I nodded faintly. Not new news to me. The on-going dilemma was whether I was going to carry Lizzy around like a stowaway or find a way to be Lizzy again without losing Glimmer.

“Will you . . . tell me?”

I’d always presumed it would be Rubio or Jenn, maybe Spunk, or even Rousseau who I’d share this news with when my life finally came back to me. Daniel was . . . unexpected. But telling it, saying it aloud, might help me make my peace with it, with her . . . with me.

“It’s . . .” I cleared my throat to make it come easier. “It’s Lizzy.”

“Lizzy.”

He made it sound like a revelation, but also a caress, like he was savoring the sound of it, tasting it, so possessively intimate with it that my sleep-dazed instinct was to shove him away immediately.

“That’s not all I remembered.”

He leaned forward, missing the warning. “Tell me.”

So I told him what else, in gruesome detail—about Abel and the tiled room and the boy gang who looked like Julian. All of it, up to Rousseau pulling me out of the wreckage, mute and incapable. I let it tumble out, spill into the dim room like a torrent of wet garbage.

And thought, that should do it. He’ll be disgusted. He’ll go away and leave me in peace.

But this was Daniel, so of course, he listened. He said nothing, letting me run on like a crazy woman until I had no ugly memories left to reveal till the next ones came back to me. He stayed still and silent while I shuddered and sobbed and brushed away tears of terror and self-loathing.

Only when I was calm again did he stretch his legs and bury his hands deep in the pockets of his jeans. “That’s a bad story, all right.”

I waited for him to say how sorry he was, how lucky I was to have survived, how he understood. Or some other lame cliché.

Instead, he took a long breath. “Jake told me you had issues.”

I winced. “You talk to Jake about me?”

“Just to get a few clues. Is that okay?”

“Not really.”

“You don’t talk about yourself much, you know. About how you . . . feel. At first, I thought there must be someone else, but Jake said he’d know if there was. He warned me not to press too hard. But looks like I went ahead and did it anyway. Too-eager Dan.” He shifted uneasily. “I . . . um . . . I’ve been alone for a while and I’m ready to change that. But you . . . you’re really not . . . are you?”

Unbelievable! I throw my worst at him and he only steps closer! “I don’t know what I am! I’m two people in one skin! I’m . . . a mess! Why would you even look at me?”

His smile was quizzical. “Why would I not?”