I have my mother, but she stopped coming in weeks ago to wake me. It did no good, and I was still so angry then. I would wail at her, scream about how unfair this is. There’s Dr. Warvel, but no amount of talking has kept the dreams away.

In Grayson’s arms, it feels as though I’m protected from it, which is absolutely ridiculous because . . . we’re nothing.

“Do you want me to stay?” he asks.

I tip my head back to look at him. “Stay?”

“With you . . . tonight. I can . . . I mean . . . we can just . . . sleep.”

Each muscle in my body locks, and I push myself up. “That would be . . .” This time, it’s not my brain that won’t allow the words to come, it’s my heart.

I want to say yes. To feel him hold me tight and chase the dream away, but I kissed him today. Being close to him is messing with my head and all I can hear is my therapist talking about how Grayson and I have unresolved issues.

It would be incredibly stupid to do this.

“Yeah,” Grayson finishes. “You being in here is hard enough. I don’t think I could do it.”

“I tried to switch with Delia.”

“I think they’re trying to fuck with us.”

I softly laugh. “I’m sure of it.”

Grayson clears his throat. “If you need me . . .”

“You’re just down the hall,” I say with a grin. “I swear I’ve heard that before.”

“Hey, I was a gentleman the last time we came here.”

“You were. You gave me this room and said if I wanted you, I just had to come and knock.”

Grayson shakes his head. “I waited up all night, just in case you did.”

“I didn’t even knock once before you opened the door,” I tease him.

“I heard your footsteps.”

It took me two full hours to work up the nerve. It didn’t matter that we’d slept together already, I was nervous. We spent prom weekend here, learning how to love and what it meant to give yourself to another. Then, we went home, where the world—more specifically, his parents—didn’t want us to be together. For weeks, we were both thrown into events, parties, school functions that kept us apart.

We tried to sneak off, but we were so damn tired from running all day that we never made it to the lookout.

Then Grayson and I came back here, but there was a wall that had been erected and we had to break it down.

“I loved you, Gray. I really did.”

He pushes my hair back from my face, cupping my cheek. “I know.”

“Leaving you wasn’t easy.”

“Losing you was harder,” he admits.

My hand wraps around his wrist, holding on when I should be pushing him away. “You found someone else.”