More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
“Will you please look at me?” I ask thickly. He swallows, gasps, and screws his eyes shut like he’s in pain. He drops his hand, shaking his head in a quick, jerky movement. “Jeremy,” I utter brokenly. “I can’t.” “This doesn’t chan—” He snaps his head around, his gaze crashing into mine so fast, I rear back. And in a guttural voice, he says, “It changes everything.”
Twelve minutes and thirteen seconds. That’s how long I had to exist on this planet without my sister. And Mommy and Daddy said I screamed for every single moment of it.
My lips rise. “Jeremy,” I blurt, and with it, I hear guitar notes and drums and my heart’s a racin’. Just like the song. Just like the song!
“I found Jeremy, the boy from the song,” I tell her, grinning. Her mouth twitches. “Oh?” I nod, and then my face crashes down with a scowl. “People are mean to him too.” Momma’s eyes crease, and her mouth thins. “I’m sorry to hear that.” I shake my head. “It’s okay,” I rush out. “It’s not gonna happen again. He has me now.”
I sit down on my bed, and clutch my knees, staring at the back of my hands, wishing, not for the first time, things were different. That I was different. That I could be like Mason and pretend I don’t care what people think. That I could belong. Be normal.
Squirt bites her lip, and I lift her up, swing her around in a hug. “You’re still my Squirt.” Tiny arms strangle my neck. “And you’re my Crush.” “Always.”
“I know you do, but if it means having to choose who has anxiety, who gets bullied, I still choose me. I’m glad it’s me,” I tell her. And it’s true. As much as I hate my life sometimes—as much as it hurts to be me… If given a choice between who has to suffer—me or her—I’ll always choose me.
“Mason. His message for me. What did he say exactly, word for word.” She makes a soft sound, rubbing her face all over my arm like a cat. “He said, ‘Tell Jeremy, don’t speak in class.’”
obv im not gonna speak in class. I have social anxiety A moment passes where I wonder if he’ll respond. Maybe he thinks I took it literally? But then an incoming message appears, and I have to suck in a laugh. dont speak at all lips are sealed I mean it I know. me too Promise? Promise
Gnight jeremy the wicked
Some people set fire to their insides. I prefer to see mine in a thin stream of blood, drawn by my own hand.
“It’s not fair.” “What isn’t?” “It doesn’t hurt anyone. It—” “It hurts you. And therefore, it hurts me, and everyone else who loves you.”
“God, when will you get it through your thick skull?’ He whips toward me. “You are loved, Jeremy,” he says fiercely, the words wrenching from his chest. Glittering black orbs clash with mine, bright with unburied emotion. “You are so damn loved by so many people, and you just…you won’t let any of us in.”
“What did I do?” Blinking, I shake my head, trying to keep up. Where is this coming from? “What did I do to make you shut me out? For years now, you’ve been…pulling away. Just tell me what I did.” You chose my sister.
He could never love me in the way I crave so desperately…not in this timeline. Not in this universe. Our stars are only ever meant to exist from opposite sides of the sun burning brightly forever between us.
“It’s me. I’m the problem. I just… I don’t know how to turn it off. I told you. I…I get all up in my head. And it doesn’t matter how many times I tell myself that it’s not real. How much I remind myself how good I have it—how lucky I am. I have two parents who love me unconditionally. A roof over my head. A sister who would walk through hell to protect me. I have you… you…” His jaw works, eyes growing impossibly bright when my words die there. “It just…it doesn’t matter,” I whisper. “Because that thing inside me…it tells me no one actually likes me. That you’re only here out of obligation.
...more
Eyes creasing, he says, “What’s your dream then?” You. You’re my dream.
If not for me, for him. Always for him. Because I might not be a hero like him, but he is and always has been my kryptonite.
I forget about everything but the girl in my arms, the girl who’s been a part of me for as long as piano has. There’s no one without the other. They coexist, right next to my beating heart.
Not when it hits me—really hits me—that this is all I’ll ever have of him. That this is the only way I can watch him, with my heart cracked open, and him no more the wiser to it. Because his heart’s too busy beating for someone else, so loud it drowns out anyone else’s. Drowns out mine. In a rhythm that was never meant for me.
They say when tragedy strikes, you remember every little surrounding detail. What you were doing. What you were eating. What you said last. What you were watching. And the detail that will stand out to me most of all… Is how I went to sleep smiling.
Come back Please come back I’m sorry I’m so sorry Come back comeback comebackcomebackcomebackcomebackcomeback comebackcomebackcomebackcomebackcomebackcomebackcomebackcomeback comebackcomebackcomebackcomebackcomebackcomebackcomebackcomebackcomebackcomebackcomebackcomeback comebackcomebackcomebackcomeback comebackcomebackcome comebackcomeback
Take me, take me, but not her, never her, I begged silently.
Mason is music. Him without it is unfathomable…
I’ve got the boy of my dreams in my bed, and all I want to do is crawl into a hole and die.
It’s been eight months, and other than flickers here and there, sometimes I feel like he’s as much a ghost as is the girl who haunts us both.
“And then someday, there will be this guy, and he’s gonna come along and-and push all the right buttons. You’re gonna fight it. Be stubborn as always. But fuck, he’s gonna fall so hard. And you’re gonna fall so hard right back, because…because he won’t give up. He’ll never rest until you let him in.”
“This boy—this man… he’s gonna treat you the way you deserve, better than you think you deserve. He’s gonna give you the world even when you insist you don’t want it. Because as low maintenance as you try to be…” I say roughly, a low chuckle threading my words, “you’re not.”
She’s a mess, Iz. We’re all a mess. Dad doesn’t sleep. He’s lost weight. I swear his hair is thinning. And Mom… Well, if I’m home, she might as well not even be here. It’s only when I leave the house that she seems to come to life. Leave the bedroom. Talk to me… Sometimes I leave just so she’ll remember I’m here.
Please come back… I don’t know how to do this without you
“I trust you.” And just like that, a maw of shame opens up inside me. Because…he shouldn’t. He shouldn’t trust me. I don’t even trust me anymore.
Merry Christmas, Iz… I miss you. We all do. This is our second Christmas without you. Time seems to be speeding up, taking me further and further away from you. I wish I could stop it. Slow it down. Every day that passes, means less and less of a chance of you being found alive. There’s so much I regret. So much I would’ve done differently. So much I would’ve told you. Now would be a good time for you to finally come home… give us a sign, something, anything. I’m sorry. I never should’ve left you I wish it was me
The thing I keep out. The unbearable agony that comes when I remember half of me is fucking missing. Gone without a trace. Likely fucking dead in a ditch somewhere, or floating face down in a shallow river at the bottom of a ravine. Or, worse, being tortured and abused and raped and who the fuck knows what else. Meanwhile, here I am, sitting in a cushy house with both of our parents, eating cold Chinese take-out when she could be starving, telling my parents I’m gay like it amounts to anything actually meaningful other than, oh wait— I’m the only kid they have left. So much for their
...more
I can’t remember the last time she hugged me… She hovers and she worries… but it’s from a distance. The second I’m in her sights—the second she’s assured I’m home and safe—she pulls away again.
I just wonder if they would have gone this long without saying it to Izzy, had it been my chair that was empty instead.
In his arms, I’m a stand-in for someone else. In mine, he’s everything I’ve always wanted.
When I reach him, he shoves me as hard as he can. I stumble back a step, but I don’t let it stop me. Again, I go to grab him, and he shoves me. Over and over, he shoves me, slaps at me…futilely fighting me off as I bring him into my arms. And all I can do is close my eyes, whisper, “It’s okay,” and take it. Even when an elbow nails me in the rib… Even when his fist grazes off my chin… Even when he twists and squirms and claws at the arms I bracket around him in a bear-like vice… I take it all. Accepting his violence for the precious gift it is. Because as far as I’m concerned, there’s no one
...more
“It’s okay.” And Jeremy screams.
“M-make it stop,” he sobs. I hold him tighter, rock him. “I can’t, I can’t…” I can’t fix this. I can’t protect him from this. The sound he makes against my chest is unlike anything I’ve ever heard—inhuman and terrifying in its devastation. And I find myself pleading. Praying. For once not for her… But for him. Make it stop. Please, make it stop. This can’t be happening It can’t. She can’t be dead. He won’t survive it… We won’t survive it.
I’m not Jeremy the Coward anymore. I’m Jeremy the Wicked. And if hope shall be my downfall… Then fall I will.
“You know, Mason,” I say. He lifts his head, glassy light-blue eyes meeting mine. “She was my sister.”
“She’s the love of my life.” Yeah, well, you’re mine, Mason. So fuck us both I guess.
The thing is… I’m in love with Mason, and I have been for years. Longer than is probably normal or healthy, but it is what it is. So there you have it. Finally. The ugly truth in all its raw, pathetic glory.
I might be back in Shiloh. But I’m here as the new and improved me. Not as the meek, anxious kid I was, crawling out of his skin and holding his breath, wishing for the day he could finally break free, and be himself. Be me.
His pierced lip curves wickedly as he strokes the mic stand in a way that should be illegal, head bowed like he’s fucking worshiping the thing. And hell if I don’t want to kneel at his feet.
You thought he was gorgeous before? Well, look at him now. Look at what you’ll never have.
I know today sucks. But this is your day too, always has been, and always will be. And for that, I still love today. Because it means you exist.
And all the things I refuse to give thought to in the light of day… They’re once more buried safely in their respective rooms, steel doors reinforced and locked.
A single glance from those baby blues is enough to steal my breath. A mere smile, a slash through my heart with a serrated blade. Perhaps the universe did me a favor not aligning our stars. To be loved by Mason Wyatt would surely be a death sentence. The weight of it would crush me.
Tears fill his eyes, and my heart rate kicks up. What’s happening? “I’m sorry.” I shake my head. “You have nothing to be sorry for.” “Yes. I do,” he mutters so softly I nearly miss it. Frowning, I study him more closely, taking in the way his nostrils flare with a sniffle. He sounds sick—congested—but I know that’s likely just because he’s drunk. “Shoulda been me.”
