursing everything from my lack of potholders to our broken kitchen timer.

James drifts into the kitchen then, the sound of our father’s keys scraping the countertop an alarm neither of us ever ignores. When the pizza finally cooperates and I’m able to stand up, my brother is directly behind me, arms folded across his chest, locked in a staring contest of sorts with our father.

He wins.

“Better save me some of that,” our father calls over his shoulder on his way down the hallway. “I’m gonna change and we can all eat at the table like a real family.”

Mockery and distaste drip from his words. James opens his mouth to say something, but I touch his elbow and shake my head. That’d be like jabbing sticks at a sleeping snake. No thank you.

Of course, dinner is every bit the nightmare I expect. Beside me, James inhales his portion of the pizza while glowering at our father. Across the table, our father eats his slices while staring at me. He smiles lightly whenever our gazes meet—which isn’t often, I make sure of it—and for a few too-good-to-be-true minutes, I believe that’s all he’ll do.

“How’d school go this year?” he asks me partway through his second slice.

“Fine.”

“You applying to any colleges?”

“I plan to, yes.”

That earns me a hard what-the-hell-are-you-talking-about look from James. His plan to run away doesn’t include either of us going to college and I know it, but there’s no way I can tell him about Sam and UCLA.

“Apply to GFCC,” our father says. “I don’t want you too far away.”

I know I can get in somewhere more prestigious than Granite Falls Community College. I open my mouth to say as much, but James beats me to it.

“Sarah can go wherever the fuck she wants to go,” my brother says in a dark voice. “The farther away from you, the better.”

James shoving away from the table and stomping down the hall effectively ends dinner. When our bedroom door slams and he cranks Godsmack to an ungodly level of loud, my gaze locks on my plate and the narrow, untouched sliver of pizza I allotted myself. Please don’t talk to me, please don’t talk to me, please don’t talk to me…

My father doesn’t bother trying to talk over the music, which I’m sure everyone in the neighborhood can hear. When he gets up and heads to the garage for another beer, I dump my pizza in the trash, set all of our plates in the sink, and slump off to lock myself in with James.

He’s lying on his back, hands folded behind his head. One look at his face and I know he won’t be speaking to me tonight. I try anyway. Turning off his iPod, I say, “That was a disaster.”

No answer.

I sit on the edge of his bed, my back to him. “I’m not sorry. College is something I think I’ve always wanted to do. I just didn’t realize it until now.”

Nothing.

This time his silence irritates me. Once again, he’s trying to make me feel bad for wanting my own life. I’m sick of his guilt trips. I’m sick of him.

“Can you blame me for not telling you?” I demand. “Look at how you’re acting now that you know!”

“I give you everything I have. Everything I am.” He shoots me a harsh glare. “I give you all of that and you were going to leave me without saying anything? Nice, Sarah. Real nice.”

“I was going to tell you once I knew for sure,” I protest. “I have to actually apply and get accepted before we need to worry about any of that. I’m not as smart as you, remember?”

Jaw clenched, he tries to stare me down like he stared our father down in the kitchen. Guilt eats away at my heart. He has given up everything for me. But if I’m going to diffuse the situation without giving up what I want, I’ll have to pick my words very, very carefully. I gingerly rest my palm on his knee.

“College is important,” I say. “You can come with me. You’ll get in, easy, and I want you to come with me…”

My voice wavers and fades away. It’s a lie.

And he can tell. James can always tell.

With one last glare, he shoves past me and grabs his keys.

I slam my fists into his mattress, into his pillow. Why is my life so screwed up? No matter what I decide, I’ll either piss off someone I love or ruin their life. James or Sam. James or the already-fragile dreams I’ve finally allowed myself to have. James or a future. James, James, James.

My brother slams the front door and drives away. I smother my scream of frustration in his pillow. I am alone in our house with our father. If I scream and he hears me, he’ll know I’m still here. If he knows I’m still here, who knows what will happen.

I’m not ready for the other shoe to drop anymore.

Thirty-five

Rolling a fern frond between my fingertips, I analyze the vase of white roses, red dahlias, and yellow daisies I’ve been working on for half an hour. The fluff factor is off, and for whatever reason, the daisies and the dahlias aren’t smelling right together, but Liz won’t let me give up.

“Hmm,” she says from behind me, cocking her head to the side just like Sam does whenever he’s deep in thought. “Maybe some lavender? I think the purple would soften the red tones and bring the daisy scent down a notch. They smell stronger than normal, don’t you think? Or you could try a few sprigs of eucalyptus?”

I wrinkle my nose. Eucalyptus branches, Liz’s latest addition to the shop, haven’t been selling nearly as well as she’d hoped. “I know you’re trying to get rid of it, but I don’t think Mr. Harrison wants to give his wife a bouquet that smells like cough drops. Maybe if we get an order from the retirement home or if someone calls with a cold…”

Liz sighs. “You’re probably right. I just hate the thought of it going to waste, you know? Maybe we should donate it all to the hospital. There’s bound to be someone with a respiratory infection who could use a little cheering up.”

At least she didn’t offer them to me. I’ve turned down the last three buckets of wilting flowers she tried to pawn off after realizing James would want to know where they came from. While I could’ve explained away daisies or roses as something I picked on a walk, branches that had to be shipped up from central California wouldn’t be as easy.

The argument with James is still bugging me. Twice, I’ve turned to Liz with questions on the tip of my tongue, and twice I’ve turned away. Her offer to talk is a lifeline I’m afraid to use, no matter how desperate I am for her advice. What if I say too much? Or what if she figures out what I’m hiding and calls the police?

I decide to approach what I want to know from the other direction. Threading two lavender stems into the arrangement, I say, “Sam doesn’t talk about his uncles much. Do they ever come visit?”

Her amused snort isn’t at all what I expect. “Oh, they visit all the time. Too much, if you ask me. Sam probably doesn’t talk about them because he and my brothers butt heads. They never thought Joe was good enough for me, which irritates Sam, and Sam reminds them of Joe, which irritates them. It’s a lose-lose situation.”

“That’s awful,” I say. Even if James doesn’t approve of me dating, he and Sam have been best friends for years. That has to count for something. “Why didn’t they think Joe was good enough for you?”

“You know, I don’t think anyone would’ve been good enough in my brothers’ eyes. Danny and Michael used to beat up all the boys who asked me out in high school, but Joe was persistent. The day he took down both of my brothers in front of half the school was the day I knew I’d marry him.” She smiles wistfully and turns the diamond ring on her finger. “We were only sophomores and my brothers were both upperclassmen. No one bothered Joe after that.”

Now I know where Sam gets it. “They didn’t try to stop you from marrying him?”

“They tried.” She laughs, but the disappointment hidden beneath the sound speaks louder. “Neither of my brothers came to the wedding. Joe enlisted in the Army, so we had to put it together really fast. They assumed it was a shotgun wedding, but I didn’t get pregnant with Sam until a couple weeks later. Not that they’d listen.

“Now that he’s gone, Danny calls on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and Michael calls on the weekends. They’ve been pushing me to move back to Sacramento where we all grew up, but Sam’s life is here. His memories are here.” She gives me a sad smile. “You’re here. I can’t take that away from him.”

“Maybe you can move when Sam goes to UCLA?”

“Maybe.” Turning back to her arrangement, she shrugs. “We have a pretty big family down there, so at least Danny and Michael wouldn’t get away with bossing me around as much. Our parents thought it was cute when we were growing up, but now… not so much. They loved Joe and think Sam is the greatest grandkid ever. Even if they hardly see him.”

The touch of sadness to her voice reminds me of what she’ll be losing when we leave. I can’t help but wonder if she knows how responsible he feels for watching over her.

“Sam’s afraid to leave you, I think,” I say after an uncomfortable silence. “He knows he reminds you of your husband, and more than anything, I think he wants to be the man of the house like his dad wanted.”

Liz sighs. “I love my son, but he is just like his father and his uncles—stubborn and overprotective. He means well, I know he does, but Sam needs to make his own life and his own memories. That’s what his father would want.”

What would it feel like to have parents like Sam’s who wanted the best for me, no matter what it cost them? The closest thing I have to a parent is James, and he’d rather keep me locked up in our bedroom where he can keep an eye on me than let me live my own life. Sure, I told him not to fight, but only because we’ve both seen what fighting for money did to our father.

Jabbing the fern frond right into the center of the bouquet, I try and fail to rein in my irritation. Figuring out what to do with my mess of a life is hard enough without having my brother trying to control everything. If he gets his way, we’ll still be living in a cheap apartment on the crap side of town when we’re fifty. He’ll still be at the mill and I’ll still be sneaking out to work with Liz, putting together crappy arrangements no one will ever buy. Sam will be married to some rich movie star in California and won’t even remember the scarred high school girl he dated for a couple months back when—

“Sarah, don’t let those boys run your life.”

I jump, nearly dropping the water spritzer I was about to mist the failed arrangement with. Liz pushes away from the counter she’s been leaning against, arms folded as she watched me make a mess of her precious flowers, and walks over to my workstation. Before I can come up with an excuse for why I’ve destroyed Mr. Harrison’s twenty-fifth anniversary arrangement, she holds up a hand.

“I know my son and I know your brother, so don’t even try to deny it. If Joe’s death taught me anything, it’s that life’s too short to let someone else control you.”

She takes the spritzer bottle out of my hands and studies the bouquet, head cocked to the side again. “If I’d listened to my brothers instead of my heart, I never would’ve gone out with Joe. I certainly never would’ve married him, and Sam never would’ve been born. No matter how much they badgered me over the years, I can’t bring myself to call anything that resulted in the birth of my son a mistake. Something tells me you’ll agree.”

She picks up the six fern fronds I’d been debating on adding and weaves them into the bouquet, framing the one I jammed into the middle.

“There,” she says and steps back. “It’s pretty, don’t you think?”

I nod and stare at the finished bouquet, standing perfectly fluffed and balanced on the table in front of us. It’s one of the prettiest bouquets I’ve ever seen.

Liz puts the spritzer back in my hand and gives my fingers a squeeze. “Your instincts are better than you think, Sarah. Maybe it’s time you start paying attention to what they say.”

Thirty-six

I walk through the gate into my backyard at 2:17—almost an hour and a half earlier than normal—clinging to the knowledge I’ll have the house to myself for a few hours, just like I cling to the long, lingering kiss Sam gave me in the alley behind my house.

Liz’s pep talk was exactly what I needed to get my head screwed on straight. In one and a half months, I’ll never have to say goodbye to Sam again. I’ll never have to see the paint peeling away from our siding, hide in my bedroom all night, or lock the bathroom door when I change my clothes or brush my teeth. If I can hold it together for one and a half months, everything will be fine.

And tonight, I’ll tell my brother my plans.

I let myself in the backdoor and ditch my purse and flip-flops in the kitchen instead of walking them back to my bedroom. There’s no way I’m going to waste a second of this freedom hanging out in my room—not when I can use the time to piece together the lasagna and garlic bread Sam has me so excited to make.

Hopefully a homemade meal will put James in a good mood.

Ignoring the prickles creeping up my spine, I pull the small piece of paper out of my back pocket, scan the ingredients, and poke through my kitchen hoping it’s all still here. Not that anyone but me ever cooks anything, but you never know.

Jar of spaghetti sauce, check.

Box of lasagna noodles, check.

Frozen loaf of garlic bread, check.

Raw hamburger and shredded mozzarella cheese, check and check.

Gathering everything into a somewhat organized pile on the counter, I get to work. Our kitchen is soon filled with the rich scent of browning meat and warming garlic bread.

The toilet flushes.

Blood floods my face as I eye the foot-long rectangular noodles. There’s no way they’re going to fit into the dinky pot we own without some kind of intervention. Hands shaking, I break them in half and drop them one by one into the pot of boiling water.

The snick of a beer can almost blends into the sound of noodles snapping.

Good thing Sam isn’t here, I tell myself. I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t approve of the noodle destruction. And it’s not like anyone will notice when they dig into the gooey, cheesy mess, right? Keep breathing, Sarah…

The noodles are limp and wavy before I’ve scraped together enough courage to face him.

He’s standing in the archway between the kitchen and the foyer in a dingy green flannel shirt and worn out jeans. Leaning against the wall, with his hands in his pockets and his ankles crossed, he looks eerily like James. He’s lost weight since he started hanging out at Smoke Jumpers, so the only difference between them is their eyes. Cobalt blue instead of sky blue, glinting instead of sparkling, anger instead of humor.

Minor details that make all the difference in the world.

I glance at the microwave. 2:31. “You’re early.”

“I’ve been here for hours,” he says from where he’s standing. “Seems someone told the cops they think I killed your mother. Got hauled out of work for questioning first thing.”

He pushes away from the wall and strolls toward me, deceptively casual. “Didn’t even let me drive my own car to the station. When they didn’t get anything out of me, I had to hitch a ride back to work with one of the sheriffs.”

Stupid, stupid, stupid. I try to step back, try to put some extra distance between us, but the stove is in my way. There is no doubt in my mind that I’ll pay for this monstrous mistake.

He stops in front of me. Too close. I turn back to the stove and pick up my wooden spoon. I feel him behind me, watching me poke at the wavy noodles over my shoulder. Things have been so calm around here lately. Maybe he’ll get bored and go away.

Or maybe the other shoe is finally going to drop.

“Smells good,” he says. I cringe when his words caress my neck and what’s left of his beer gut brushes against the small of my back. “I’ve gotta say, your cooking’s gotten a lot better.”

“Thank you,” I say, because I’m afraid not to.

His fingers wrap around my wrists, forcing me to leave the wooden spoon behind in the pot, as he draws my arms back down to my sides. Slowly, he runs his hands up to my shoulders to my neck. My heart pounds so loudly in my ears, I almost can’t hear him over the skip-trip rhythm and the gurgling pot of water.

“Seems the Powers That Be don’t like it when cops accuse one of their workers of murder,” he continues. “They suspended me for two weeks without pay, which was a pretty shitty thing to do, but I’m real good at making lemonade out of rotten lemons.”

His thumbs press into either side of my spine and drag downwards, leaving behind moisture where his sweaty palms had been. His hands, hot and heavy like tar oozing across my skin, shove me forward and I nearly fall into the hot pan of meat. Only his arm snaking around my waist and his fingertips digging into my stomach save me from a nasty burn.

“You killed her,” I whisper.

Behind me, his body goes rigid, but his hands continue to caress my stomach. “You don’t believe that,” he says in a smooth voice. “Now, I’ve got it on good authority that your brother ain’t comin’ home ‘til late. What do you say me and you pass the time together?”

“Leave me alone.” I eye the knife I used to cut the big loaf of garlic bread in half so it’d fit on our small baking pan. It taunts me from the counter a few feet away, it’s blade greasy and crumb-spattered.

“No, I don’t think I will.” He leans closer and breathes in slowly. Deeply. “You know, you’ve always been so much prettier than your mother.”

Swallowing back vomit, I tear myself out of his grasp, dive for the knife, and whirl around. Though he’s caught off guard by the point hovering a foot from his stomach, my father laughs. The amused look in his eyes is the most frightening thing I’ve ever seen.

“You’re gonna have to do better than that.”

He lunges at me. I jump out of the way and slash at his arm with the knife, but the blade is too dull to do any real damage. Glancing at the scratch that’s dribbling blood like a giant paper cut, my father lets out a growl.

Everything happens so fast. He knocks the knife out of my hand with his left fist and punches me in the side of the head with his right. I go down, the familiar swirling blackness clouding the edges of my vision. Hovering above me, my father looks more dangerous than ever.

“Weak, just like your mother,” he sneers. “You gonna beg me to beat the shit out of you, too? Your mother liked it. Hell, she couldn’t get off without it.”

I don’t stand a chance when he drops to his knees and pins my body beneath his, one hand firmly clamped around my throat so I can’t breathe, let alone scream. When he tears my t-shirt from the bottom hem to the neck and wrenches my jeans open, I close my eyes and beg the blackness to take me.

It doesn’t.

Biting, licking, kissing, crushing…I feel like a mouse in the clutches of a cat that likes to play with his food before eating it. Why doesn’t he just take what he wants and get it over with? I force all the sensations away and keep my gaze fixed on the pot handle sticking out from the stovetop above me. One of my knees keeps bumping into the hot oven door. Thump. The pot handle dances above us. Thump, thump.

The hand clamped around my throat moves to my hair and the blessed blackness rushes back with my blood. Seizing my chance, I scream—a gurgling sound identical to my mother on her deathbed—and try to wriggle free.

Big mistake. Once, twice, three times he slams my head into the floor.

Disoriented, I watch the steam and smoke billow from the burners. All my hard work, ruined. I’ll have to make James peanut butter and jelly sandwiches when he gets home. You are my sunshine, my only sunshine…

A sob escapes at the thought of my brother. When he finds out, he’ll lose it. Maybe I can lie and say I got jumped on my way home from the grocery store. Better to have him running around town looking for a group of guys than taking out his new gun and shooting our father until all of the bullets are gone. I don’t want my brother to go to jail.

Jail—where men rape men and hurting women and children is a crime even the inmates don’t tolerate. James told me what would happen to our father if he went there once when I was twelve. We spent a whole afternoon on his bed, eating mac ‘n cheese and imagining all the horrible things that might happen to our father in jail. I want those things to happen to him. Maybe I should have trusted Detective Lilly.

All the pressure on my body disappears.

“James?” I croak, eyes still closed. Maybe he’s come to save me. Maybe he’s yanked my father away and is beating him senseless. I crack open my eyes and lift my spinning head just enough to see what’s going on.

“Nope.” My father goes for the zipper of his jeans, smirking at my horrified expression. “It’s me and you, now, Sarah, just like we always wanted. Your brother’s not gonna save you this time.”

No!

The word reverberates so loudly in my head, I think I might’ve screamed it. The nearness of his body sends me into a full-blown panic. Crazed, I flail and punch and claw and get nowhere fast.

Mustering the last ounce of strength I have, I desperately grab for the pot handle and yank it down onto us. Scalding water hits my father’s back and arms and rains down onto my hip. The slippery lasagna noodles flop to the ground like dead fish in a steaming puddle.

My father screams. I scream. Instead of collapsing onto the floor like he does, ripping his sopping flannel shirt from his body and cursing at me, I drag myself across the floor toward the nearest puke-green chair. My shirt is tattered and my jeans are twisted and in my way. I right them as best I can and haul myself to my feet.

The room is spinning faster than a merry-go-round. I nearly fall and have to hurl myself toward the refrigerator and the wall where the phone is hanging to keep myself upright. It takes three tries to dial 9-1-1.

“9-1-1,” a gentle voice says. “What’s your emergency?”

“Please help me,” I sob into the phone. “328 Skylark Lane, hurry.”

I don’t hear what the woman says next because my father lets out a roar so loud, half the neighborhood probably hears him. A chair crashes into the cabinets. The empty pot clatters across the linoleum and slams into my bare toes. I hear him staggering toward me, hear the table creak under his weight when he grabs onto it for support. “Hang up the fucking phone!”

“—are on the way. Stay on the phone with me, okay? Don’t hang up.”

My father rips the phone out of the wall and throws it at the front door. It shatters into a million plastic pieces that scatter across the linoleum floor. I make it maybe two steps before he grabs my arm and yanks me back around to face him.

“You ruined everything for me!” he bellows in my face. His bloodshot eyes are crazed. His pants are still open. “You and your fucking babies ruined everything!”

Sirens scream in the distance. Maybe he hears them, too, because he hesitates. I could sob with relief and maybe I do because he glares at me, a venomous glare I’ll remember for the rest of my life. In a low voice, he growls, “I’m glad you’re dead.”

He cocks back his unburned arm.

I don’t hear anything else.

Thirty-seven

My father’s furious cursing rolls over me like smoke, thick and choking. Sheetrock ruptures again and again under his fists.

The front door slams open in an explosion of shattering wood and harsh male voices.

My father grunts. Beneath my cheek, the floor vibrates.

Strong hands roll me over and skim my body. When something closes around my neck, I try to get away, but my arms and legs don’t work. I scream, but all that comes out is a whimper.

Sarah, if you can hear me, don’t fight. Your father is in custody and we’re taking you to the hospital. You’re going to be fine.

I wait for relief to come. It doesn’t. I need my brother. I need James.

Don’t try to talk.

Someone cuts my jeans from my body.

I black out immediately.

Thirty-eight

The other night dear, as I lay sleeping

I dreamt I held you in my arms

James’s voice filters into the black hole I’m lying in like fine, powdered snow, and settles in drifts in the corners of my mind.

When I awoke, dear, I was mistaken

So I hung my head and cried.

The drifts get bigger, taller, until they’re high enough for me to climb out of the blackness. When I finally come to, I’m in a soft bed and someone has dimmed the lights, or maybe it’s nighttime, because my retinas don’t burst into flame when I open my eyes.

My head hurts so bad, it might kill me.

As soon as my eyes are shut again and the headache dims a little, I become aware of other things. Unfamiliar things like the cool, sterile air and crisp cotton sheets. Nice things like my brother’s hands clutching one of mine and his soft hair brushing my wrist. Horrid, painful things like my burning throat and the million shards of glass stabbing my left hip. When I shift and whatever I’m wearing brushes against those shards, I wish whoever saved me from my father would’ve let me die.

My bed moves ever so slightly in a rhythmic pattern as familiar to me as breathing. James’s breathing. I slide my fingers from his hand and comb them through his hair. He stirs, rubs his cheek into my palm, and blinks up at me. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

This might be the worst I’ve ever seen him look. Eyes red-rimmed with circles so dark they could be bruises. Stubbly beard. Hair a grimy mess. When I force myself to meet his gaze, everything that’s happened between us these last few days doesn’t matter anymore.

The last tiny thread of sanity I’ve managed to hold onto snaps.

James climbs onto my bed and holds me like he’s done hundreds of times while I sob into his chest. The whole story spills out of me in ragged gasps that probably don’t make any sense to him but I try anyway. Lasagna. The leather belt. The pot handle sticking out over the edge of the stove…

When I’ve cried myself into exhaustion, he scoots closer, slips his arm around my shoulders, and awkwardly nestles my body against his. Maybe he knows how badly my hip hurts, because he’s careful to keep the heavy hospital sheet off that side of my body.

“So…Dad’s in jail.” There is zero happiness in his voice, even though we’ve spent most of our lives waiting for this to happen. “We’re finally free.”

He blows out a breath that borders on a sob. It takes him a moment to be able to look at me again, and when he does, a single fat tear rolls down his cheek. My heart breaks. I reach up to cup his face in my hand, blocking out as much of the pain as I can so my arm doesn’t tremble.

“James,” I say softly. “I’m okay. We’re okay.”

He shakes his head and rests his forehead against mine. “This is all my fault. If I wasn’t being such an asshole about everything, I could’ve stopped him.”

I don’t see how, though my mind flashes to the gun hidden on the top shelf of our closet. Not even Sam could’ve stopped this.

Sam. My heart aches just thinking about how he must be feeling right now. If he even knows. I squint at the windows. “What time is it?”

“It’s quarter past eight.”

Then he doesn’t know. I’m contemplating stealing James’s cell phone and lying about having to use the restroom when a nurse slips into the room and gives James a meaningful look.

“How about you go down to the cafeteria and get a cup of coffee?” she says. “I’d like to talk to your sister alone for a few minutes.”

For a second, I think he’ll say no. He holds my gaze, his eyes screaming just how badly he doesn’t want to leave me alone, but then he gives in and slides off my bed.

I lie there silently, watching her leaf through my chart as James trudges out of my room. When his footsteps fade away and the elevator at the end of the hallway slides shut, she closes my chart and gives me a concerned look.

“How are you feeling?”

I manage a weak smile. “Everything hurts.”

“I’ll bet it does. Give yourself a few days and you’ll feel good as new.”

She smiles and shifts her weight from one foot to the other, but the smile doesn’t reach her eyes. I know exactly what that smile means. No way am I spilling my secrets to this woman when I’ve got a headache the size of Alaska and my throat feels like I swallowed an entire desert. Closing my eyes, I wish for the nurse to leave and James to take extra long getting coffee so I can pass out.

“Sarah?”

I ignore her.

“I know you can hear me and you don’t have to answer, but if you need to talk to someone about what’s been going on at home…”

The nurse hesitates. I can feel her body heat and concern, thick like too-sweet honey, hovering beside my bed. When I don’t acknowledge her offer, she sets something on my lap. “Both the police and Child Protective Services will be by in the morning. Press the call button if you change your mind about talking to someone before then. I’ll listen.”

The only person I want to see right now is Liz—a startling realization, but not even my discomfort changes how I feel. I want her warm hugs and her shoulder to cry on. I want her to tell me she loves me and that everything will be okay.

I want a mother.

I wait until the nurse’s footsteps have faded before opening my eyes, just in case. On my lap sits a pile of colorful pamphlets. The one on top is for a crisis center a few blocks from the hospital. Abuse Victim Services it says in bright yellow and purple graphics. Frowning, I stuff that one under the bottom of the pile. The next, printed on a far less colorful piece of paper, Abortion Clinics in Oregon.

What the heck?

But then I keep reading. Suicide Awareness, Coping with an Unwanted Pregnancy, Gray Haven Home for Battered Teens… By the time I get to the fourth pamphlet, Incest and Pregnancy: Know Your Options, I’ve figured out what’s going on and the world drops out from under me.

They think my father raped me. Maybe more than once since, if they gave me an internal exam, the doctor would know I’m not a virgin. And James would’ve told them I’ve never had a boyfriend if they bothered to ask.

A few minutes later, James walks back in with a paper coffee cup in each hand. I stuff the pamphlets under my sheets and wipe away the tears that started falling again. If it’s even possible, he looks worse than before he left for the cafeteria. My eyes linger on his sad face, his broad shoulders hunched in defeat beneath his thin white t-shirt.

When he hands me the second cup of coffee and flops into the plastic chair beside the bed, my heart breaks all over again. He’s been crying, not that anyone else would be able to tell. I touch his arm—the best I can do without moving too much—and try to look reassuring.

“We’ll be okay,” I say.

He nods and stares at my fingers tracing circles on his bicep. “I’ve gotta convince them not to take you away from me. I can’t lose you. I won’t.”

His eyes get watery and he takes a big gulp of coffee to keep himself under control. Guilt tears me apart from the inside out when I think of Sam and what I promised. Even if CPS doesn’t toss me into foster care for the next five months, one way or the other, James will lose me. I’ll break the promise I made to him when we were little, back before I knew what it meant to grow up and fall in love and want to be with someone other than your brother.

I shouldn’t feel guilty about wanting a normal life.

Except…watching him fall apart, giving up on his coffee and burying his face in my stomach when he finally breaks down, I’m not sure I’ll be strong enough to choose Sam if I’m forced to pick between him and my brother.

Thirty-nine

They don’t take me away from James, though I suspect it’s a close thing.

After we’ve both been interviewed by Child Protective Services and they’ve determined living with my brother is the most stable option for me, he’s there, reaching for my hand when they inform us our father didn’t have health insurance and never bothered to sign me or James up for state health care. We should expect an enormous bill in three to four weeks.

By the time we’re through with all the release papers, James looks beaten, both physically and emotionally. I see a massive bruise on his forearm that wasn’t there when he left last night but when I ask about it, he shakes his head and leaves to get another cup of coffee.

Detective Lilly is our last visitor.

James wheels me from the lobby where the nurse left me into a small meeting room where the detective lounges comfortably in what looks like a very uncomfortable hospital chair. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch my brother size him up, standing a little taller when Detective Lilly rises to shake his hand.

“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you,” he says. “Your reputation at the Armory precedes you.”

James grunts. “Those guys run their mouths too much.”

“It’s a pleasure all the same. I did a little boxing myself back in the day. As I told Sarah, ol’ Knockout had his way with me more times than I’d care to admit.”

James frowns at me and I realize he doesn’t know that the detective and I have already spoken. I ignore him, but Detective Lilly sees everything.

“She didn’t tell you? We met Sunday afternoon when I stopped by the house to ask a few questions about your mother’s death. I had hoped to speak with you as well, but you weren’t home. Maybe we can talk before you leave today?”

“Sure.”

Detective Lilly launches into his questioning, leaving me no time to be grateful for his omitting Sam. Recounting every awful detail of what our father did to me in front of my brother nearly kills me, especially the parts my mind is already starting to block out. James shoves away from the table before the end, looking equal parts furious and disgusted, and storms out of the room.

“Your brother is very… passionate,” Detective Lilly observes. “Have you had any trouble with him? Any arguments that turned physical? Any inappropriate behavior?”

Fear slides up my spine and spider-webs across my skin. “No, never.”

“Is there anything you’d like to tell me, Miss O’Brien? Anything you may have left out of our last conversation that might help me keep you safe?”

When his dark eyes pin me in place, I lose the ability to speak. What is with him? He clearly knows the effect he has on people, so I have to wonder how intimidating the victim helps anything. The tiny flare of irritation gives me the strength to shake my head.

“Carry on, then.”

It takes five very long minutes to finish telling the detective what happened and answer his follow up questions. James never returns to the room, and when I wheel myself out into the hallway, I’m not surprised to see him slumped in a chair in the waiting room, looking like he’s been crying again.

“Detective Lilly is ready for you,” I say when I finally reach him.

He stares past me, unfocused and unblinking. The living dead.

“James?” I shake his arm. “Hey, everything’s going to be fine. Just go talk to the detective and we’ll go home, okay?”

“How can you say everything’s gonna be fine after what Dad did to you?” His eyes shift, a sick pool-water blue instead of sapphire when they finally focus on me. “How can you ask me to take you home when every time I look at that kitchen, I’ll know what I almost lost?”

“Because everything is going to be fine,” I insist. “Now that Dad’s in jail, we can start over. That’s what I want more than anything.”

James leaves me in the waiting room with his sweatshirt and the backpack he brought with my change of clothes. Gingerly, I slip my arms through the sleeves and worm the sweatshirt over my head. The burn on my side screams in protest, but when James’s cell phone falls in my lap, I forget the pain.

I frantically scroll through James’s contact list and find Sam’s number. Hitting SEND, I fix my gaze on the door that separates James from me and the phone call he’d kill me for making.

“This better be important, asshole,” a sleepy voice grumbles. “You haven’t talked to me in weeks.”

I imagine him in bed, hair mussed up and an arm thrown over his eyes. “It’s me. I’m at the hospital and only have a second, but I wanted to tell you I’m okay.”

Fabric rustles and Sam curses. “You’re in the hospital? Why? What happened?”

“Um,” I glance at the meeting room. The door is still closed, but for how much longer? “There’s no time to explain, but I swear, I’ll call you as soon as I can. I miss you.”

“Wait—”

I hang up, delete the call log, and stuff the phone in James’s pocket. Not a moment too soon, because my brother throws open the meeting room door and stomps toward me a few seconds later, looking far more pissed off than he did before.

“We’re leaving,” he snaps and grabs the handles of my wheelchair with far more force than necessary. We’re through the lobby and out the hospital doors before I can blink.

“What happened? What did he say?” I clutch my side when he shoves the chair over a speed bump in the parking lot.

“He thinks I did it. He thinks I killed Mom!”

My mouth drops open. “What?”

“Every question he asked was a trap. When I refused to answer, he threatened to take you away until I cooperated, but he can’t and I know it. He said he knows about me and Leslie. He says I got the drugs from her.”

“How could he even think that?” My brother hasn’t been himself for weeks, but I don’t believe he murdered our mother for a second. He loved her more than anyone.

“No fucking clue, but that doesn’t change anything.”

“Should we find a lawyer?”

“We can’t afford a lawyer.”

The wheelchair grinds to a halt beside his truck and he opens the passenger door.

“James, we have to talk about this. We have to do something. I won’t let them blame you for what he did!”

“I’ll take care of it.” He slides his arms behind my back and under my knees. “Put your arm around my neck. If this hurts too bad, I’ll let you punch me afterwards. Deal?”

I do what he asks, but I don’t let him change the subject. “How will you take care of it without a lawyer?”

“I’ll figure something out.”

Far gentler than the nurse who “helped” me into the chair an hour ago, James scoops me up and positions himself to lower me into the seat. My head may be hurting less, but there’s just something about burns that make them hurt way worse than they should. I bite my lip hard enough to draw blood in anticipation of the pain that’s about to come.

Without bumping into anything, he sets me down and kneels on the sideboard to do my seatbelt. “I’m not an invalid,” I say. “And I don’t like your answer.”

“Too bad.” He backs off, but waits until I’m securely fastened into the seat before looking away from my hands and the buckle. When he does, his gaze lingers on my lips. “You’re bleeding.”

Before I can stop him, he wipes the blood away with his thumb.

“Lick your lips,” he says quietly.

I do, but instantly regret it because his eyes glaze over. “I have Chapstick at home,” I blurt out, then realize how stupid that sounds. “It’ll stop. Don’t worry about it.”

He reaches out and presses his thumb into my lip. I don’t miss the way his breaths go shallow when he slides his thumb through the moisture left behind from my tongue.

I grab his wrist and push his hand away. “Stop it, James. I’m serious.”

It takes a second, but his eyes clear and he blinks at me like he has no idea why there’s blood on his thumb and why he’s kneeling on the floor of his cramped truck. He clears his throat, wipes his hands on his jeans, and returns the wheelchair.

We stop by the mall on our way home where he hops out to grab us slices of pizza and triple scoops of ice cream in waffle bowls. I wait in the truck listening to his crackling radio sputter out a bunch of songs Sam would probably love.

Calling him had been a selfish mistake. If he’s not waiting in front of my house when we get there, I’ll be shocked. He’ll take one look at all the bruises and the burn on my hip and get into a massive fight with James over who can protect me better. Then Detective Lilly will show up and throw them both into jail for fighting.

“The cheese pizza they had out looked kind of old, so I made them give me a slice of the one that just came out of the oven,” James says when he slides into the truck. “Fork and knife are in the bag. Oh, and Triple Scoop was out of your chocolate mint chip, so I got you strawberry. Is that okay? I’ll eat it and get you something else if not.”

I blink at him. I think I mentioned wanting to try strawberry once, in passing, at least six months ago. “No, that’s perfect. Thank you.”

He grins. “You’re welcome.”

After we inhale our food, we drive around town for a bit. James keeps the flow of conversation steady and light. Somehow, he’s managed to move past Detective Lilly’s accusations and how horrible I look. It’s like he doesn’t see the bruises and cuts.

As much as I miss Sam, James is turning out to be exactly who I need. He’s not giving me a chance to wallow, or drown in flashbacks or depression. It’s like old times again.

Nobody understands me better than my brother—they can’t, not without having lived the life we have. This is exactly why I love him and why, no matter how much I love Sam, I’m not sure I want to completely abandon my brother. Or whether I can.

Forty

Sam isn’t waiting for us in my driveway. After all the times he’s threatened to tell James about us, I thought for sure he’d use what happened with my father to do it.

“I’ve been thinking,” James says a few hours later, after I’ve rested and he’s fed us dinner. “Maybe we should get a place sooner rather than later.” He hops onto his own bed and spreads the newspaper he just stole from the Espinosas’ recycling bin across his quilt. “Like, next-month soon. I can’t afford the mortgage on this place and they’ll kick us out as soon as they realize Dad’s gone.”

Next month is too soon. Sam won’t be ready to leave yet. I sit up, ignoring the biting pain in my side, and ask, “How much do you have in savings?”

He doesn’t answer. I watch him stare intently at the paper, scanning row after row of apartments. I wonder if he’s seeing the same ones I see every month. Real estate doesn’t go very fast in Granite Falls.

“When did apartments get so fucking expensive?”

Which is why I’d been planning to find us a place outside of town before all of this happened. In a pinch, he should be able to afford a place over by the mill. That’s the slummy part of Granite Falls, which probably isn’t any safer than living with our father, but James can take care of himself. “How much do you have saved? I can write out a budget and maybe then—”

“Two thousand,” he says quietly.

I stare at him, positive I’ve misheard. He’s been making ten dollars an hour at the mill for a year—full-time hours, plus overtime which pays him time and a half. He should have a lot more money. Ten thousand, at least. Fifteen, easily.

He risks looking up at me and immediately averts his gaze to the newspaper. “Don’t look at me like that,” he mutters. “I’m doing the best I can.”

Leslie. The memory of her stuffing sixty dollars into the front of her panties flashes in my mind. Anger heats my body like tiny prickling flames. I’d bet my life he’s been paying for more drugs than he’s admitted. “You’re going to Leslie again, aren’t you? You said you weren’t paying her!”

He glares at me. “I’m not! She and I have an arrangement.”

“I don’t believe you. Where else did all the money go?”

He wads up the newspaper and throws it at the tiny garbage can between our beds. The crumpled ball is too big to fit through the mouth and bounces across the floor. “Between the groceries, your clothes, all the utility bills, and keeping the truck insured, we’re lucky to have anything saved at all!”

My mouth drops open.

“Who did you think paid for all that shit?” he asks. “Dad sure as hell didn’t. Dad didn’t even pay for Mom’s medicine and cigarettes. As soon as I got on with the mill, he stopped paying for everything except for the mortgage and all his fucking beer. As if that’s not bad enough, now we’re stuck with a huge-ass hospital bill because of him.”

I wither under his glare. It’s like I’m seven, watching our father knock James to the ground all over again. A naive burden—that’s all I am. That’s all I’ll ever be.

“I’m sorry,” he says when he sees my reaction. “I’m just frustrated. Maybe if we get something small—like a studio—and watch what we buy for awhile, I can save more up and we can look for something bigger. Something more permanent.”

There’s that “permanent” word again. Every time it comes up, the tickle of fear in the back of my mind flares into a blazing inferno. There is no “permanent” for my brother and me. In a month, I plan to walk out of his life—a life he threw away years ago to protect me.

I think somewhere in the darkest, most frightened corner of my heart, I’ve been hoping for a miracle that will let me keep Sam and James. Let me make them both happy. They deserve more than I can give them, but I’m too selfish, too loyal, and too in love to let either go.

“I’ll find a way,” James says. He must’ve misinterpreted my silence as doubt. Looking hurt, he slides off his bed and sits on the edge of mine. His palm on my cheek is gentle, reverent. “I won’t let you down. Promise.”

I’m sure he won’t. He never has.

I’ll be the one to let him down.

“There’s something I have to do tonight,” he says, frowning at his hand on my cheek. “Will you be okay by yourself for awhile?”

“I’ll probably take a shower and read or something. I’ve never felt this disgusting in my life.”

He grins and drops his hand. “Race you to the bathroom?”

“Uh, no.”

While he showers, I turn on James’s iPod, and plug it into the speakers on his dresser. Godsmack pours into the room at an ear-blistering volume, just the way he likes it. My skull, on the other hand, feels like it might shatter. I quickly shut it off, then face myself in our big closet-door mirror.

I’m a mess. The embodiment of all the horrible things my father did to me. I expected this since I haven’t been able to wash my hair since Sunday night and it’s already Tuesday. Apparently, steaming, starchy noodle water doesn’t agree with fine hair.

Forcing my eyes away from the mangled, tangled bird’s nest on my head, I lift my t-shirt and tug down the waistband of James’s flannel pants to inspect the bandage. There are ugly bruises blooming all over my neck and hips. Thankfully, my mind blocks the memories of how I got each one.

James breezes into our bedroom wearing a towel, looking refreshed and genuinely happy to be on his way to wherever he’s going. I right my clothes before he sees what I’m doing.

His pale white chest and arms seem much brighter and closer in the small confines of our room, but for once, I don’t freak out. “You’re not going to see Leslie tonight, are you?”

“Nope. I wish you’d take a shower while I’m here. Have you ever gotten a burn wet?”

I shake my head.

“Make it a cold shower,” he says. When he turns on his music and grabs fresh jeans from the dresser, I know I have to get out of our room.

I wander out into the living room, avoiding the kitchen. I guess the pan of meat spattered so much grease that it started a little fire right before the cops burst through the front door. When he thought I was sleeping this afternoon, I heard James sweeping up plastic and scraping the noodles off the linoleum with a paint scraper he borrowed from the Espinosas.

The music cuts out abruptly. I hear rustling and then James stuffing his keys into his jeans pocket. “I’m going to leave you my phone,” he calls from our bedroom. “If you need anything or if something happens, call Alex. Promise.”

Alex? The second he walks out that door, I’ll call Sam and beg him to pick me up so I don’t have to smell the stench of burnt meat. His mom should be home by now. I close my eyes and picture myself sitting on one of the floral couches between them with something mindless and funny on the television in front of us.

A few seconds later, I hear James set his cell phone on the little entryway table that used to house our father’s boxing magazines. He must’ve gotten rid of the magazines when he ripped all the boxing crap off the walls last night while I was at the hospital.

“You sure you don’t need me to stay with you?” he asks from behind me. “Say the word and I’ll stay.”

“I’m fine,” I say. “I’ll probably just take a shower and go to bed.”

He rests his chin on my shoulder. One of his big hands drifts from my waist to my hip, while the other finds my ribs and squeezes. I know I should push him away, but staring at my father’s empty, rust-orange recliner and smelling smoke and garlic makes my head hurt even worse. I lean into him and close my eyes. I need this. I need him.

He presses his cheek against mine and his hands inch forward, pulling me against him in a backward kind of hug. His fingertips are very close to both places a brother should not touch his sister, but he doesn’t do anything inappropriate. Just turns his head to give me one of his sloppy wet kisses.

“Hey!”

Laughing, he gives me one more quick squeeze and pulls away. “This weekend is Fourth of July. If you’re feeling up to it, I still want to drive to the coast.”

“How long do you want to stay?”

“Just a day trip like you wanted. Long enough to toast some marshmallows and watch the fireworks. And if we get there and we’re having a good time, we’ll camp overnight. No pressure. I’ve been dying to get out of here,” he says, gesturing to the room around us. “It’ll be good for us.”

I’m not sure I’m up for this trip, nice as it sounds, but I’d agree to anything right now with how badly my head hurts. When he’s gone, I’ll call Sam. Maybe he’ll help me take a shower. Then we can go to his house and I’ll beg Liz for recipes that don’t have noodles, red sauce, garlic, and hamburger.

I follow him to the front door, careful not to look at the kitchen, and give him a one-armed hug to protect my side. “Thank you for taking care of me today,” I say and stand on tip-toe to kiss his cheek.

As soon as my lips touch his freshly shaven jaw, I realize my mistake. I haven’t kissed him since before the night in our bed when everything changed. I jerk away, right as he turns his face into mine. His hands slide into my hair and keep my head in place.

“Do that again.”

My mental warning buzzer goes crazy. His breaths are shallow, and his body heat melts into mine. I ignore the comfort of our bodies pressed together the same way they’ve been pressed together so many times before and force myself to think. If I do what he’s telling me to do, if I kiss him again, he’s going to direct my mouth straight to his. A small, traitorous part of my body wants that closeness with him, even if I don’t mean it the same way he does.

There are no innocent kisses between us anymore. I need to remember this if I’m ever going to fix what has twisted between us.

I will my warning buzzer silent and wait for James to open his eyes. I am stronger than that traitorous part of my body. I am stronger than him.

Slowly, his eyes slide open. “You won’t kiss me?”

“No.”

He sighs and closes his eyes again. For a second, I think he’ll kiss me anyway, but then he releases me completely. “I’m sorry,” he says, and walks out the door without another word.

As soon as his truck backs down the driveway, I pick up his cell phone on the table and dial Sam’s number. It rings.

In stereo.

Forty-one

My head whips to the left, where an unusually pale Sam stands just inside my back door. He reaches into his pocket and grabs the ringing phone to silence it. The accusations and horror and fear darkening his eyes keep me from throwing myself into his arms. They’re not open to me anyway, so it doesn’t matter. Finally, he breaks the silence.

“What happened?”

I don’t know where to begin, especially since I’m not sure which part he’s talking about. When I don’t say anything, he takes a few tentative steps closer.

“I drove over right after you called. Your kitchen…” he hesitates. “Everything was trashed. There was blood and then I found your shirt and jeans…”

“My father was here when you dropped me off yesterday.”

“I figured out that much,” he says. “I’ve been driving past your house all day waiting for James to leave you alone, but he never leaves you alone. And just when I’m about to say to hell with the secret, you come out looking way worse than I imagined and then he tries to kiss you…?”

Though it hardly seems possible, he looks more wrecked than I feel. I close the distance between us and hug him. It hurts, but not as much as the fact that his arms stay at his sides. “I’m okay.”

“But James—”

“He’s in a bad place, that’s all. Nothing happened.”

“You’re not lying to me?”

“No.” Not really.

The tension in his body slowly drains away. After several long moments, he hugs me back and kisses the top of my head, rat’s-nest hair and all. “You should be resting.”

“I’ve rested plenty.” I kiss his cheek and try out a flirty smile. “Will you help me take a shower? James thinks I’m going to pass out from the pain and crack my head open on the tub.”

“Pain?”

“Oh, um, I burned my hip. Nothing major,” I add quickly. “Come on.”

Though he clearly doesn’t believe me, Sam lets me lead him down the hallway into the bathroom. Leaving the light off will probably lessen the blow so I do, but Sam’s onto me. The second my hands go to the hem of my shirt, he flicks the switch and folds his arms, waiting.

I take a deep breath and peel off my t-shirt.

Sam doesn’t look good. His eyes dart from bruise to bruise, repeatedly returning to the gauze peeking out from beneath my flannel pants like he’s torn between wanting to tear it off and not wanting to see what’s underneath. When I slip off the pants and my white cotton panties and he sees the knee-sized bruises on my thighs, I think he might throw up.

Instead, he pulls me into a desperate hug that stings, but is oh, so worth it. He lets me go way too soon. The way he looks at me makes me forget how to breathe. “I swear on my life, Sarah, I won’t ever let anyone hurt you again.”

Words I’ve heard before from my brother, but ones I know Sam means with his whole soul. If only he knew how impossible it’ll be to keep the promise he’s making. If James couldn’t prevent this from happening, there’s no way Sam could have.

“You’re moving in with me,” he says. “This weekend. And if they’re stupid enough to let your dad out before next month, we’ll leave town.”

He kisses me and I let him. When his hands smooth over my skin, I remember how good being with him makes me feel. How normal. My father took “normal” away from me yesterday. I don’t know if it’ll ever come back for good, but at least for now, I’ve found it again.

Keeping me close, he reaches into the shower and turns on the faucet. Silently, we wait for the water to heat up. Without removing his fingers from the stream of water, Sam nibbles on the unmarred half of my bottom lip and I marvel at the texture of his t-shirt and jeans against my naked body.

But James wasn’t kidding about the pain. As soon as I step into the shower, I try to jump back out. Gasping, I rip the soaked gauze away from my skin, which is now an even angrier pink, thanks to the warm water. Sam goes pale all over again.

“I’ll turn down the temperature,” he says in a strangled voice.

He does, then strips out of his own clothes. My heart flutters with desperation, then plummets in sheer panic. What if James gets to wherever he’s going and decides he can’t handle being away from me? What if he calls and I don’t answer? Both end with him racing home. I should tell Sam to get dressed and wait for me in the backyard, but I can’t. The love and need in his eyes are too deep and too tantalizing. I can’t even look away.

Sam steps into the tub and closes the curtain behind him, but he doesn’t come any closer. I wonder if he sees the conflicting emotions careening through my head as well as James can. Whatever the case, his distance gives me the rare opportunity to gawk at him. At all of him. Normally, I don’t get to see much—which has worked well for my little seeing-naked-skin problem—but now I wish I had paid more attention. His body is beautiful.

Sam must notice me drooling because he grins a little and grabs the bottle of shampoo. He does a very thorough job of washing my hair and soaping up all the places I can’t reach without stretching the healing skin on my hip. Once I’m completely rinsed off and feeling clean for the first time in a week, I hug him. He moans. Or maybe I do. With the cool water and our bodies pressed together, I can almost close my eyes and pretend we’re back in the fish ladders.

When we’re dry and back in my bedroom searching for soft clothes that won’t rub my hip raw, Sam gently maneuvers me onto my bed. His face is unreadable, so I have no idea whether he’s hoping for sex, cuddling, or just wants me to lie down and rest. When he crawls into the bed beside me and rests his hand on my stomach, I decide sex.

This feels…strange. Even with all the touching and nakedness in the bathroom, he didn’t seem interested in being with me, which was fine. Part of me is repulsed, remembering the last time a male body pinned me down. The other part of me wonders if maybe being with Sam again is exactly what I need to erase those memories. When Sam and I are together, I feel loved.

I want that love.

Cautiously, I roll onto my right side and reach for him. My fingers find what they’re looking for, but instead of the sexy groan I’m expecting, Sam gently takes my wrist and moves my hand away.

“No,” he says softly. “That’s not what I want.”

I should feel lucky to have such an understanding boyfriend. Instead, his sympathy chafes nerves that are beyond frayed already. “But I do.” I think.

“Sarah…” His hand trails to my thighs and I hold my breath thinking he’s going to give me what I want, but instead he traces the edge of a bruise. “I can’t. Not yet. Even if it’s me, I’m going to see him hurting you. Looking at what he did makes me want to kill him.”

His gorgeous face blurs, but I refuse to cry. “Sam, I need this. I still feel him—I still feel everything he did. I have to replace him. You have to help me replace him.”

He looks horrified. “Did your father—”

“No!” The word echoes in my silent bedroom. “No,” I repeat, calmer this time. “I got away before…that.”

All the emotions in his eyes—relief, anger, and fear—melt into sadness that bleeds from his body and seeps into mine. “Sex isn’t going to fix this. I can’t fix this, though you have no idea how bad I want to.”

“This will help,” I say. “I promise. Please do this for me.”

“Sarah—”

“Please.”

He stares at me far too hard and far too long, then reaches for a condom from his pants pocket. Yet another barrier between us. I can’t handle it.

“No!”

“No?” He freezes. “What do you mean, no?”

“I…I just…”

I close my mouth, unable to come up with an acceptable answer. There’s no way to describe the desperation tugging me in every direction, how brittle I feel, and how terrified I am of losing him. It’s not that I want to get pregnant—far from it—but I’ve got to get out of here. If something happened, he’d marry me. I’m sure of it. We’d run away from Granite Falls together and I’d never have to worry about James turning on me or my father’s you’re-next look again.

It’s a tantalizing thought.

Without breaking eye contact, he frowns and reaches for his shorts again. If he’s testing me, waiting for me to do or say something so he can analyze my reaction, he doesn’t have to wait long. The gaping emptiness that consumes me whenever Sam leaves sets in almost immediately. Every day we’ve been together, it’s gotten worse, and borders on full-blown-panic-attack-awful when it hits me now.

I have to do this. I have to keep him no matter what.

“No.” I shake my head and kiss him again. “No condom.”

He drops his shorts on the floor and sighs. “I’d be lying if I didn’t say I want to, but I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

How easy it would be to lie and tell him I picked up a pack of pills the morning after we had sex the first time. He’s a guy—if I kiss him and climb on top, he’ll be mine.

“Sarah?”

I bite my lip. We didn’t use protection in the fish ladders—something I thought he’d done on purpose, but now I’m not so sure. I kept waiting for him to stop that night, to climb up the ladder and grab a condom from his shorts, but he didn’t.

And I didn’t say anything because I wanted it too bad.

“But I love you,” I say lamely.

“I love you, too,” he says, pressing a hand to my stomach. “But you know what could happen, don’t you? What might have already happened? How are you going to hide us then?”

He’s right. Of course he is—Sam’s always right. Sometimes being with him feels like being with my brother because James is always right, too. The shards of guilt remind me how selfish I’m being—how selfish I’ve always been, first with James and now with Sam.

I’m turning into my mother.

Disgusted with myself, I reach into the pocket of his shorts and withdraw a purple foil package. Sam’s eyes follow my every move as I tear it open and stare at the slimy rubber circle waiting inside. I imagine my mother poking holes in the one she used that first night behind the Armory with my father.

I am not my mother.

When Sam takes the condom from me and rolls it into place, I don’t stop him.

Forty-two

It doesn’t erase anything.

If anything, when the bruises on my thighs start throbbing again, I feel worse.

We get dressed without saying anything. I know I broke something between us and I’m afraid talking will make it worse, so I don’t. All I can hope for is that he’ll take me to his house anyway and Liz will still be awake.

Sam is helping me worm my way into a pair of jeans without pissing off the burn on my hip when someone pounds on my front door. My gaze flies to the clock.

9:28.

“Who the hell…” Sam yanks on his own t-shirt and jogs to the front door.

Pound-pound-pound.

I shove my arms into a lightweight shirt, bypassing my bra completely because no way am I going to be able to put that thing on, then gingerly pull the hem over my head and down my sides. It’s Detective Lilly, has to be. Who else would show up this late at night to harass us? He’s probably hoping to intimidate James again. I’m actually looking forward to giving him a piece of my mind.

It’s not Detective Lilly.

Alex and Sam are arguing in the foyer when I stalk into the room, sharp words poised on the tip of my tongue. I don’t miss how Sam is nudging Alex back toward the door or how pissed off Alex looks about it. When he sees me, he shoves Sam aside and wraps me in a huge but painful bear hug. “I hope he winds up every guy’s shower bitch for this,” he says.

Men raping my father is not an image I want stuck in my head. Wincing, I shrug out of his grasp. “Did James send you to check on me?”

“Not exactly.”

He shoots Sam an uncertain look, which is met by a sharp shake of the head. Whether or not he should blurt out what he came to say wars in Alex’s eyes. Whatever it is must be important if Sam is trying to protect me with secrecy.

I’m tired of secrets. Mine, my mother’s, everyone’s.

“What aren’t you guys telling me?” I demand. “Where’s James?”

“You gotta tell her, man,” Alex says to Sam, a pleading note in his voice. “Tonight’s gonna be bad and he won’t listen to me. Maybe he’ll listen to her.”

“He has to tell her himself,” Sam snaps.

“He’s gonna get himself killed before that happens!”

The room wobbles and blurs. “Will someone please just tell me? Sam?”

He shifts his glare from Alex to me, his expression softening immediately when he sees the tears I can’t keep from streaking down my cheek. “Your brother’s been fighting for money.”

The pain in my chest is sharper than one of my father’s punches, but I refuse to crumble. “He’s boxing? The Armory is letting him?”

When neither of them say anything, their expressions grim, I know things are much, much worse. “Tell me,” I whisper.

“The fights aren’t sanctioned, and they sure as hell aren’t boxing,” Alex says. “Think MMA, boxing, and street fighting, but dirtier. They put ‘em in a cage and don’t let ‘em out until someone needs a stretcher.”

The resigned look on Sam’s face is all the evidence I need. They’ve been keeping this from me on purpose. “How long has this been going on?”

Sam doesn’t answer, so Alex does. “He went pro a couple months ago, but this is only the fourth of these dirty fights he’s been in. The organizers keep upping the ante, throwing more money and bigger opponents at him, because he’s been killing the guys they bring in.”

“He quit his job two weeks ago,” Sam says quietly. “I went to talk to him about me and you, but he wasn’t there. That’s when I found out about the dirty fights. He’s been talking about it for ages, fighting behind the Armory to get the organizer’s attention when going pro didn’t work, but I didn’t know they let him in.”

“But you found out,” I say. “You found out and you didn’t tell me?”

“You don’t get it, Sarah.” Alex glances at his cell phone and winces. “He’s drawing huge crowds and a shitload of side bets. If he wins tonight, the organizers are paying him five grand. That’s double what he made last time, on top of whatever Leslie pulls in running the floor. There’s no way he’s gonna turn down that kind of money, but I saw the guy they’re pitting him against tonight. He’s massive. James doesn’t stand a chance.”

When we were eleven and thirteen, my brother got cocky and tried to take on our father. I’d accidentally vacuumed up something, a beer tab, probably, which sent our father into a rage. Instead of taking my beating like he usually did, James threw the first punch.

He never had a chance to throw the second.

I’ll never forget the sight of my brother’s blood streaming in thick rivulets from his nose or how quickly his eyes swelled shut. The hospital had no problems with our tree climbing story, especially not after our father scratched James up with a handful of twigs he tore from the tree in the Espinosas’ yard and rubbed pine needles in his hair. I spent the next three days home with the flu, or so we told the school, alternating bags of frozen chicken nuggets and cold beers to numb James’s face.

I never want to see my brother that messed up again.

Gentle pressure on my arm drags me from my memories. I blink up at Sam, who has an I-did-this-for-your-own-good look on his face. “I’m sorry,” he says. “If I knew about the fight, I would’ve told you, I swear.”

“But you knew he went pro two months ago,” I say. “And why didn’t you tell me he quit his job?”

My mind whips through all the horrifying scenarios that could’ve played out in the last two weeks: Me sleeping in Sam’s arms in my bed, Sam stripping out of his work clothes and kissing me senseless, having sex with Sam…All of them end with James walking through the front door in his coveralls and way-too-clean-for-work t-shirt and shooting Sam with the gun in the closet. There’s no way he’d be so devious. No way he would’ve risked his life or mine to make a point.

Except, he did.

I feel the anger boiling up inside of me, the betrayal hurting more than the throbbing burns on my side. I point my finger at him. “You knew he might walk in!”

“And you knew I never wanted this to be a secret,” he fires back.

“Setting it up so my brother catches me having sex with his best friend is lower than low, Sam. I thought you loved me.”

“I do love you!”

Alex edges toward the door, but I grab the sleeve of his black t-shirt. “You’re not going anywhere without me,” I tell him, “and we’re going to the Armory.”

Sam straightens. “I can take you.”

“You already had your chance to fix this and you didn’t. Alex?”

“No can do,” he says, trying to pry my hand from his shirt. “I’ve only got one helmet.”

“Then I’ll ride without one.”

Forty-three

Limping down the driveway with Alex, leaving Sam behind frantically scrambling around for his shoes and keys, is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I’m beyond furious, and yet, I know he loves me and would never purposely hurt me. He’s just a stupid boy with stupid pride and a stupid hero complex that’s too big for his own good.

I don’t plan to forgive him any time soon.

Alex tears through the streets on his shiny green motorcycle like we’re running from the apocalypse. I scream a little every time he takes a turn so deep our knees almost touch the ground, but at least he forced me to wear his helmet. It sits atop my head, wobbling like a hollow pumpkin on a fencepost, blocking my vision of everything except his broad, black-t-shirted back. I’m surprised he can breathe with how tightly my arms are wrapped around his waist. Maybe we are running from the apocalypse because, for once, Alex doesn’t make a sex joke.

Even before he cuts the engine on his bike, I feel the Armory’s energy like an echo in my bones. Memories of my mother dragging the four-year-old me to my father’s fights crash into my skull with the force of his fists, and for a moment, I clutch my head and double over in pain. It’ll be the same roaring crowd and the same pulsating atmosphere all over again, only this time, a different O’Brien is at the heart of the chaos.

Stragglers race toward the short line of people trickling into the nondescript, concrete monstrosity, only to be turned away by the bouncer who won’t let anyone else in.

“Full house,” he says to a guy in shredded jeans and a biker jacket. “Ain’t got room left.”

I shove the helmet into Alex’s chest and head toward the scowling, hulk of a man who could be Detective Lilly’s twin. He holds a hand out and repeats his line about there being no room, but there’s no way I’ll let him turn me away.

“James is my brother!” I shout. “You have to let me in!”

“I can vouch for her,” Alex says behind me.

“You’re Knockout’s little girl.” He sizes me up, eyes pausing to take in the scab on my lip and the fading bruises peppering my face. I don’t know if anyone’s heard about what my father did to me, but apparently this guy’s heard enough to validate my claim. Stepping aside, he nods at the closed black door. “Your brother’s been in for ten. Tough kid.”

Alex grabs my arm before I can burst inside. Just like James’s, his grip is way too hard to shake loose. “You’re not going anywhere without me,” he tells me. “Sam and your brother will kill me if I let something happen to you.”

It’s just a boxing match, I want to scream, but when Alex opens the door and leads me inside, my protests die on my lips.

The Armory of my memories is gone, it’s royal blue mat and white ropes obliterated by a nine-foot-tall chain-link cage. Silver risers which once played host to my father’s adoring fans and a handful of bloodthirsty bookies have been removed. In their place, a rowdy crowd as fixated on what’s happening in the pit of bodies as they are on what’s happening inside the cage.

I stumble into the room, disoriented by the strobe lights, and cling to Alex’s arm. The emcee screeches blow-by-blows over heavy metal louder and harder than anything my brother blasts on his speakers at home. Whatever he’s saying about James pounds back the memories of my father boxing and pulls what’s happening around me into sharp relief.

I need to see him.

“This isn’t gonna be like what you’re used to,” Alex shouts over the din. “This fight isn’t sanctioned. The people in there, they’re paying good money to see blood. Your brother’s blood.”

My stomach clenches, but I keep it together. “Closer!”

He holds my arm even tighter when we wind our way through the crowd. Someone shoves a tall guy wearing a football jersey into me and I feel myself going down, down, down, into the forest of feet stomping on the grimy floor. Alex is there to catch me, and the roundhouse punch he throws at the obviously drunk guy is a bloody reminder that this is his element as much as it is my brother’s.

We’re almost to the edge of the pit. Every now and again, my brother and his dark-haired opponent stumble our way and his blond hair catches in the light, but I can’t see anything else. I know Alex can, though, because he’s into the fight every second he can take his eyes off the mob surrounding us. I don’t argue when he gives up trying to hold onto my arm and shields me with his body instead.

Out of nowhere, Leslie materializes beside me and coils her arms around my waist. “Your brother’s putting on a real show tonight,” she purrs in my ear. “It’s about time your family crawled out of Daddy’s shadow.”

I want to hit her. In fact, I’m going to. But before I can figure out how to throw a punch from inside Alex’s grasp, the crowd groans and all attention shifts to the cage. The emcee shrieks something about solid kick to the head and I see what looks suspiciously like a spray of blood shimmer in the air. My brother’s blood?

Stomach churning, I shove through the last knot of people, Alex clinging to the back of my shirt, and fall to my hands and knees at the base of what used to be the Armory’s boxing ring.

James has his dark-haired opponent pinned to the cage, forearm across the other guy’s throat, ramming fist after taped-up fist into the guy’s face. His opponent slumps, but just when I think the guy might keel over, he rams a knee into James’s gut.

My brother drops and the crowd howls. A dark light flares in his opponent’s swollen eyes, like he’s sensing an easy kill in my brother, but James has always fed off noisy crowds. He shoves himself to his feet, bounces on his toes a few times like our father used to do, and hurls himself at his opponent again.

This time, the other guy is ready. And, oh my God, is he big. He ducks left, nails James in the side with his elbow, and with a sweep of his long leg, takes my brother back to the mat.

“James!” I scream, but my voice is swallowed by the jeering crowd. I scramble over the last retaining wall and try again. “James!”

My fingers find the chain link fence, but my eyes haven’t left my brother’s contorted body. His face is bloody and twisted with pain, and though I can’t hear it, I feel the low moan rattling in his chest. I can’t count how many times he’s crawled into my bed, bruised, bleeding, and unable to breathe, but nothing compares to the horror of what’s in front of me. Still, he climbs to his feet, gaze set in furious determination, and lifts his fists.

Never in our lives has he looked more like our father.

A pair of burly bouncers pry me away from the cage. “No!” I cry, and this time my brother’s head whips around. He doesn’t see me, but the price of that one second of distraction is a punch to the gut. I bite down on my still healing bottom lip so I don’t cost him anything else.

I’m passed into two sets of familiar arms, one set I’m expecting. One set I’m not.

Ignorant of how much pain they’re causing me, Alex and Sam carry me through the crowd, shouldering through the throngs of spectators now riveted to whatever is happening in the cage behind us until we reach the edge of the pit.

Alex drops my legs like I’m one of his homemade bombs about to explode in his hands and backs away. “She’s all yours, man. I did what I could.”

They’re acting like I’m crazy. Wanting my brother out of that cage, away from that other guy’s fists so I can fix all the places he’s hurt, is not crazy. The shimmering spray of blood I’d seen earlier plays like stars across my vision.

I scream and clutch my side. “Let. Me. Go!”

“Not a chance.” Sam backs us away from the crowd and pulls me down into his lap against the wall. “Not until you calm down. You’re hurt.”

“I am calm!”

He presses my face into his chest. “Sure you are.”

Inhaling his scent, seeing the blood over and over again, a dam of pain breaks loose and pours out of me. “You lied to me. How could you lie to me?”

Tears spill down my cheeks and my fists pound his chest, but nothing could hurt worse than the mess of emotions wreaking havoc on my body. I want to curl up and die, kill my brother, and crawl under Sam’s skin. I want to heal my brother, kiss his cuts and bruises and lips, and save him from what’s happening in my heart.

Through it all, Sam strokes my hair and whispers I’m sorrys and I love yous. I want to drown in the words and come to in a world where my mother isn’t dead but my father is, and my brother is waiting for me with a big smile on his face at the dining room table. I want to live with Sam and Liz and work at Enchanted Garden until it’s time to move to Los Angeles.

“Oh, shit,” Sam mutters.

Someone rips me from his arms and sends me crashing to the ground a few feet away. The dirty concrete scrapes my elbows as I skitter away from the sight of my brother, sweaty and bloody in a pair of our father’s old boxing shorts, holding Sam off the ground by his shirt.

“Don’t ever touch her again!” he bellows and lets go long enough to slam his taped-up fist into Sam’s jaw.

Sam’s head rocks to the side, but he still manages to break free of James’s grasp and stumble a few feet away. Without taking his eyes off my brother, he spits blood onto the grimy concrete floor, then asks, “Is Sarah okay?”

Alex grabs me by the arms and hauls me to my feet. “She’s fine,” he answers at the same time James snarls, “How she is isn’t any of your business.”

Fists clench and knuckles crack. The tension between Sam and James as they circle breaks me in half. If I don’t stop them, only one will walk away from this.

“James, please,” I cry. “Don’t do this!”

My brother’s fists drop a fraction and he glances at me over his shoulder. There’s no time to decipher the crazy look on his face because Sam—the guy whispering I love you in my ear only seconds ago—launches himself at James, driving his shoulder into my brother’s gut. They hit the ground in a rolling snarl of curses, legs, and flying fists.

The bloodthirsty crowd, gleeful over the change in venue and opponent, cinch in tighter. Alex tries to pull me close, but I smack his hands away. “Do something! Make them stop!”

He shakes his head, eyes fixed on the fight. “No way. They gotta get this out of their system or you can kiss sex with Sam goodbye.”

If my brother and my boyfriend weren’t intent on killing each other ten feet in front of me, I would slap Alex. This is not about sex. At least, not to me.

They come to a stop with James on top, a wicked gleam in his eyes when he rams his fist into Sam’s cheek. A sharp blast of copper bleeds into the air. When they roll again, Sam is on top, blood running from his mouth, fists pounding into my brother. His pummeling splits James’s already minced lips.

Eight years of friendship, obliterated.

James lets out an inhuman roar and explodes from the ground, jerking to the side so he can kick Sam in the chest. The crowd screams its approval when Sam staggers backwards and drops into a crouch against the wall gasping for air.

James hovers over him, fists at the ready. “You think you’re a fucking saint because of your dad, but you aren’t shit! Fight me!”

Sam glares up at him. “Fuck. You.”

Wrong answer.

“Stop!” I shout right as James pivots, cocking back his leg. The crowd holds its breath, waiting for the crunch of foot against face, for more blood to rain down on the Armory—

Launching himself from the wall, Sam grabs James’s extended leg and twists, sending my brother to the floor. Before Sam can tackle him, I break free of Alex’s grasp and fling myself on top of my brother. He elbows me in the side and rolls away.

My burn screams, but I force myself to my feet and grab hold of the nearest body. James.

They glare at each other over my head, chests heaving. I trust him less than I trust Sam, so I keep my back pressed to my brother’s chest, hand fisted in the waistband of our father’s shorts, and give the double-vision version of Sam standing in front of me the darkest glare I can muster. The room spins with the effort.

“What’s wrong with you? You’re best friends!”

The validation in Sam’s eyes only infuriates me further. He wanted a confrontation like this. If he used the stupid, twisted boy logic I’m all too familiar with after a lifetime of being James’s little sister, Sam probably figured he’d take on my brother and win the right to be with me. The stupidity of this fight makes me want to throw up. All that’s missing are swords and chainmail and willowy damsels in distress.

I’m no willowy damsel.

“I’m so sick of this!” I yell. “I’m a person, not some bone you get to fight over!”

Flames lick at my burn and my aching head is full of shattered glass, but I manage to release James and hobble a few feet away before I’m too disoriented to walk in a straight line. There’s no way I’ll let Sam and James see my pain.

The pleading look I give Alex must be really pathetic, because he slips an arm around my waist and half carries me to the door without another word.

Forty-four

Riding on the back of a motorcycle while woozy is much harder than it looks. Every turn is an invitation to slide off the seat onto the peaceful pavement, every straightaway, an invitation to curl around Alex’s warm body and fall into blissful sleep.

I think he knows how close I am to passing out, because any time his left hand doesn’t have to be on the clutch, he holds my arms to his massive chest. The ride home takes three times as long as the ride to the Armory because he’s going so slow.

What a disaster of a night. At least now, I can’t delude myself into thinking James only feels brotherly toward me. It’s okay, though. I can handle my brother. He’d never hurt me, and if I put my foot down about the kissing, he’ll stop. I know he will because he loves me and I love him and that’s what we’ve always done—whatever is best for the other person.

At least he’s always done that, giving up everything to give me as good of a life as I could possibly have at home with our father. What teenage guy works full time in a paper mill to take care of his sister? He should be out dating all the girls that followed him around school last year, or even one of the ones that gape or flirt or throw themselves at him when we’re out in public now. Maybe if he went out with all of them, he wouldn’t have those kinds of thoughts about me.

It’s my fault and these fights are just more of the same—James destroying his body to protect me. I’ve pushed him so hard about money and getting out of this house. I’ve tied him down his entire life, tied him to me and to our father and to keeping me safe instead of taking care of himself.

I’m an awful, awful person.

And then there’s Sam. After what happened this evening, I feel like a hollow shell—a Sarah-sized husk without the living center that usually breathes strongest when I’m with Sam. He loves me. I love him. He lied to me. I’ve lied to him.

And now I can’t find my way back.

Maybe that’s a good thing. I have no idea what he sees in me. Strength, he says. Beauty. A big heart. I see none of these things. I see fear, flaws, and a heart so full of blackness I can’t give up my own selfish wants to set him or my brother free. He’s given me a glimpse of what happiness should feel like, so maybe I should be grateful and move on. If I’m certain of anything, it’s that Sam Donavon can do better than me.

I owe James my life. I owe Sam the life he deserves. One believes wholeheartedly he’ll be lost without me—a fear I’ll probably never be able to talk him out of—and the other will go on to bigger and better things regardless. When I think of it that way, my decision is clear.

I don’t like that decision.

I must’ve passed out after all, because the next thing I know, familiar arms are carrying me to the front door. My hands fumble around for keys that aren’t there, but Alex shushes me. No, not Alex. Sam. He tells Alex about the house key dangling from the chain with his father’s dog tags, and then we’re inside.

Burnt meat, soot, and old cigarette smoke greet us, but are soon overtaken by the familiar comforting scent of James and our room. My sheet feels cool and inviting through my clothes. For the first time, I want to sleep naked, to feel that coolness against my skin while I dream and wake up a new person. I reach for Sam, wanting him to take my clothes off, wanting him in bed with me, wanting to push him away, wanting, wanting, wanting.

“We’re going to let you sleep,” he whispers. “James left with Leslie, so there’s no way he’s coming home tonight. I’ll check on you as soon as I get off work, okay? I’ll only be gone a few hours.”

His face. Oh God, his beautiful face. Half of his mouth is swollen and oozing blood, one of his eyes has turned a ghastly shade of maroon. I did this. He loves me and I did this.

“I’m sorry,” I breathe, but it isn’t enough.

He smiles and gently presses his broken mouth to my scabbed lips.

Behind him, Alex shifts uncomfortably. “You guys aren’t going to have makeup sex now, right? Because, for once, I’m not up for the whole voyeur thing. Driving an unconscious girl home isn’t the turn on it used to be.”

Sam ignores him and smoothes the shorter wisps of my hair away from my face. “If anyone should be sorry, it’s me. I’ve done a lot of stupid shit.”

“I love you anyway.”

He chuckles and gets to his feet. “Yeah, well, maybe you’re the stupid one, then. Don’t wise up, though, because I love you, too.”

“Feel better,” Alex says, tweaking one of my bare feet. “And I still mean what I said about calling me, regardless of what Captain Possessive thinks.”

Watching them file out of my bedroom, I can’t help but smile. Maybe everything will be okay. Maybe fighting is exactly what Sam and James needed.

I fall asleep before the front door clicks shut.

Forty-five

Labored breathing. The chilling hair-standing-on-end feeling that I’m being watched.

Fighting my way back to consciousness, I shift away from the nightmare threatening to drag me under. I will not have this dream again. I won’t let myself.

But I do.

A rough palm caresses my cheek. Another touches my breast and trails down my stomach to slip under my shirt. A heavy mouth covers mine. Hot, impatient breath forces its way into my lungs, breath that tastes of beer. I try to fight him off but his touch only gets rougher.

I’ll always love you and make you happy,

If you will only say the same.

But if you leave me to love another,

You’ll regret it all someday.

I wake suddenly, sitting up and screaming into the blackness.

4:42.

He tackles me back onto my pillow. “Shhh!”

Unable to breathe beneath his weight and with his hand crushing my nose and mouth, I stare at the dark, man-shaped shadow. He isn’t supposed to be here, not tonight, not when I’m alone. Seconds before I suffocate, he shoves himself away from me and staggers to his feet.

“How could you, Sarah?” he asks, words slurred. “How could you fuck Sam?”

“James?” Everything inside of me goes still when the stench of sour beer blasts me in the face. I push myself up on my hands, numb to the pain in my hip. “Are you drunk?”

“What’s it matter to you?” He takes a big step closer, slams his knee into my cheap metal bed frame and nearly crumples. He manages to stay upright but only barely. “Say. His. Name.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say weakly.

“Stop lying to me!” he bellows, then grabs his head as if the sound was even more deafening inside of it. “I can smell the fucking condoms.”

My blood turns to ice in my veins, crackling and splitting, until I’m sure I’m going to have some sort of frozen aneurism. I barely remember the forced lovemaking session after the night I’ve had. What did Sam do with the condom?

James’s fury shifts to despair and he drops to his knees. “God, Sarah, do you hate me so much you had to fuck him in our room?”

In the faint moonlight, I can see the misshapen lines of his face. The fight. “I don’t hate you. And I’d never purposely hurt you. I love you.”

He shakes his head, his big shoulders trembling. “No, I love you. You’ve never loved me, even though it’s supposed to be me and you, forever.” He reaches for my waist and buries his sticky face in my stomach. “Why can’t I be enough? I want to be enough so fucking bad.”

“You are enough!”

“I’ll never be enough and you know it.”

This is horrible. More horrible than I imagined. I close my eyes and stroke his crusty hair, very quietly singing our lullaby.

His shoulders stop trembling halfway through the verse and by the end I think he’s humming along with me. I hope so. I scoot farther down on my bed so I can reach him better and because his lumpy face pressed into the bruises on my lower stomach hurts.

“I’m sorry about Leslie,” he mumbles into my shirt, which is bunching up around his face as I wriggle lower. “She doesn’t mean anything to me. Promise.”

I couldn’t care less about Leslie and I am about to tell him so, but then he turns his head, moving my thin t-shirt out of the way with his big hands, and I realize how bad an idea it was to scoot lower. He nuzzles into my bare chest instead of coming higher into my arms, breathing me in and pressing his lips to my skin. I gasp and shove at his shoulders.

“Damn it!” he roars. My hands fly to my ears because he’s right there in my face, tiny drops of spit flying. “Don’t you understand? Do you understand anything?”

He hauls me off the bed and throws me over his shoulder. I scream, a short sound I can’t keep in no matter how hard I try because his shoulder is digging into my hip and it’s almost as painful as the boiling water that burned me in the first place. I shut up immediately though, because he throws open the front door and staggers toward his truck.

“We’re going to the beach,” he says, dumping me into the passenger seat. “Right now, tonight. You’re going to be with me and we’re going to camp on the beach.”

He’s hardly making sense, which reminds me that he’s drunk at the very least. “Wait, you’ve been drinking. And Leslie—you were at Leslie’s. Are you on something?”

He laughs—a cold, unfriendly sound—and slams the door shut in my face. I lean across the seat to smack his lock down but I’m too late.

“Please,” I say and grab his arm. “I don’t want to go tonight. Can we go back inside and talk? I’ll stay up as long as you want and we’ll talk until we figure this out.” I have no idea what I’ll say to calm him down, but I have to come up with something. With him this messed up and pissed off, he’ll drive straight to Sam’s and kill him if I tell the truth.

“No more talking.”

He backs out of the driveway herky-jerky and then peels off down our street. I close my eyes and pray for a cop to be sitting on the corner by the park. Detective Lilly, even. Maybe we’ll get pulled over and James will get tossed into jail where he’ll have no choice but to cool off.

No cops, of course. No Detective Lilly when I actually need him. I buckle my seatbelt and hold on tight as he roars toward I-5. “Where are we going?”

At the last second, when the Interstate onramp is less than ten yards away, he cranks the wheel to the left and veers off toward the hills instead. The truck skids through the intersection, its tires screeching on the pavement. “Camping,” he repeats calmly. “But not at the beach. I changed my mind.”

This is way worse than the Interstate because the roads up here are steep and windy. James is having a hard time keeping the truck on the road let alone in his own lane, so I’ve been curled up in my seat, chewing my nails for the last twenty minutes. We’re going to get creamed when a logging truck flies around one of the corners—I just know it.

Desperate, I try again. “Please pull over and talk to me. You’re not okay.”

He shakes his head.

“I’m scared.”

I’ve used the same voice, the same words, hundreds of times and every time, I was either already in James’s arms or he immediately pulled me into them. I’m counting on the same reaction. When he glances over at me, his swollen brow furrowed, I know I’ve got him.

“Please,” I whimper. “You’re scaring me.”

He slams on the breaks and violently steers us into the dirt on the side of the road. We’re alarmingly close to Sam’s secret place. Suspiciously close.

“So talk,” he says, glaring at me in the darkness.

I consider getting out of the truck. If he snaps, I’ll be able to run into the trees and evade him long enough for us both to calm down. Then again, I’m barefoot and he’s not. He’d catch up even more pissed off than before.

“I love you,” I offer instead. “It hurts me that you think I don’t.”

He laughs but the sound quickly turns into shuddering sobs. After years of my brother never crying, to see him broken and hurting like this is a knife to my chest.

“Mom’s gone, Dad’s gone, and tonight, that fucking detective took Leslie away…” He scrubs the tears from his eyes and looks at me. “I could’ve handled losing them, but losing you is killing me.”

Seventeen years of pain reflects back at me from the shadows. In the dark, I can’t see his blackened eyes but I can feel the pain in the tense air between us, can smell it in his sweat, can hear it in his voice. If I lean across the seat and kiss him, I’ll taste it. “I am so, so, sorry,” I say and unbuckle my safety belt. “You haven’t lost me, though. I’m right here.”

He eyes me warily as I scoot closer. I touch his arm. He’s like a caged animal ready to strike out. I’ve never seen him this tightly wound, this ready to snap. His eyes dart from my hand on his arm to my face and back. I move to my knees, taking a chance because I know with all my heart he’d never hit me, and wrap my arms around his neck.

“I love you,” I whisper. “Only you.”

There’s no way I’m telling him the truth now. Not in the middle of a dark forest with him drunk and quite possibly high. To bury my pain, I whisper my love for Sam namelessly into my brother’s ear, over and over.

It takes him a minute, but James finally slumps against me. “You wouldn’t lie to me?”

“No.” Yes. And damn, it hurts.

He nods and turns his body toward me so we’re chest to chest and squeezes me tight. A sense of foreboding inches up my spine, following the path of his fingers, which keep right on going into my hair. Sam has held me exactly like this countless times, his mouth at my neck. With me on my knees and his hands locking me in place, all James has to do is lift his chin a few inches and we’ll be kissing.

“We should be together. You and me. Don’t you know?”

I do know. At least, I know he believes it. I hold my breath as he strokes my hair, trembling in his arms and waiting for the inevitable. When he finally draws my face to his, I close my eyes. I hate myself for ruining my brother. I’ll do anything to fix it. Seeing James destroyed hurts worse than torture.

But he doesn’t kiss me. No brush of lips, no shared breath, no anything.

“When you were really little, she used to braid your hair,” he says, rubbing a lock between his fingers. “Skinny yellow braids like ropes, but softer. Prettier. Mom used to get mad at me for sticking all my little army men into your hair, but watching you walk around with green things hanging off your head was hilarious. She never spanked me, though. Or you.”

“I don’t remember.”

“I know,” he says sadly. “I wish you did. Maybe then you would’ve loved her, too. Maybe you’d understand.”

I can’t fathom loving our mother or our father. Except for James and Sam, love is a foreign concept to me. When I think of braids and army men, the emptiness in my chest expands exponentially and I hate myself for wondering what if now that it’s too late. I almost hate James for forcing me to relive something secondhand I’d give anything to remember.

“I’m so afraid you’re going to leave me,” he continues in a broken voice. “With Dad gone, you don’t need me anymore. I don’t know who I am without you. I don’t want to. I need you more than Sam does, but you don’t need me. God, it hurts.”

Holding him, I’m struck by how childlike he is. How childlike he’s always been. I’m holding him to my chest exactly like he always holds me when I’m scared and no one can protect me but him. This isn’t about sex or any of the disgusting things my mind is trying to make it into. This is James. My brother. The one who has thrown away everything to save me.

Save James.

It’s time to repay my debt.

“I’ll always need you,” I tell him. The truth.

“Promise you won’t leave?”

There is no hope in his voice. He’s already given up.

“Promise.” Even if I have to give up Sam. My heart shatters at the thought, but I refuse to back down. I owe James this. “I’ll never leave you.”

“Mom said that, too.”

The dream I’ve tried so hard to forget tries to break out of where I’ve buried it and nearly succeeds. Her fingers on my cheek. My name on her lips, urging me to save my brother. From my father or from me, I’m not sure anymore. Eyes watering, terrified to believe what he’s about to say, I ask, “She did?”

He nods. “Until Dad made her stay away.”

I kiss his temple and keep my lips there so I can’t speak. Anything I say will open the floodgates I refuse to open. We stay that way for a long time until he drags one of his legs up on the seat and pulls me onto his lap.

“I was going to kill him,” he whispers. “When we went camping, I was going to sneak back home and kill him when you were asleep. That’s why I bought the gun. But then I couldn’t because everyone was there and they might’ve seen me leave.”

I pull away and search his shadowed face. “But you would’ve gone to jail.”

“I had to,” he whispers. “She made me promise.”

“To kill Dad?”

No answer. I suspect the alcohol and whatever drugs he took are catching up to him because his swollen eyes are half-mast, his minced mouth slack. I have to know what he means. Knowing what he means might change everything. I lightly smack his cheek. “James? She made you promise to kill Dad?”

“To save you,” he mumbles. “And her.”

I gape at my brother in the darkness, but he droops forward against my chest, eyes closed. Is that why he snapped? Because he couldn’t save her from our father? There are so many things I want to ask him. So many things I need to say.

But all I can do is hold him while he sleeps and wait until morning. While he snores against my neck, I stroke his hair and stare out into the dark forest.

This changes everything.

Forty-six

The house is silent when I wake up the next morning. My eyes fly first to the clock—12:48 p.m.—then to James’s empty bed. I have no idea how I got here and no recollection of putting on the pajamas I’m wearing, which is very scary. I refuse to consider the possibility he undressed me and put me to bed last night.

I roll out of bed, feeling like I’ve been drugged and then run over by a bus, and strip off my pajamas. They don’t feel out of place like they should if someone other than me put them on. The few times Sam has helped me put my clothes back on, I’ve had to totally redo everything. It just felt…wrong.

By the time I find my bra in the laundry basket--cringing at the pain it’ll take to fasten--slip on a long-sleeved shirt, and put on my last pair of clean jeans, the reality of what I’m about to do sinks in. I’d hoped for answers this morning, but James isn’t here and I can’t put off the inevitable. Won’t.

Our linoleum is scuffed up pretty badly where James scraped off the hardened noodles and where the chair my father threw crashed to the floor. More alarming are the fist-sized holes peppering the dining room wall. I imagine my head with a same-sized hole, with my brains a shattered mess on the floor like the phone before James swept it up.

I walk over to the stove and run my finger through the black soot from the fire. It comes off pretty easily. I trip over something, the wooden spoon, when I grab the paper towels from the counter. The knife is in the sink. James or the paramedics or someone must’ve picked it up. It sits blade-down in the pot I’d been cooking in, drowning in murky water. Beside it, the blackened pan with bits of meat dried to one of the edges waits to be cleaned.

My stomach churns violently. I’m determined, though. I need to clean up the blackness marring the stove. I have to. My mother would’ve wanted it this way, I think. It’s a stain that reminds me of my father and what he’s done to my family.

Blackness. The story of my life.

No, the story of her life.

It takes me ten minutes to clean up the soot. Dropping the wad of dirty paper towels in the garbage can, I head for the door.

Meadowview Cemetery sits at the base of the hills and is the only cemetery in town. After a ten-minute trek through neighborhoods, the gravity of my situation so heavy I feel like I’m carrying a backpack full of stones, I turn up the long, winding drive that leads to the mausoleum.

The lawn stretches out like white, speckled football fields in either direction, which seems oddly enormous for a town as small and unimportant as Granite Falls. I guess the picturesque foothills were attractive to whomever decides where to put memorial cemeteries. More than half of these markers, identical flat rectangles on the ground, belong to veterans of one war or another.

Maybe Sam’s dad is buried here.

No, I won’t think about Sam. This isn’t about him.

Halfway up the hill, I reach the normal graves. Some have nondescript stone markers like the military graves, others have tall marble statues shaped like saints and angels. Most fall somewhere in between with their waist-high granite gravestones. Though I’ve spent a lot of my life thinking about death—mine, my mothers, wishing for my father’s—cemeteries freak me out. Specifically, gravestones freak me out. Maybe it’s because I can’t imagine anyone having anything good to say about me. I’d rather not have one when I die.

My mother was cremated and interred—that’s all James would tell me, which had been more than I wanted to know at the time. Easier to imagine her ashes scattered in the forest or dumped in the stream. Now I wish I’d asked for details because the enormous mausoleum is daunting with its exterior walls covered in what looks like hundreds of metal post office boxes. I’ll never find her in the sea of names and numbers.

I almost turn back. The closer I get to the walls, the less sure of myself I become. Right as I convince myself of the stupidity of coming here, a stooped man who looks like an older, thinner version of Santa Claus steps into my path. “Can I help you?”

“Uh…” I turn away to hide my face, but my gaze lands on a grave marker. Here lies Reyes Markham, beloved son… I force myself to look at the man. “I’m trying to find where my mother is buried. Or stored. Whatever you do with the ashes after someone is cremated.”

We start walking toward the mausoleum and he gives me a sympathetic look that, for once, isn’t patronizing. “Recent interment?”

“A couple weeks ago, yes.”

“Name?”

“Amanda O’Brien.” I’ve never said her name aloud before. It hurts more than I expect.

He studies my battered face. “She wasn’t cremated.”

The ground drops out from beneath my feet, but somehow, I find a way to follow the man when he turns back around and heads out into the maze of grass, marble, and granite. There’s no way we could’ve afforded a full burial. How did James pull this off?

And then it hits me. He only has two thousand dollars in the bank. The money we’ve been saving to get out of our house paid for this.

Anger hits me first, but then guilt like the clumpy, wet dirt beneath my feet chokes it off. No wonder he didn’t tell me—he probably thought I’d get mad at him. And I would have. But after last night, after realizing how much he must have loved her to do this, picturing him doing all of it alone hurts almost as much as watching him fall apart.

All the more reason I have to do what I’m planning to do.

I know which grave is hers before we reach it. The grass growing on the fresh mound of dirt is sparse and young. When I see the two wilted bouquets of roses he bought at Enchanted Garden, tears prick at my eyes. I assumed he’d given them to Leslie.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” the stooped old man says when we reach the grave. He gives me a slight nod and heads back toward the road and the mausoleum.

I stand there for what feels like an hour, looking everywhere except at the fresh dirt, the wilted roses, and the pretty granite my brother picked for her gravestone. Swallows swoop from tree to tree farther up the hill. A lazy breeze sifts through the gravestones and caresses my cheeks with its warm fingers.

Being out with Sam as much as I have been, my face isn’t as pale as it used to be. My tan ends there, though. Healthy face, ghostly body. Maybe I should stop wearing jeans and long-sleeved shirts. Maybe my scars will fade if I gave them a little sunshine. With my father in jail, there won’t be any more bruises to hide once the newest ones fade.

I’ll start small—maybe I’ll put a folding lawn chair in the backyard where no one can see me and sit in a tank top and shorts. I’ll drag James out there, too. If anyone needs sun and a little relaxation, it’s my brother…

No matter how hard I try to distract myself, the beauty and peacefulness of where I’m standing forces me to remember how ugly my mother’s life was. I picture the wonder I saw in her glassy eyes that night in my bedroom. If everything James has told me about her is true, if she didn’t willingly give up on me and him, maybe she deserves this. Maybe, in killing her, my father did her a favor.

Slowly, I let my gaze trail from the bright green shoots of grass peeking out from the dark brown dirt to the thicker grass at the base of the gravestone. The stone itself is gray with white flecks, pink swirls, and baby blue veins running through it. Maybe he’d meant the pink and blue to be me and him, and the white to be her. The gray overwhelming all three colors has to be our father.

Amanda O’Brien

November 22, 1972 – June 20, 2010

Gifted with death

You were my sunshine

The words blur. I should have been here to hold James’s hand instead of wallowing in selfishness and hatred. My chest aches when I picture him standing in front of a glossy casket, staring down at her lifeless body alone. I picture his big shoulders shaking and his strong arms wrapped around himself because there was no one there to hold.

It’s more than I can handle.

“I’ll come back,” I say to the gravestone and immediately feel stupid. My mother can’t hear me. She’s never been able to hear me.

My hands shake and sweat trickles down the back of my neck. I need to calm down. If I’m this tense already, there’s no way I’ll make it through what I have to do at Sam’s. Slow, deep breaths, Sarah.

As I weave my way back toward the road, I notice hundreds of calla lilies are growing in brilliant clumps of fiery oranges, pinks, and yellows under every tree I pass. I hesitate. My mother’s grave looks drab compared to the ones with fresh bouquets and flags and shiny metallic pinwheels sticking up from the ground. I pick two of the pink ones and march back to the mound of dirt above her, setting the lilies in the center. One for me, one for her. They match her gravestone perfectly.

“I’m sorry for believing the worst,” I say, “and for not saving him like you wanted. I’m going to fix everything, though, so don’t worry.”

It’s not an I love you and I’m not ready to forgive all the years I screamed for her and she never came, but I think I understand my mother a little better now. She gave my brother and me up to protect us, just like I’m about to give up Sam to protect him and James.

It always comes back to James.

Forty-seven

By the time I reach the main road at the base of the hill, I’m exhausted physically and mentally. It’s in the upper nineties already. My shirt clings to my sweaty skin. My jeans feel even thicker than normal. Desperate, I roll up my sleeves to the elbow. There. Something I haven’t done since Mrs. Baxter’s white dress.

A mile later, I stop and roll up the bottoms of my jeans. I look like I’m wearing a three-quarter t-shirt and capris—the first almost-summery outfit I’ve worn in public in God knows how long. The warm breeze tickling my arms and calves is exhilarating, second only to the first time Sam touched my skin. I wish I had flip-flops on to get the full effect. Maybe I’ll buy a new pair tomorrow.

I lose the wisp of conviction I’ve been clinging to when I get to Sam’s house and see Liz loading boxes of tall glass vases into the back of her car. Before I can run away, she looks up and shields her eyes. “Sarah?”

For such a small woman, Liz is incredibly loud. You’d think I’d be used to it by now. Maybe it’s weird to me because she’s a mother and mothers have always been silent in my world. Whatever the case, I can’t turn back now because Sam—and everyone else on the street—probably heard her.

She drops the box into her trunk, breaking at least one of the vases judging by the crash, and dashes across the lawn. Before either of us can say anything else, I throw my arms around her waist and bury my face in her neck.

Home.

“Oh, honey. What happened? Who did this?”

Sam didn’t tell her. The realization is just as relieving as it is painful.

I will not cry—I won’t—but the tidal wave of emotions I’m too exhausted to shut down breaks through my resistance anyway. How easy it would be to tell Liz everything. To let someone else shoulder some of the darkness I’m carrying around for a change. To give up fighting for things that’ll never happen and let everything go.

But I keep seeing the little pink and blue lines running through the granite headstone above my mother’s grave, tangling with the threads of white, drowning in all that gray stone. Me and James. James and our mother. James protecting us both from our father…

She deserved better. Even if I don’t, she did.

Save James.

Sniffling and wiping at my eyes, I try to come up with a convincing lie. If I tell her the truth, there’s no way I’ll be able to do what I came here to do. I can’t risk it. She’ll insist on comforting me and giving me everything I never got from my mother and it’ll be wrong, all of it. I won’t destroy James’s life more than I already have because I’m weak. I won’t let him hurt Sam.

“I fell,” I tell her. “Down the stairs at the library. That’s all.”

She releases her death grip of a hug and cups my cheek in her palm. “You don’t have to lie anymore. I’ll help you. Just tell me the truth.”

“I’m not lying,” I say a little too forcefully and back away. “I was carrying a bunch of books and didn’t see the first step. That’s all.”

She looks hurt. “Oh. Well, I have a wedding consultation in half an hour. You can come along if you’d like. Help me with the sample arrangements, maybe?”

“Um, actually, I can’t work at Enchanted Garden anymore.” Coming here was a mistake. The guilt and regret and wishful thinking are eating me alive. “Is Sam home?”

“I haven’t seen him since yesterday morning, but I’m pretty sure I heard the shower start up a few minutes ago.” The strange look on her face worries me, but I can’t hold eye contact long enough to figure out what she’s thinking. “He’s pretty serious about you, Sarah.”

My cheeks, already overheated from the sun and long walk, get even hotter. It’s as if she read my mind and plucked out the worst possible thing she could have said. All morning, I’d been clinging to the hope that Sam and I might be able to stay friends so I could beg him to take me back if James ever lets me go.

“I’m just going to go inside and wait,” I say to her and turn toward the door.

“Sarah, when I get home this evening, I hope you’ll consider talking to me. We can go to the police together, if it helps. I love you just as much as Sam does.”

Which is the last thing I want to hear, because all of a sudden, I’m not sure I’m making the right decision. No, I am. I have to be. My brother needs me more than Sam does.

I can’t get to the front door and out of the far-too-cheerful sunshine fast enough.

The water shuts off as I hurry down the hallway to his bedroom. I pause at the bathroom door and knock softly. “Sam? I’ll be waiting in your room, okay?”

“Hey, wait!”

He throws open the door, still trying to get his towel wrapped around his waist. I ignore the dark bruise around his eye and his scabbed over lip and let myself soak in the sight of his chest and stomach and the water droplets in his hair one last time. Knowing I’ll probably never see this again rams the jagged knife in my heart even deeper.

I think he mistakes my staring for longing—it is, but not the kind he’s thinking—because he gives me the crooked smile I remember from that night on the log. “I was just on my way over to check on you. Is my mom outside?”

I nod. “She’s leaving.”

Towel still in place, he drags me toward his bedroom. I’m in his arms and the door is locked behind us before I can blink. “I missed you,” he murmurs into my hair. “And I’m so sorry about yesterday. When I saw what your dad did to you, I lost it. I’ve never been so pissed off and freaked out in my life. And James…I should have told you he was fighting weeks ago.”

I close my eyes and silently savor his pinecone-and-spice scent and how smooth his skin feels against my cheek. If I talk, I’ll start crying, so I don’t dare open my mouth other than to kiss his chest. Why I ever thought I’d be able to do this is beyond me.

“Move in with me,” he says. “Today. Please say yes.”

Oh, God, how I want to. I want what he’s offering more than anything. Squeezing my eyes shut, I try desperately to gather what little strength I have left. There’s not enough. There will never be enough.

And yet, I manage to force out a feeble, “We need to talk.”

His hands slide from my shoulders to my hands. Judging by the smile on his face, he has no idea what’s coming. “Yeah?”

“Maybe you should get dressed,” I say. “You’re distracting when you’re naked.”

God, is he ever. Instead of breaking up with him, all I can think about is ripping his towel off, pressing my body against his sweet, clean skin, and losing myself. He must know the effect he’s having on me because he grins even wider and plops down on the edge of his bed. “Maybe you should get undressed,” he says. “I bet if we were both naked, I wouldn’t be near as distracting.” He reaches for my waist, narrowly avoiding my burned hip. When his fingers slip under my shirt and try to draw me closer, I almost let him.

Almost.

“I want to break up,” I blurt out.

His smile falters. “What?”

“It’s for the best, trust me.”

He stares at me, dozens of emotions I can’t name playing across his face until, finally, the hope drains from his eyes. This is the Sam I’ve never seen, the one I only got a hint of when he told me about his dad the first time. The one that reminds me so very much of James. “No,” he says quietly. “It’s not for the best and I say no.”

“Things with James are already bad enough right now without this to complicate things. He needs me more than you do. I have to do this.”

Sam gapes at me like I’ve slapped him. “This is about your brother? Again?”

“You don’t know how it is,” I say. My knees are shaking so badly, I might fall. To be safe, I pull the stool out from under his desk and sit down. “I had another nightmare about my dad last night and it was bad—really, really bad. When I woke up, James was drunk and on something and dragged me out of the house yelling about how he knows I’ve had sex with you in our room.”

I hesitate, expecting Sam to say something, but he doesn’t.

“He’s not the same person he was a few weeks ago,” I say. “I don’t know if it’s the fighting, or if he’s messed up about losing our mom, but he’s not the same. Something’s wrong with him.”

“There’s been something wrong with your brother for years,” Sam snaps. “Did you tell him about you and me?”

I shake my head. “He already knows. You know he does. He kept telling me he wanted me to say your name. He wanted to hear me say it.”

Sam runs a hand through his damp hair and stares hard at the blueprint of his future house. “So then what? He dragged you outside and then what happened?”

“He drove me into the woods.” I stare at the tattoo on his shoulder, wishing for things I’m not allowed to wish for anymore.

Sam curses and stands up. “And?”

“We talked.”

“You mean, you decided to screw me over because of some warped sense of duty to your brother.” He scowls at me and grabs a pair of underwear and shorts from his drawer. “Just dump me and get it over with, Sarah. I’ve got shit to do.”

He thinks I don’t love him. That can’t be farther from the truth. Or can it? I’m choosing my brother over him.

Watching him yank on his shorts is the last straw. When he throws his towel across the room and it lands hanging limp from the basketball hoop behind his door, I stagger to my feet. “Do you think I want to do this? I want to be with you more than anything! Even if I’m not ready for this—” I wave at his room. “—I would still do it because of you if I could, but I can’t. You don’t know what he’s done for me. I owe him everything. I’m alive because of him!”

Part of me wishes he’d hold me and tell me everything will be okay. The other half wants to throw myself off a cliff for what I’m doing to us both. He stares down at me, his arms folded across his bare chest. “James is an adult. He needs to figure things out for himself.”

I shake my head and start to protest, but he stops me.

“Yes,” he says. “That’s your whole problem—you and James don’t know where he ends and you begin. You’re too dependent on each other. Neither of you can make your own decisions because neither of you knows who you are.”

James makes plenty of decisions. All of them, in fact.

“Listen to me. You know that side of James, but I know the other. This has been coming for years. Half the reason we’re still friends is because I feel like I need to keep an eye on him.” He paces the length of the room twice, then stops in front of me again. “Your brother is seriously messed up, Sarah. I don’t want you alone in that house with him. Hell, if it wouldn’t get me arrested, I’d put you in my car right now and drive so far away he’d never find you again.”

I blink up at him. He means it. “You’d give up everything for me?”

“When are you going to get that you are everything?”

“But…we’ve only been together for a couple of weeks. How can you say that after only a couple of weeks?”

He stabs his fingers through his drying hair and resumes his pacing. “You think I don’t know this went really fast? I didn’t plan for this to happen. Hell, I didn’t even know if you’d let me talk to you, much less be with you. But then you did and we did and…” He stops in the center of the room and stares at me, his shoulders sagging. “I figured out pretty quick that this is a forever thing for me. I think it has been from the very beginning.”

“No—”

He closes the distance between us in two steps and cups my face in his hands. “Yes.”

I breathe the warmth of his words into my chest hoping they’ll chase away the hopelessness that keeps icing over my heart.

“Besides,” he adds. “If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be thinking about UCLA again.”

The tiny flicker of hope I’d just started to feel again dies. “See? That’s why I have to do this. You have to go to UCLA. You have to get your degree and build your house. You can’t do any of that if you have to take care of me.” I sink back onto the stool, my legs turning to jelly again. “I refuse to be the reason you get stuck in Granite Falls with some crap job.”

“And that’s where you’re wrong.” He squats in front of me. My eyes follow his waist and the way his skin moves across his abs. A tap on the chin brings my eyes back to his. “If we get married—”

“Sam—”

He presses his finger to my lips. “If we get married, I’ll actually get more financial aid. You will, too. I’m not saying it will be easy, but we can make it work.” His hand drifts back to my cheek and he smiles. “You have to trust me.”

“I don’t know…”

“I do.” He smiles and draws my knees apart so he can kneel between them. “We can stay here until next month and stick to the original plan. When we move, I can work and go to school at the same time. We’ll find you a job, too. Maybe even at the same place. You won’t have to worry about applying to UCLA until you’re ready. Say yes.”

This isn’t going well. I was counting on his anger, not controlled logic. I’m not going to be able to keep saying no if he keeps making sense. I shake my head even though he’s winning.

“Yes. Let me show you what it’s like to have a real family,” he insists. “Let me love you like my dad loved my mom. I’ll never let anything bad happen to you again.”

He presses a kiss to my stomach and everything inside of me breaks. I slump over, bury my face and hands in his hair, and let the tears come. The desperation in his voice, the way he clings to me almost as tightly as I cling to him, how he picks me up and pulls my legs around his waist—I feel my resolve crumbling. When he whispers, “Marry me, Sarah Jane O’Brien,” and tries to kiss me, it crumbles completely.

“No!” I gasp and wrench myself from his arms. I want to be with him more than he knows and more than I can ever explain, but I can’t. There’s a gun in my closet with Sam’s name on it if I do the selfish thing and stay here.

“I need to help James get past what happened to our mother,” I sob from where I’ve fallen to the floor. My gaze drifts to the bed so he won’t see the lie. “Detective Lilly thinks he did it and I need to make sure he doesn’t do something stupid like bomb the jail when they finally realize it was our father. I need to get him used to the idea of me being safe now that our father’s gone. Maybe after—”

“After he forces himself on you?” He glares at me, the intensity in his eyes an ugly thunderstorm black. “I know you’ve been lying about the kisses. How do you know that’s not next?”

“He would never force me!”

Even as the words spill from my lips, I have my doubts. Last night was the first time he’d forced me to do anything against my will and it was a fluke. Too much alcohol, too many drugs. That’s all.

I’m lying to myself.

I feel it taking over, the panic that’s been clawing at the edges of my mind for years. It wraps sticky black tendrils around me that tighten, tighten, tighten until I can’t breathe from the pressure. I claw at my shirt and back toward the door.

“He’ll never let you go.”

I know he won’t. “I have to try.”

“I love you.” He reaches for me. “Please don’t do this.”

Strong boys like Sam Donavon should never have to beg. Should never have to reach for the scarred hands of a girl who isn’t worth his love and beg her to love him back.

“I’m so, so sorry,” I whisper, and run from his room.

Forty-eight

After sitting in the park for God knows how many hours trying to get my thoughts in order, I drag myself home and up the driveway. I’ve made the biggest mistake of my life, and as the sun sets on our quiet little town, I’m just now seeing how big of a mistake it was. There’s no way James will agree to the conditions I made up on the walk over—conditions he’ll have to abide by if he wants me to stay. No more fighting, no drugs, and no gun top the list.

I should’ve stayed with Sam.

But I didn’t. And now I have to face my decision.

Even if James’s truck hadn’t been parked in our father’s spot, I’d know he’s home. Our bedroom light is on, and Godsmack pours from our window at its usual ear-blistering volume. Taking a shaky breath, I open the door.

The door encounters resistance almost immediately. I frown and push a little harder. Plastic grates against linoleum. Poking my head through the foot-wide gap in the door, I squint into the dark foyer. Whatever it is isn’t too big. I should be able to move it. I push against the door a little harder, forcing whatever is in the way to give a little, and slip inside.

I’ve only made it another two steps when I trip over something hard and heavy. Wincing, I rub my shin with one hand and feel around for whatever the thing is with the other. Wood. A table. What the hell? Did someone break in and trash the place? Panic grips my throat. If someone broke in, James might be hurt. After everything that’s happened, finding my brother dead on the floor would kill me.

I stagger forward, thoughts of Sam and my mistake forgotten, and nearly twist my ankle tripping over something small. I fumble along the wall for the light switch in the living room. Before I find it, the room floods with light.

James is sitting in our father’s orange chair, but I hardly see him. I’m trying too hard to absorb the mess of broken furniture and shredded clothes scattered around him on the floor. My clothes. Our father’s clothes. The bookshelf from the living room is on the floor, crushed into several large pieces. The scratchy, beige couch is slashed. Newspaper and books, torn up. Unable to breathe, I force myself to look at James. I need to know he’s okay if there’s any hope of me keeping it together.

He’s staring at me from his place in our father’s chair, unscathed and perfectly calm, with the gun resting on his left leg. The fury in his eyes betrays his calm facade. I stop, frozen.

He picks up the gun and studies the barrel. “So, I followed you this morning.”

What’s left of my blood feels like it’s sucked from my body, leaving me cold and trembling. “It’s not what you think.”

“Really? I know you and Sam hang out in the forest during the week whenever you’re not at that flower store, and that you went swimming in the middle of the night when we were camping. I know his sweatshirt is buried in the back of your underwear drawer and that you haven’t been to the library in months.” He cocks the trigger. Releases it. “Did you know they don’t have cookbooks at the library?”

This is bad. This is very, very bad. Before I can pull myself together enough to scream at him for stalking me, he tightens his grip on the gun and stands up. “After everything I’ve done for you, after all the shit I’ve taken and how much I’ve loved you, this is how you repay me? Fucking my best friend and then having the gall to lie about it?”

“I knew you’d be mad. I didn’t want you to be mad.”

It sounds like such a lame excuse now and I wonder how I ever convinced myself lying to James was the right thing to do. He keeps coming at me, the hatred dark blue in his normally sky-blue eyes. Just like our father’s. Stumbling over a ripped pair of jeans and a pile of books, I crash backward into the wall.

“Of course I’m mad,” he says in a deceptively calm voice that oozes malice. “You lied to me. All our lives, you’ve been lying. You said you wouldn’t leave, and you are. You said I’m enough for you, but I’m not. You said you love me as much as I love you, and you don’t.” He stops right in front of me, so close I can taste the anger rolling off him. “You’ve been fucking Sam, and you’re supposed to be mine!”

He backhands me with the fist holding the gun. The lights flicker and I have to fight the blackness trying to take me. The blood seeping into my mouth from somewhere tastes like the dirty pennies we used to suck on when we were little. I cower away, desperate to disappear into the wall that’s keeping me too close to him. He hit me. Me. I press my sleeve against my mouth and look at the big splotch of blood left behind when I pull it away.

James has gone whiter than a ghost, looking at my mouth and his hand and the gun and me, completely dumbfounded. Seeing the first tear streak down my cheek is enough to snap him out of it. He shoves the gun into the front of his jeans and yanks me against his chest.

“Oh, fuck, Sarah. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.” He smoothes my hair away from my forehead and kisses the bruised skin slick with cold sweat and fear. “I get so mad and this was the maddest I’ve ever been…”

Dazed, I don’t pull away. His body heat is as familiar to me as my own, more familiar to me than Sam, and comforts me even though he’s the reason I’m losing myself. I just stand there limply and let him hold me against his body.

“If you tell me you’re not with him, I’ll believe you. Just tell me.”

I shake my head. “I’m not with him.” Not anymore.

Breathing a sigh of relief, he touches my cheek, caresses my arm, runs his fingertips down my spine. Gentle. Tender. “Good,” he murmurs. “We’ll have to move somewhere Dad’ll never find you. We can change our names, and then you can get a job working with flowers or go to college or do whatever you want. I’ll do anything if it’ll make you happy. Just tell me what to do.”

I hate that James’s touch feels so good, that it’s always felt so good. I lean into him and close my eyes needing more of it and more of him. Being in his arms takes me back to every time he stumbled into our room, battered and broken and bloody, looking to me for comfort and love. I gave it so freely, just like he gave himself so freely to keep me alive. Safety and love—that’s what James has always been to me and I begged him for all of it.

And God, how I want what he’s offering. Somewhere else. Away from the ghosts in this house. Away from all the memories. That’s what Sam offered, too. What I plan to give myself.

“If we change our names, we don’t have to be brother and sister anymore,” he continues. “We could be together and no one would get mad because they won’t know.”

When his touching shifts, turning needy and heated, I shudder and pull away. James is right there with me, though, and backs me up against the wall. One hand skims my chest while the other seeks out the bare skin where my shirt has ridden up above my jeans.

“Please don’t do this,” I say, my voice breaking. “You’re ruining everything.”

“You want the same thing I do,” he breathes into my hair. “Let me give it to you.”

I wedge my arms between us, giving me maybe an inch of breathing room. It’s nowhere near enough. “I don’t want this. You’re sick, James. You need help.”

“Bullshit.” James backs away, his expression a frightening combination of disbelief and fury. “I’m not the one begging to be touched and kissed in the middle of the night. Every time we sleep in the same bed, I have to pry you off me, so don’t you dare tell me I’m the sick one.”

My mouth opens and shuts as I flounder beneath the implications of his words. The nightmares…if they were real, the hard body crushing mine was James and not just a horrific figment of my imagination. And then the nights I thought the person caressing me was Sam and I begged him to give me more…

My stomach lurches.

“So you do remember.”

Everything inside of me goes numb when he smiles and presses his body against mine again. I want to cry over how familiar this feels, for the hope on his face, for how perfect some of those dreams felt when they should have been repulsive, but the gun tucked in his waistband bites into the soft flesh of my stomach and keeps me still.

I don’t fight him when he cups my jaw in one of his hot palms, tilting my face up to his. “No one is gonna love you as much as me. Not Sam or anyone else. You’re mine.”

When he kisses me, I hardly notice. It’s a quick press of his ruined lips against mine before he searches my eyes for some sort of reaction. I have no reaction. I stare back at him, hollow, vacant.

Fresh blood on his lips, James frowns and kisses me again, longer this time. When he tries to work my mouth open, his tongue sliding across my bloody lip, I turn away.

“Please…” He mirrors my every move, following as I turn my face right and left so our mouths are never more than a couple inches apart. “I love you. Let me love you.”

Sam said the same thing, but this time the words have the opposite effect. I shake my head harder but he’s right there, keeping my body melded to his.

He dips his head and presses his mouth against mine so hard, the split in my lip our father gave me rips back open. The pain snaps me out of my numbness.

“No!” I try to twist away, but everywhere I go, he’s there forcing me to accept his kiss, his hands on my body, and my fate. I fight harder. “I’ll never be with you!”

The door flies open, slamming into the wall less than two feet from my head.

“Get your fucking hands off of her!”

Forty-nine

One look at his former best friend, bruised eyes seething with hate, sends James backpedaling into the living room. When Sam rushes toward me, I burst into tears.

“I’m so sorry,” I sob. “I should’ve listened to you. I shouldn’t have come back.”

He cups my cheeks in his hands and shushes me, his hard gaze returning again and again to my bottom lip, which has swollen even more under the onslaught of James’s kisses. “It doesn’t matter,” he tells me gently. “You’re safe now. Okay?”

His words trigger another wave of panic. My heart flutters and the room tilts dangerously. When I grab Sam’s shirt, he squeezes me tight, kisses the side of my mouth that isn’t bleeding.

“We’ll be okay,” he whispers and smiles.

All the hell I’ve endured drains away and I press myself as close to him as I can get, trying to ignore how with each second that passes, his body tenses even more beneath my hands. The room is silent except for his labored breathing and my sniffles, but I know James is still here. Still watching and waiting. I don’t want Sam to face him and there’s no way I’ll be able to stop it from happening.

Slowly, as if he’s afraid of spooking my brother, Sam turns around and moves me behind him. “James,” he says.

I peek around his broad shoulder at my battered brother, standing in the middle of the living room with blood-smeared lips, paler than I’ve ever seen him. His eyes sway slowly from Sam to me, back and forth and back again. He looks unsteady and I have the urge to go to him, even after everything that’s happened. As if Sam senses this, he puts his arm out to keep me back.

James still hasn’t said anything. Sam moves closer, his hands raised slightly. That’s when I realize the gun isn’t in James’s pants anymore—it’s in his hand.

“Give me the gun,” Sam says evenly. “You don’t want to hurt Sarah any more than I do. If you want to fight some more, let’s take this out back.”

I gasp. “No!”

Sam reaches behind him for my hand and squeezes, but I’m not reassured.

“Let’s just leave,” I plead. “We can come back after James calms down. Please!”

James shakes himself out of his trance and stares hard at Sam. “Stay away from her.”

Dropping my hand, Sam takes a step closer to James, away from me. I want to scream at him to stop because James looks exactly like our father the second before he snaps.

“You know I can’t,” Sam says.

James lifts the gun and shoots.

Blood sprays everywhere and for a second, I think James shot me instead of Sam. When Sam falls to his knees, I feel the pain explode in my chest. I scream, dive the three feet between us, and barely catch him before he topples to the ground.

“Sam?” I cry. “Oh, God, no. Talk to me, Sam. Please!”

When I lay him down, the hole where the bullet ripped into his chest gushes blood. I try to cover the wound with my hands to stop the bleeding but it seeps past my fingers and dribbles onto the living room carpet. I grab the nearest shredded shirt off the floor, my favorite pink cotton one, and press it to the ugly hole that shouldn’t be there. He groans and closes his eyes.

“We’re going to get help, okay? Hang in there.”

Standing in our doorway, a horrified Mr. Espinosa bellows a stream of Spanish to his wife across the yard. “Lydia is calling the police,” he says to me. “Who else?”

“Liz Donavon,” I say in a broken voice. “Tell the police to call Liz Donavon.”

When Mr. Espinosa nods and runs back to his house, the only sound left is Sam’s uneven breathing and the sound of him gulping. James’s Godsmack is conspicuously missing.

I smooth the hair away from Sam’s blood-spattered face and press my forehead to his. “I love you,” I whisper. “Please don’t leave me. Please.”

His eyes are glassy when he opens them. Fixed on me, but not quite seeing. Choking on the burnt stench of gunpowder, I whirl around to scream at James, “Do something!”

James’s face has gone ashen. Dropping the gun, he sways, then drops to his knees.

Sam’s cold hand on my stomach draws my attention back to him. His eyes, the darkest storm cloud gray I’ve seen them yet, are frantic and afraid. “My mom,” he chokes out.

Any hope I’ve been clinging to evaporates the second he tries to swallow and can’t. “They’re calling her. Hold on, okay? She’s going to be so excited when we tell her about our wedding. Think of all the flowers she’ll order.”

He nods almost imperceptibly and closes his eyes. I don’t want his eyes to close. I want to brand their color and intensity into my brain in case I never get to see them again. I fall forward, my forehead pressed to his again, and pray for the first time in my life.

Please God, don’t take him away. His mom needs him. I need him. Please. Take me, but don’t take him.

He sputters again and my heart breaks.

Behind us, James babbles a stream of apologies I don’t want to hear. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Oh, God. It wasn’t supposed to happen like that.”

“You shot him!” I cry over my shoulder. “What did you think would happen?”

He ignores me. “Leslie said it would be fast. No pain, just peace. She’d die in her sleep, just like she wanted.”

I whirl around, horrified. “You killed mom?”

“She begged me to!” He hugs his knees to his chest and rocks back and forth, back and forth, his eyes fixed on the gun at his feet. “I was going to kill Dad, too, but I fucked up. I tried to save you like she wanted and fucked that up, too. I fuck everything up.”

Turning back to Sam, I gulp back the bile trying to claw its way up my throat. The night before our mother died hadn’t been a dream. I knew it was real, but admitting it to myself before now had felt impossible. I remember her tracing James’s foot through the thin blanket and how he stirred when she touched his jaw.

She’d been saying goodbye.

I bury my face in Sam’s neck, sickened by the sticky blood, and rock softly against him, shushing him like James used to do for me. “I need you, Sam,” I whisper in his ear. “I don’t want to live without you. I love you.”

He tries to say something, but sputters violently. Feeling his struggle, I try to give him space but he grabs my hand. He tugs his father’s bloody chain out from beneath his shirt and wraps my fingers around the dog tags. His eyes are pleading with me. Trying to make me understand what he can’t say. “Love…you.”

The tears I’ve waited too long to shed are like a noose cinched tightly around my throat. I choke before I can breathe in what I’m afraid will be his final words, which makes the tears flow harder and hotter. I need those words. Need to hide them somewhere deep inside of myself where no one can steal them away. Those words might be all I have left.

When his chest spasms one last time, I curl over his body in a feeble attempt to keep him warm and try to hum. You are my sunshine, my only sunshine… The sirens screaming in the distance are too late. They’re always too late.

Behind me, James sings the final verse in a shaky voice.

You told me once, dear, you really loved me

And no one else could come between.

But now you’ve left me and love another;

You have shattered all my dreams.

I can’t look at him. Won’t.

Behind me, the gun scrapes across the floor.

Save James, she had said, but I’m too late. I wait for the shot that will take me to wherever Sam is going. If James ever loved me, he’ll do this one last thing for me. It’s the only way to make everything right.

The gun fires again and thuds, lifeless, to the floor.

I melt into Sam and close my eyes.

Fifty

I stretch my legs out on the spongy green grass in front of Sam’s house and stare at my purple toenails. Last night, Liz and I spent a couple hours giving each other pedicures without saying much. Though neither of us is completely comfortable with the whole mother-daughter routine yet, I asked because I needed the closeness and knew she did, too.

Sam and James died a year ago, yesterday.

The scars on my legs have all faded to a silvery white that shimmers beneath my golden tan. My flaws. Even though I still remember exactly how I got each one, still dream about my father and towers of beer cans and his leather belt, I don’t hide behind them anymore. They’re part of what makes me me, not something to be ashamed of. Sam taught me that.

Liz wanders across the lawn with a bag full of last minute things in her arms, looking like she’s lost something important and has no idea where to find it. The haunted look I see in her eyes has been there since the night she showed up at the hospital to find me covered in her son’s blood. It fades a little when our eyes meet.

I don’t blame her for hiding that part of herself from me. If it had been my son who died, I don’t think I could have handled seeing the person responsible, let alone taking her into my home. Liz’s love, even on the days it feels reluctant, gives me hope. When I’m around her, I almost believe I can be a good person. Like she is. Like Sam was. Like James could have been, if not for…everything.

All around me, bugs and dandelion seeds dance on the gentle summer breeze. I breathe deeply, taking in the fragrant roses in the yard behind me, the heat of summer, and something unidentifiable that surrounds this house and reminds me of Sam, and tuck it deep inside myself with all my other treasured memories.

I will never forget this place. Not ever.

There’s nowhere to go but forward, I remind myself. I’ve spent the last twelve months making sure of it.

Liz stops beside me and glances at the house. I wonder if she’s remembering the countless stories she’s told me about Sam and his dad playing tackle football in the front yard, hanging Christmas lights in August so they could do it together before the next deployment, and belly flopping onto their old Slip-n-Slide. A house as small as Sam’s shouldn’t be able to hold so many memories, but it does.

At first, James rarely popped up in her stories. I didn’t want to hear those ones. It was easier to hate my brother after what happened than deal with losing him. But Liz forced me to listen to the stories I’d never heard from back when my brother used to play at Sam’s house. Now I’m glad she did. In giving me her memories, she gave me back my brother.

“You ready?” she asks.

“I think so.”

We’re moving in with Sam’s grandparents until Liz can get the newest franchise of Enchanted Garden up and running—something she’s thrown herself into to keep her own nightmares at bay, I think. The house is less than a mile from UC Davis, so she’s been prodding me to apply there next year so I don’t have to take the bus all the way across town to the community college. She has no idea I applied for UC Davis’ botany program six months ago—the same day I got my GED—or that I got my acceptance letter last week. I kept it tacked to Sam’s corkboard right next to his UCLA acceptance letter where I could gaze at it every night before I fell asleep. Now I get to surprise Liz with the news.

My mother would be proud of me, I think. Sam definitely would be.

As we load the last minute bags into the front seat of the moving truck, I realize I’m about to do all the things I thought I’d only get to experience if I had Sam by my side. But I’m doing them. Me.

If I’ve learned anything in the last twelve months, it’s that I’m far stronger than I ever thought possible.

“Sam mentioned a diner by Mt. Shasta that you guys used to stop at on your drives to California,” I say to Liz.

“Mmm,” she says, a faint smile on her lips. “He and his father used to eat the restaurant’s whole day’s supply of their blackberry cobbler in one sitting. The other customers hated us.”

“Think it’s still there?”

She gives me a curious look. “Probably. Why?”

Sam had wanted to take me to that diner. To make new memories, he’d said before kissing me like there would be an endless supply of new memories to be made.

Little did he know.

A few nights ago, when I first remembered his words, I knew how I’d tell Liz my good news.

Maybe she needed a new memory, too?

I finger the folded up university letterhead in my pocket and try not to smile. “I think I’d like to stop there, if you’re up for it.”

Acknowledgments

This was a very hard book to write. If not for the slew of people who cheered me on, I might not have been able to tell James and Sarah’s story at all.

To the AofA, quite possibly the most talented writing group on the planet—thank you for spending a month in that chat room writing with me, for screaming just as loud as I did when my power went out one chapter before “The End,” and for critting the book practically the second I finished. Your friendship and advice means so much to me.

To my editor Liz Pelletier, thank you for believing in my book, for sticking to your guns when I lost faith, and for everything you’ve done for me and my family. Meeting you was truly life-changing.

To Christa, thank you for loving this story enough to talk about it everywhere you go, and for fangirling dark books just as much as I do. Is it next Fall yet?

To Ann, thank you for all your help with the fight scene. I would have been lost without you!

To Lori, thank you for paying me the best compliment I’ve ever received. Your classes completely changed my writing life.

To Mandy, thank you for championing this book before I’d even finished it, and for all your encouragement and advice. To Becca, thank you for teasing out the potential I missed.

To the very first #DarkDarlings—Jena, Brooke, Jessirae, Amanda, Kari, Mandie, and Jamie—thank you for never giving up on me, for loving Sarah and James and Sam sight unseen, and for freaking out in the very best way when I finally sent excerpts. You guys make me feel like a rockstar!

To my family, thank you for rolling your eyes and insisting you’ll buy three thousand copies of the book (and read every single one), no matter how many times I beg you not to.

And finally, thank you to my husband. Without him, this book—especially the ending—wouldn’t exist. Your faith in me is more precious than you know.

Table of Contents

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-one

Twenty-two

Twenty-three

Twenty-four

Twenty-five

Twenty-six

Twenty-seven

Twenty-eight

Twenty-nine

Thirty

Thirty-one

Thirty-two

Thirty-three

Thirty-four

Thirty-five

Thirty-six

Thirty-seven

Thirty-eight

Thirty-nine

Forty

Forty-one

Forty-two

Forty-three

Forty-four

Forty-five

Forty-six

Forty-seven

Forty-eight

Forty-nine

Fifty

Acknowledgments