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Martin would be so much worse if she weren’t here. She was the only person who loved me. I needed her to stay alive. But she was in pain. And if she were still alive when I was supposed to go to college, I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t leave her with him, and I’d have to stay here.
“Why are you so mean?”
9 years ago Will was a cutie pie, I understand why she is like that but must you be like that with him too🥲 feel bad for him
“I’m not right for you,” I told him. And not because he was rich and popular and I wasn’t, but because he made my life better. I looked forward to him.
I wanted him to know he deserved better. I wanted him to know that if I were someone else, I’d be his and I’d love him so good.
She may not have deserved it, but . . . Okay, yeah, she kind of deserved it after she laid waste to my fucking heart. I wanted to break something of hers, too.
“There were people who loved me, and I wasted time on someone who didn’t.”
This will all seem like a dream compared to the nightmare that awaits everyone who stands in my way.”
I hugged his arm, still shaking with laughter. He turned, smiling as he gazed into my eyes. “I love seeing you laugh.”
“But you’re going to be fucking mine someday,” he growled. “Come hell or high water, Emory Scott. You’re my woman, and you’re going to come home to me every day and sit at my table and warm my fucking bed.” He kissed me. “And you’re going to give me a Will Grayson IV. Mark my words.”
He wanted to give me a piece of him I’d never escape, but he had a part of me I’d never get back. This would never be as good with anyone else. I was fucked, and he’d already had his revenge.
“I am here,” he recited. “This is it, and I am not scared.” I exhaled, sucking in another breath but starting to calm. “I am not scared,” he repeated. “I am the eye of the storm. The calm in the madness.”
“You’re Lilith,” he whispered against my skin. “You can’t be burned if you’re the flame.”
My eyes stung, but I blinked away the tears, knowing exactly why I bought the Milk Duds. They were Will’s.
I should’ve snuck out with him and done this with him every single chance we got, because there was nothing that I was protecting myself from that wasn’t already happening at home. I shouldn’t have let the fear stop me.
You’ve been blowing my mind for forever.
taking in her worn jeans, black sweatshirt, and the tattered pair of black Vans on her otherwise bare feet. A black ski cap covered her head, but I caught sight of a low, black ponytail hanging over her shoulder and down her chest.
Nikova!!
“You were always pathetic,” I told him, sneering. “You know that? Always so naïve and clueless and pathetic.” A smack landed on my face, the sting spreading across my cheek and blood seeping into my mouth where it cut on my teeth. I took two breaths and slowly turned my face back, staring at Alex and her fiery eyes.
pay the piper.
I didn’t have to prove my worth with a career, plans, or relationships. I just had to survive. There were no opportunities to face, so nothing to screw up. We were all in the same boat.
I wanted everyone to trust me. To depend on me. But that meant risking failure, and for a few minutes here and there I was content to just stay here forever.
She was my port in the storm and I was hers.
She was the only person I’d ever felt completely safe with. The only person I never feared disappointing because the only thing she expected of me was to be there. Why couldn’t I love her?
I’d loved Emory since the moment I laid eyes on her when I was fourteen.
Aydin and Alex stared at each other, unblinking, as the pulse in my neck throbbed faster. “I just watched her through the computer screen,” he said, as if in a trance, “and it was like my skin had been sliced open, releasing all this pressure I’d gotten so used to feeling my entire life.” His chest rose and fell more rapidly by the second. “And I could finally breathe and see color and shit. I felt hot, and the world suddenly looked so different, because . . .”
🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯 whaaaaaaat
“Remember when you asked me if I could get things other than alcohol and cigarettes?” he questioned Will. And I gulped. No. He had Will brought here. Either for revenge or to take him away from Alex. Oh, my God. But then suddenly Aydin turned and jerked his chin, gesturing to me, instead.
“She’s the reason we all went to jail seven years ago,” he told them.
If anyone had half a mind to, there would be no way to ignore their behavior if someone shared those videos in the right place, you know? Can you imagine the embarrassment? Oh, no. I closed my eyes, exhaling a single breath. “Fuck.”
And I definitely didn’t want her to end up in Aydin’s hands again. He’d had enough influence over her in five short days.
All of this in only five days?
“The role of the villain is only determined by who’s telling the story.”
After I’d found a room and made my call with Erika’s phone, they pounded on the door, insisting to stay with me because the “pampered little know-it-alls who thought their shit didn’t stink aren’t getting a piece of you.”
up, I climbed over Rory’s body and gently stepped out of bed, looking down at the two beautiful guys and their sleeping forms. A serial killer on one side, and the son of a terrorist on the other. Man, my parents would be proud.
“I’d rather not walk in on my sisters in some weirdo, bacchanalian sex fest ever again,” he stated. “Understand?”
She hadn’t needed a boyfriend. She’d needed a friend, and I’d been selfish and arrogant and spoiled. I should’ve been whatever she needed, whenever she needed me. She didn’t owe me her heart just because I wanted it. If I’d cared, I would’ve been more patient.
“Um . . .” someone said, and I blinked, noticing the car had stopped. “Okay, wow. I . . . um . . . I’d love to watch this, actually,” Damon called out, “but Winter will consider it cheating if she’s not here, too. I’ll go ahead and walk home, and you fucking owe me, Will.”
🤣🤣🤣🤣
“It’s yours now.” He met my eyes. “It’s been yours for nearly ten years.”
I mean, what the fuck? I just got her back, and fear was nipping at the corner of my brain, worried that she’d change her mind about marrying me if I couldn’t periodically remind her how hot I was.
“You look like you’re in a K-Pop band, Aydin.”
She was like us. I would say the exact same thing, and even though I hated to risk losing her, she wasn’t a flower.
I dug my fingers into his skin, hesitating only a moment, and then . . . I twisted, feeling the neck snap in my hands.
“I survived,”
Everything hurt, but nothing had ever felt better. I smiled. It was over. God, it was over. Nothing could stop me. Not my exhausted limbs or the cold or the bruises and cuts. I won, and the first thing I was going to do with her when the weather warmed up was to take her out to sea on Pithom. I wanted to swim.
We won.
“She deserves a huge wedding at your expense.” He glared at Aydin. “You will invite everyone. You will give her the party of her life and honor her in front of the entire fucking world. Do you hear me?” He nodded. No hiding her. No shame.
“And you don’t touch her until the wedding night,” Michael told him. Aydin’s eyes shot up, his spine steeling. “What?” They all remained silent, standing their ground. Oh, boy. “I’ve never even kissed her,” Aydin gritted out. “I want to hold her. I want to—” “When you’re her husband,” Michael clarified.
Marvelous hahahaha
I didn’t have a single person of my own here whom I was bringing into this family. I came alone, without much else to offer these people, but I was starting tomorrow with everything I ever wanted. I had brothers who cared about me now. Aydin, Rory, and the beautiful Micah, his gentleness and presence that put me at ease at Blackchurch almost immediately.
“Live for your love,” the judge said, “love your life, and raise hell.”
And then it hit me. Reverie Cross. Edward McClanahan’s best friend and Reverie Cross’s boyfriend. The rumor that Reverie might not have jumped. The rumor that Edward or his friend or both of them . . .
“A.P.?” I blurted out, gesturing to his grandfather. William Aaron Paine Grayson, Sr. The corner of Will’s lips turned up. “Well, you’ll never be bored with me, at least, right?”
I gazed at him knowingly, and he just shot me a glance but kept silent. “I like the wrought iron,” I said. “It was a good choice.” He’d found my design and built it.
I caught the coffee can, recognizing the mustard-yellow container. “We found it when we were digging the new foundation,” he told me. I opened it up, finding what I knew I’d find. A plastic bag with the necktie, the Ride-All-Day bracelet, and the empty box of Milk Duds from Will’s and my first date.
