Tears welled in her eyes, and she spun around and ran into the forest, toward her home, as fast as she could.

“What the hell was that?” Trevor spat out, whipping off his mask.

His blondish hair was sweaty, and he scowled at me as he shot Kai’s mask to me like a basketball. I caught it and turned away, yanking the car door open and climbing in.

I wanted to fuck with her. Maybe fuck her, too, or anyone just to get my head clear—but goddammit—that wasn’t…

He wasn’t stopping.

She wasn’t having fun.

She believed she was in actual danger, and all I could feel was my mother on top of me like Trevor was on top of her.

It gets hard when I do that. That means you like it.

No, it didn’t.

I dropped the mask in the passenger’s seat and started the car, seeing Trevor shoot off, racing toward his side of the car.

“What the hell are you doing?”

But I didn’t wait. With Will still passed out in the back, I hit the gas and sped off in reverse, ignoring Trevor’s curses and shouts as he chased my headlights.

You can fucking walk home.

I drove to the end of the gravel road, not stopping as I launched back onto the highway without a single pause for any oncoming traffic, and shifted into gear, speeding back down the dark, quiet road.

I gripped the steering wheel, gripping the hair on my head as I rested my elbow on the window.

“What the fuck?” I muttered.

What did I just do?

Was I actually going to hurt her?

But I did hurt her.

She came out tonight, saved my fucking ass in town earlier, and I… I fucking attacked her. She stood up for me, and all I saw was trash and a threat.

All that spirit, and I beat it down. I treated her like garbage, and instead of feeling powerful, I only saw a little boy on the ground, crying and heartsick, because he couldn’t stop what was happening to him.

Rika would hate me. She’d never look at me again.

I pulled into Will’s house and parked right in front, unloading him from the car, and heaving him over my shoulder. Climbing the steps up to his house, I dug his keys out of his back pocket, unlocked his huge iron door, and stepped inside, quickly punching in the security code we all had memorized years ago.

The house was quiet and dark, but I could always smell the hydrangeas his mother kept on the foyer table in various colors. Sometimes they were blue, sometimes white. Today, they were purple and always made the house look happy as soon as you entered.

Out of everyone’s houses, I liked Will’s the most. It was newer, more spacious with room to walk and breathe, and it was bright with high ceilings. He had two older brothers who left home a few years ago, off making the world a better place. Will was the youngest. And the most trouble for his parents.

I took him up to his room, plopped him down on the bed, and saw him yawn and pull his comforter over his body. He looked like a burrito, and it was the first time all night I actually felt a smile I wore.

Will and I were cut from the same cloth, both always diving too deep for our own good, he with alcohol and drugs and me with the pain I needed to inflict.

Rain started to patter his window, and I looked up at it, the drops streaming down the glass like being in a fountain and watching the falls spill from the bowl above.

Winter.

That was the only place I wanted to be right now. She was alone in that house, the fountain spilled outside, and she wanted me there.

Grabbing a pair of clean jeans and a T-shirt from Will’s closet, I strolled into his bathroom and showered, washing my hair and body to get Rika off. To get the cigarettes off.

To just get every shitty thing I did tonight off.

After I was clean, I dressed and left, taking Winter’s key, my wallet, and my phone, and quickly jumped back into Michael’s car and headed for her house. It was almost two. I would have a few hours with her, at least, until I ran the risk of her father coming home.

But when I arrived, I saw the gates were open. Did he come home early?

I killed the lights and slowed the engine, noticing no cars parked in front of or on the side of the house, and no lights on in the home. Maybe she left the gates open for me. I almost smiled. I liked that idea.

I pulled the G-Class off the side of the driveway, out of sight in the trees on the lawn, just in case, and got out of the car, taking her key with me.

I darted inside and locked the door again, looking around and alert as I climbed the stairs.

When I cracked her bedroom door open, I immediately spotted her body under a sheet on the bed. The shadows of the rain on the window danced across her form as she lay on her side, and I closed the door quietly, stepping up to the foot of her bed and watching her sleep.

Heat coursed through every inch of my body, seeing her there, looking so warm and peaceful.

She was so small and gentle and delicate.

But there was fire in there.

She never lied or pretended she was someone she wasn’t. She couldn’t see what I was, but she felt it and recognized it in herself, and we were able to find each other and feel that it was right. I didn’t know how it happened, but it was why I was always drawn to her. Since we were kids. She saw everything.

I picked up the bottom of the sheet and pulled it softly from her body, seeing she was in a white, silk night shirt, loose and flowing down her arms but bunched up around her waist. I stared at her. My territory.

If my friends touched her like I touched Rika tonight, I’d kill them. Without pause.

She let out a little whimper, taking in a deep breath. “Is that you?”

She pulled her shirt down and propped herself up on an elbow, her head moving around the room.

“Yeah,” I replied quietly.

She followed my voice and smiled.

I set my knee down on the bed, coming down on her as she settled onto her back, and I rested my body on top of hers as I planted my elbows under me and held both sides of her head. I slid my fingers into her hair and touched my forehead to hers, breathing her in and feeling her body underneath mine.

She scaled her fingers up my back, whispering, “What’s wrong?”

I closed my eyes, having no idea where to start. “I fucked up,” I whispered back.

She rubbed me, and I soaked in her heat, the rain hiding us from the world, and still wondering how she got inside me—inside my head and my…

“Need to hide for a while?” she asked, a lilt of comfort in her voice.

And I nodded. “Yeah.”

For as long as I could.

We kissed, softly at first, but my body became aware of hers, and she wanted to feel everything, her hands going under and inside my clothes.

And as we stripped, and I thrust inside of her, I knew without a doubt that this is who I would’ve been if I hadn’t become me. If I hadn’t learned to cope with pain in all the worst ways growing up in that house and denied taking any responsibility for the man I became.

I would’ve gone to school, played basketball, laughed with my friends, and snuck into my pretty little girlfriend’s house at night to make love to her, delirious in no other need than to be good, because I wasn’t so twisted that I needed anything else to be happy.

This is what I might’ve had forever if I hadn’t lied.

A few hours later, we laid together, the rain lighter now as she rested her head on my chest and ran her hands over my body, memorizing every line and chord.

“The scars on your body…” she said quietly. “Your scalp, under your arm, your groin. Places people don’t see.”

I stroked her arm with my thumb as I held her, already knowing where she was going with it. I stopped cutting when I was fifteen. The night my mother left.

But some of the marks never truly healed. It was a good thing I was smart about where I did it, so my clothes always covered it.

“I had a classmate in Montreal who had scars like that,” she went on, “but she didn’t bother to hide it. It was everywhere. She had to leave and go to a hospital.”

I stroked her arm still, my breathing even and calm.

“Where were you for two years?” she asked.

“Not in a hospital.”

I knew what she suspected, but this was all so much more complicated than she knew. Not everyone needed help to stop hurting themselves. Some of us just traded in one coping mechanism for another.

She didn’t see me for two years, because Damon was trying to stay away. And then he was at college.

“Someone taught me a long time ago that pain releases pain,” I explained. “So when I was younger, I cut, poked, scratched, and burned myself, so I wouldn’t feel everything that hurt. And then I realized, it felt even better to hurt everyone else.”

“But not me?”

She had a teasing tone, but if she only knew. None of this was a joke.

I smirked anyway. “I did some damage.”

She just didn’t know how much yet.

“Don’t make me answer questions,” I told her. “You won’t like the answers.”

“But I need them.” She turned her face up to me.

“I know.”

I knew it was coming. Once the sex happened, she didn’t want to be away from me.

And in all honesty, I didn’t want to be away from her.

I just needed to make sure she listened to me. That she heard me out and couldn’t run away. That there was no one around to interfere before she was able to process it.

If I wanted to keep this, it was my only chance.

I tipped her chin up, looking down at her. “My family has a cabin in Maine,” I told her. “There’s already snow. It’s gorgeous up there. One phone call and it’s stocked for us. Get dressed and come with me now.”

“What?”

“Once we’re there,” I explained, “I’ll tell you everything. Just for a few days, and then I’ll bring you home.”

She pulled her head up, a puzzled look on her face. “Taking me to a remote location where I can’t run away?”

“I’ll make sure you won’t want to leave,” I teased, pulling her back on top of me and holding her face. “I promise.”