“I think,” he tells me slowly, “that I want to hold your hand.” My thoughts grind to a halt. My heart stutters in my chest. I stare at him, speechless, and he looks steadily back, those strong and stony features impassive. As if there’s nothing remotely unusual about what he just said. Something rises inside me like the sun, burning away every sickly, nervous fear that was trying to encroach. The voice in the back of my mind can’t whisper that he’s a stranger, that he can’t be trusted, that he’s trying to hurt me, when all he wants to do is hold my hand. So the voice fades. I reach for him.
