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I couldn’t rewind and not go into that maze. I couldn’t undo stepping into that fountain. Because, God, I wished I never did. Some mistakes you never heal from.
He smelled like cold things do. Like sharp water.
He made himself the cure, which wouldn’t have been necessary if he hadn’t also created the disease.
Life felt like hell because we expected it to feel like heaven.
Will, Michael, and Kai were my friends, and I’d walk through fire for any one of them. Will was the only one, though, who I was sure would walk through fire for me.
I need her to hurt me because pain covers up pain, and if I feel one, I won’t feel the other. I need her to push back down what tries to crop back up.
Everything she said, I made her say, because we could only feel one pain at a time, and maybe if I could pile on enough dirt, I’d get so buried I wouldn’t be able to think.
Six years ago, his little girl and I changed each other, and while I couldn’t change her back, I could certainly give her some new memories of me.
People assumed I behaved strictly on impulse, when actually, it required quite a bit of strategy to be this fucked up.
Winter had this ring of darker blue around the outside of her pupils that made them . . . piercing. I was glad she couldn’t use them, because if she could look at me with those eyes . . .
“Because pain in the body quiets the pain in the head. It feels good, like a kill switch for your brain.
“But she stayed quiet, and you went into solitary for three years, and your friends fended for themselves while your mind slowly slipped off its axis and you’d rip out your own hair because animals do insane things when they’re caged for too long.”
We didn’t do drugs. We were the drugs.
I hated him, and I would never forgive him, but maybe we had that one thing in common. We had to change to survive.
it was a strange feeling to want to protect someone from others when I knew I’d be worse for her health than anyone else.
In fact, he was kind of an angel at the end. An angel with really black bat wings. Psycho.
“You were my heroin once upon a time,” he said, and his eyes disappeared behind the flames again.
“And you still like your drugs, from what I hear.”
“You could never not draw attention,” he finally said. “And it has nothing to do with you being blind.”
He would be the picture he was in my head. A faceless boy with dark hair and fire in his eyes, just how I wanted it. Forever.
“Enjoy your freedom while it lasts, Winter Ashby, because we’re not done,” Damon warned in a low voice that snaked through my ear, taunting me. “Grow up, learn things, and have fun in high school, but don’t change the little girl who loves it ‘in the black,’ because I like you there, too. And I will be back for what’s mine when you’re old enough for bigger things.”
“And be good,” he told me. “If I hear anyone touched you, I will crack his fucking skull.”
I hated him. He was everything bad that happened to me. But he was the only time—other than dancing—that I felt alive, too. Being with him was like dancing. Dancing with death.
Everything was new to her. She was an escape. I could feel anything and feel things again for the first time in her words, her body’s reaction, and her face.
I didn’t want her first time. I wanted every time.
The crime was I couldn’t tell her who I was. And the crime was she didn’t love me back.
Her heart was so shallow, she couldn’t understand and know that I was real. Every moment with her, I was real. I would’ve been faithful, and I would’ve died protecting her.
My chest ached so badly it hurt to breathe. There was no one in the world like her.
Love always hurt. Sooner or later.
Will and I were cut from the same cloth, both always diving too deep for our own good, he with alcohol and drugs and I with the pain I needed to inflict.
She was so small and gentle and delicate. But there was fire in there.
This was what I might’ve had forever if I hadn’t lied.
“Someone taught me a long time ago that pain releases pain,”
I’d changed her forever. I’d bent and twisted and broken everything that made her the most beautiful thing that ever happened to me.
“I’m gonna . . .” My mouth was so dry. “I’m gonna send you to jail.” His lips rested against my cheek, and I thought I felt his body shake with a silent sob. But as I fell into sleep and oblivion, his words were sharp and clear in my ear. “Then you better hope I never get out.”
There’s always a reason why things are as they are.”
“You taught me how to survive that day,” he said. “You taught me how to be strong and how to get to the next minute. And the next and the next.
I finally craved one more thing I realized had been missing when I laid eyes on you again.”
“You made the world look different,” he told me. “You always had, and it struck me as odd, because I hated to watch my mother dance growing up. It was just some elaborate lie that I couldn’t stomach, but you . . .” He trailed off, searching for words. “It was pure, and it was a dream. I didn’t want to change you. I just wanted to be a part of it all. Of everything beautiful you were going to do.”
“When it was time to come clean, I couldn’t,” he said, his voice growing thick. “I just wanted to stay there with you. Behind the waterfall, in the shower, in the ballroom . . . Just stay with you.”
“Nothing was a lie,” he whispered.
And then he walked out, and my chest ached so badly, for air or for him, I didn’t know, but I ran to the window, yanked it up, and drew in a lungful of air, feeling everything give way. Slip away, fade, and ease. My fear. My worry. My hatred. My anger. Why hadn’t he said all that years ago? Why?
None of it was a lie, except my name. It was real, and I wanted it again.
The way I always saw Damon Torrance’s raven eyes in my head, even before I knew my ghost was Damon Torrance.
She said the beauty in life is what we live for, and it’s everywhere. You just have to look closer.”
I slip, scream, and fall, his face the last thing I see before I see nothing at all.
“As long as you’re Damon Torrance, I don’t care what you wear,” I told him.
How did he do it? How did he always break my heart, especially in ways I loved?
Everything with him was like home.
“You should’ve just left me there. Why didn’t you?” She was quiet, nudging her cheek into mine as she found her words. “Because I was afraid of life without the hope of you to look forward to.”
