moment. She had to say it, before their friendship suffered further. Before there could be more awkwardness. “Jem,” she said. “Yes?” “I—you must know—how very much your friendship means to me,” she began, awkwardly. “And—” A look of pain flashed across his face. “Please don’t.” Thrown off her stride, Tessa could only blink. “What do you mean?” “Every time you say that word, ‘friendship,’ it goes into me like a knife,” he said. “To be friends is a beautiful thing, Tessa, and I do not scorn it, but I have hoped for a long time now that we might be more than friends. And then I had thought after
...more
