Still cradling me against the stone, Marcos presses his lips to my ear and whispers his wish list, each sinful instruction spilling down my neck with cool, hissing delight. It’s unnerving to see him like this, to hear him talk this way—not frightened, no finger-snapping, no well-mannered mother hen. This newer Marcos is a Grade-A freak. And I am too. We grew up in hostile, religious homes, and all the while, these nasty little thoughts spun, taking root, building their nests…now unleashed, thanks to the privacy of our fairytale cave.

Unleashed onto each other.

“I want to do everything with you,” I breathe as he gnaws eagerly at the nape of my neck. His teeth scrape an inch above the leather string of Ario’s recorder. However we left each other, Ario was slipping away from me. I was frustrating him—and then resenting him. I was scared of being alone, so I didn’t do anything about it. I didn’t do the right thing and let him go. I needed Ario. Needed his attention and validation, not a partner. I needed him…but I want Marcos. A faint part of me, vanishing further with each stroke of Marcos’s palm against my cheek, still clings to the reality that Ario is my boyfriend. Is this cheating? It is. But circumstances have changed. So much—so much my heart can’t even accept the reality of how startlingly different my life has become. Am I even the same Connor from yesterday? No. That Connor died the moment my mom told Briggs to be careful with me as he lugged me away to this horrible place.

I’m something else now, the Reverend said, and I understand.

This new Connor knows things now. I can’t ever be with Ario again. His unknowing touch would be alien to me. I could live with Ario for fifty years, and he would never discover the grim, knowing beast hibernating in my chest—now awake. Marcos has already found my beast. His own beast led him here. Boyfriend loyalty is strong, but to be seen—to be known—is stronger.

Swallowed by a guilt as numbing but omnipresent as novocaine, my allegiance abandons Ario, the boy who did nothing wrong, and allows Marcos, this new traveler, inside.