“Don’t get used to it, it always goes away,” my birth mother used to say anytime happiness found me. “Fades like the end of a storm.”

Winter is pure, she’s honest, and loving, so fucking loving. Love exists for someone like her. She’s able to nurture it, not break it and crush it into a billion pieces until it’s nothing. My vines would wrap around her, the barbs of me would pierce her skin, and enter into her bloodstream. My dark side—the root of who I am—would wrap around her heart and strangle it until she’s just as dark as I am.

“You always need, take, want…” My birth mother’s voice rings in my ears. “Take, take, take… You need new clothes, help with schoolwork, food, love, blah, blah, blah… You’re a selfish little creature who will never experience love, just like your daddy. You think just because you came out of me I’m supposed to love you? So do my shits, Aleck, and I don’t love them. Love doesn’t exist, get used to it. Now stop crying and clean up this room.”

The sharpened fangs of my past sink its teeth into my need to move beyond it, to outgrow it. The disgust of knowing I’ll lose Winter eventually tastes metallic and rancid on my tongue.

Heart on her sleeve, splitting at the seams with passion, ready to love hard.

You’re a selfish little creature who will never experience love.

I grind my teeth until my jaw buzzes with pain, knowing now what I fooled myself into denying only moments ago…

I do not deserve beautiful things.

Fuck.

TWENTY-NINE

WINTER

“A glass of water, please.” I smile at the woman serving drinks, and rest with my elbows on the bar. She slides a cold bottle of water over with a cocktail napkin.

“Thank you,” I say, twisting the cap to take a long refreshing drink.

Keith twirled me around the dancefloor until I didn’t know which way was up. And while I’m having a blast with my friends, the weight of knowing so many things are coming to an end after tonight is resting gracefully on my shoulders.

Sondra and I have always joked that she’s my wife, and now she’s actually one, just not mine. And I don’t even want to think about the current status of my relationship with LA’s most eligible bachelor.

Like he knew it was his cue to enter, the heady scent of Aleck devours my senses, and the heat from his front soaks into my back.

I smile—my natural response to him—waiting for him to initiate contact. One, two, three seconds and nothing.

“Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to buy a girl a drink?”

His hands connect with my bare shoulders, sending a shudder through my body, and slide down my arms to my wrists like shackles. He takes a step, inching closer.

“It’s an open bar…”

I smile, letting the laugh die in my throat. Smartass.