Chapters (66)
- Cover
- Dedication
- Keep Reading
- 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
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Fifty-Four
- Fifty-Five
- Fifty-Six
- Fifty-Seven
- Fifty-Eight
- Fifty-Nine
- Sneak Peek
- Find Me
- Books by Mary Catherine Gebhard
- Acknowledgments
“Maybe. My mom told me what happens at night doesn’t count. The stars blind our judgment, and night hides our fear. What she really meant was it’s easier to steal at night…easier for men to leave their wives…” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—I’ll shut up now.”
“Tell me more.”
Her lips parted. “For my seventh birthday my mom taught me how to lie to the police. By my thirteenth my mom had already shown me how to use my body to get or keep a man’s attention. I guess what I’m saying is I get it. It sucks when your childhood is stolen.”
I know what it’s like to have the world on your shoulders and have no one see the weight.
What could someone like you know about me?
I was such an asshole.
“What did you mean earlier?” I asked. “About loneliness.”
She lay on her side, head propped on her hand, looking up at me. Something twisted in my chest at that image. It wasn’t casual. It was…comfortable. And I liked that.
“Well, the way I see it,” she said. “No matter how many friends or family or just people surround us, we all have that thing we can’t tell somebody, a jagged shard of glass cutting our soul. You know?”
Shit, yeah. I did. Too well.
“So we bleed silently. Alone.” She sighed. “But…if you’re lucky, you might find someone who has a similar piece of glass to your own. So then you don’t bleed alone. That’s what’s so addicting about loneliness. The hope against everything that maybe one day you won’t be alone.”
A heaviness weighed her lids, and she messed with her springy curls still wet from her shower, as if distracting herself. What was the jagged piece poking Snitch? The thing she felt she couldn’t tell anyone?
“Have you found someone, Snitch?”
She rolled her lips, uncharacteristically silent. When she finally spoke, her husky voice was barely louder than the crash of waves.
“Are you bleeding, Grayson?” she asked.
I met her eyes, voice rough. “I don’t know. Am I, Snitch?”
Snitch got to her knees, sliding between the open space in my legs. I could barely think on that before I was wrapped in a hug. I went stiff. Suspicion and uncertainty froze my muscles.
“What are you doing?” My words were stiffer than my body.
“Hugging you,” she said.
“I know that. Why?”
“Because for this moment I’m Story, and you’re Gray, and right now it’s okay.”
I couldn’t remember the last time I was hugged. Probably when I was five, before Grandfather put a stop to “such nonsense.” I didn’t know how to react, so I stayed frozen. She smelled like marshmallows, and warmth suffused through my body.