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Sketchbook paper. My fingers identified the texture immediately, and my heartbeat quickened as I unfolded it, revealing the picture I gave Noah, of Noah, weeks ago at Croyden. And on the back were just three words, but they were the most beautiful words in the English language: I believe you.
“I caught her staring at my lighter.” I blinked. “You gave a child, in a psych ward, a lighter.” His eyes crinkled at the corners. “She seemed trustworthy.” “You’re sick,” I said, but smiled. “Nobody’s perfect.” Noah smiled back.
Noah’s eyes met mine before he answered, “Then I’m thrilled to have saved your life.”
“The people we care about are always worth more to us than the people we don’t. No matter what anyone pretends.”
“So . . . how long are you staying?” My tone was more tentative than I intended. Much more. But my favorite half-smile appeared on his mouth. I wanted to live in it. “How long do you want me?” he asked. How long can I have you? I thought.
“It’s my way of telling you that I can’t bear to look at my bed without seeing you in it,” he said, and his words made me shiver. “So do try to avoid a lockdown.”
His voice was warm and rich and home and my eyes closed in relief at the sound of it.
I rolled over onto my side and smiled. “You totally were. You were watching me sleep.” “No. That would be creepy. And boring. Watching you shower, perhaps . . .” I punched him in the arm, then snuggled deeper under the covers.
“They won’t let anything happen to you,” he said. I won’t let anything happen to you, he meant.
But no one could protect me from myself.
“Fine,” I said, my eyes drawn to all the spines. “I wish I had your room.” “It’s not a terrible consolation prize, I’ll admit.” “I wish we could make out in your bed.” Noah sighed. “As do I, but I’m afraid we have a ritual burning to conduct.” “It’s always something.”
was just going to say it reminds me of the symbols on a family crest.” Noah stopped mid-stride, and turned very slowly. “We’re not related.” “I know, but—” “Don’t even think it.”
“Tell me what you want and it’s yours.”
“Tell me what you see. Because I don’t know what’s real and what isn’t or what’s new or different and I can’t trust myself, but I trust you.”
“I’m not sure you can appreciate how much I want to lay you out before me and make you scream my name.”
Noah smoothed the hair from my face. Made me look at him before he spoke. “There will come a moment when there’s nothing you want more than us. Together. When you’re free of every fear and there is nothing in our way.” Noah’s voice was sincere, his expression serious. I wanted to believe him. “And then I’ll make you scream my name.” I broke into a smile. “Maybe I’ll make you scream mine.”
My brother cleared his throat. “I wish she knew that I think she’s the most hilarious person on Earth. And that whenever she’s not home, I feel like I’m missing my partner in crime.”
My throat tightened. Do not cry. Do not cry. “I wish she knew that she’s really Mom’s favorite—” I shook my head here. “—the princess she always wanted. That Mom used to dress her up like a little doll and parade her around like Mara was her greatest achievement. I wish Mara knew that I never minded, because she’s my favorite too.”
Sometimes the biggest secrets you can only tell a stranger.”
I’ll walk forever with stories inside me that the people I love the most can never hear.
“You can’t predict which way they’re going to go. It makes limited people uncomfortable—frustrated, because they don’t understand the point, and people hate what they don’t understand. But the ones who get it,” he said, lifting a hand to my face, “find it fascinating. Beautiful.” He traced the shape of my mouth with his thumb. “Like you.”
“Mara,” he said softly. “Why are you running from me?”
He looked inhumanly beautiful under the lights. It almost hurt to look at him, but it would have hurt more to look away.
Maybe it wasn’t. But even if it was . . . “I’m too selfish to leave you,” I said. Noah pulled back so I could see his smile. “I’m too selfish to let you.”
don’t think she’s ever looked so perilously beautiful as she did in that second.
She isn’t the only one changing. Every day she shapes me into something else.
“You have me,” he said, his eyes meeting mine. “You inhabit me.” His face was stone but the words issued from his lips in a plea. “You want to know what I want? I want you to be the one wanting me first. Pushing me first. Kissing me first. Don’t be careful with me,” he said. “Because I won’t be careful with you.”
You can’t hurt me the way you think you can. But even if you could? I would rather die with the taste of you on my tongue than live and never touch you again. I’m in love with you, Mara. I love you. No matter what you do.”
“If I were to live a thousand years, I would belong to you for all of them. If we were to live a thousand lives, I would want to make you mine in each one.”
“All I want is you,” he said. “You don’t have to choose me now or ever, but when you choose, I want you free.”
“You’re stronger than you believe. Don’t let your fear own you. Own yourself.”
Noah whispered my name like a prayer, and I was free.
This was the boy I loved. A little bit messy. A little bit ruined. A beautiful disaster. Just like me.
I could spend the rest of my life kissing him, I think.
Noah’s hands lingered on my waist when he kissed me good-bye on Sunday night, and I smiled at the two charms that now hung around his neck. I loved that he was wearing mine for me.
“You were going to call me?” “Yes.” “Why?” “I just . . . missed you,” he said, a lie in his voice. That brought a tiny smile to my lips. “Liar. Just tell me.”
But when everyone tells you you’re crazy and no one believes you when you swear you aren’t, a small part of you will always wonder if they’re right.
He hushed me. He lifted my hands to his mouth. His petal-soft lips brushed over my knuckles, then my palms. Noah looked into my eyes and owned me. And then he kissed my scars.
“Everyone’s a little crazy. The only difference between us and them is that they hide it better.”
