The last time I brought a boy along to one of my photo shoots—and only because he’d insisted that he was interested—he had gotten bored and wandered off halfway through. When I went to find him, he’d snuck into some other photo shoot for a lingerie ad, his eyes glued to the models who were older and prettier than I was, as if he’d completely forgotten that I existed. He looked at them the same way he would look at me when he wanted to kiss me, and I was suddenly nauseated that I’d ever let him kiss me at all.

A small part of me had expected Cyrus to grow bored of the photo shoot too, but he’s waiting right there by the door, patient as ever, my purse hanging around his shoulder.

Tenderness blazes through me, warming the empty space between my ribs.

“Thanks for holding my bag,” I tell him, reaching over to take it from him.

“It’s an honor to hold your bag,” he says. “And it’s so light I barely felt it.”

I laugh as we wander over to the quieter parts of the lake, where the lights are dim enough to see the pearlescent shimmer of the moon above us, and the trees are dense enough to drape their leaves around us like curtains. “Okay, you don’t have to pretend. I know that thing’s ridiculously heavy.”

“I was starting to wonder if your hobbies included carrying bricks in your purse.”

“Yeah, those are my only two passions in life,” I agree sarcastically. “Drawing clouds and carrying bricks around.”

But his expression turns thoughtful, as if I’ve just uttered something profound. “You know, you looked happy earlier, doing the photo shoot. It’s none of my business, of course, but I suppose I’m still trying to understand why you gave it up if it was something you loved so much.”

I stop walking. Glance up at him. I can tell that he means it—that he’s really trying, his eyes dark and earnest as they study me. And my lie from earlier scrabbles its way back up, itching inside my throat. “I don’t know if I loved it,” I say slowly. Because was it really love if it ate away at you? If it felt like trying to hold on to a fanged creature while it sucked the blood from your hand? All I know is that I had to let go before it killed me. “It just stopped being worth it.”

“What do you mean?”