I sit up next to him, bringing the sheets over my chest. “If this is too much—”

“I’m okay. I just haven’t thought about some of this stuff in years. It’s weird now, like it was a different lifetime and not my own. We had some good times, but my eldest brother, Loch, was onto us. He’d threaten to tell our parents if we didn’t stop. We always told him what he wanted to hear. Then the next day, without a second thought, we would be up to the same old shit.” He yawns, but I don’t think he’s tired from the day, but from the exhaustion of reliving a life he dug up today.

“Harbor?” He looks at me, and that’s when I see the torment in his eyes. I rest my hand on his arm. I kiss his shoulder and then mold myself to him, holding him the best I can. “I love you.” I do, too, more than seems possible in such a short time. But like his life with his cousin, our connection runs deeper than the time we’ve had together.

Our bond is stronger with every day that passes, and in each hour, I feel more myself when I’m with him than I ever have alone.

His arm comes around my front, and he rubs my back. “I love you.” A kiss is placed on my forehead, and he whispers, “I love you so much.”

We sit in silence, letting the moonlight stream in through the blinds and mingle with the light stretching from the lamp in the corner.

He says, “My shoulders don’t feel so heavy when I’m in this room with you. It feels good to feel like myself for the first time in years.” We’re so alike, but I don’t want to distract from his story, so I stay quiet, though I’m impatient on the inside. “Lucas died on my birthday.”

The punch to my gut elicits a gasp. I can’t hold him any tighter than I already am, but I wish I could ease the pain. “I’m so sorry. I know it’s just words, but please know I mean them.”

“I know, and it’s all right. There’s not a lot to say about it. We spent years fucking around, but when I turned eighteen . . . I don’t know. I was over it. I was over taking the blame for him. Watching him be rewarded for coming out of the mess he made unscathed finally got to me. He kept going to parties in Beacon, mixing with people who didn’t give a damn about him while I started focusing on what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.” When he exhales a deep breath, we readjust and lie down on our backs again. “Did I mention his mom wanted him to be a doctor?”

“That was the plan?”

“He was going to Princeton, and I was going to Beacon. He told me better luck next time, gave me a pat on the back, and told me to work harder so we could go to medical school together. He even suggested I get my parents to make a large donation like his had done.”