I turned and ran, my legs failing me twice before I finally made it to my room.

No, Uncle Harry, I thought bitterly. I wouldn’t blame him if he kills you.

Three nights passed before Vaughn came to me.

On the fourth one, he crawled into my bed while I pretended to be asleep and kissed my lips. It felt like goodbye. Maybe for him it was. But not for me. I opened my eyes midway through the kiss, staring back at him. He pulled away, his slanted eyes widening in surprise.

“Whoa. Should’ve kept that balloon floating tall on the last day of school. You are a creep.”

I grinned, stretching to try to ease the tension in my shoulders. Vaughn’s history with Harry explained so much about his behavior. My heart was in tatters just thinking about it, so I’d given him the time he needed, letting him come to me. I’d spent the last few days heaving into the toilet, trying to stop my tears from running.

“Kiss me, arsehole,” I demanded, tapping my lips.

Vaughn leaned down and gave me an obedient peck.

“You’re grinning. Why are you grinning?” He frowned.

Why, indeed? My father was a total perv, my uncle a child molester, and I was stupidly in love with the boy I hated.

The boy I’d never really hated.

The boy I’d convinced myself I hated so I would never have to face the feelings I felt right now: sheer fright that he was going to snatch my heart from my chest and stomp on it with his army boots.

“Because I realized something in the days you were away.”

“I—” he started, but I put my finger to his lips.

I didn’t want his apologies.

He perched his forearm on my pillow, staring down at me, his lips naturally pouty to perfection. “I’m listening.”

“You are the one who keeps sending me all the chocolate, brownies, and coffee every morning.”

He kept staring at me, like he was waiting for the punch line. I swallowed. What if I got it all wrong? But of course it was him. Even Harry had said he saw the receipts.

I cupped his cheek, bringing him to my lips again, whispering against his mouth, “To what do I owe these morning gifts, Vaughn Spencer?”

His breath was ragged and shaky as he grabbed my jaw, angling my face to his.

“I am hell bound, and you are heaven sent. You’re the first girl I ever looked at and thought…I want to kiss her. I want to own her. I wanted you to look at me the way you look at your fantasy book—with a mixture of awe, anticipation, and warmth. I gave you a brownie, hoping you’d remember me sweetly, praying the sugar rush would spin a positive feel around that vacation. I remember how you looked at me when you saw me killing jellyfish. I never wanted you to look at me like that ever again.”

“I won’t.” I shook my head, tears falling down my cheeks. “I would never look at you like that again.”

He licked his lips. “You did. For an entire year. But somehow, it made shit bearable. It felt like proving a point to myself—that you weren’t worth the work, that we were doomed.”

“We’re not,” I insisted, swallowing back the L-word, which kept rising in my throat, demanding to be said.

I didn’t want to freak him out, but I felt it. I felt it humming in my body, threatening to burst forth.

“We are.” He dropped his forehead to mine, shaking his head. Our noses brushed together. “Fuck, we are, and soon I won’t be good enough for you. But tonight? Tonight I can convince myself I still am.”

“Tell me everything. I want to know.” Tears ran over my cheeks now.

I kissed the tip of his nose. The corner of his lips. His cheek. Forehead. Eyes. Everything about him screamed boy all of a sudden, and things I’d thought I could never forgive—the way he’d acted toward me, Arabella sucking him off, him snatching the internship—seemed so trivial now.

He shook his head, pressing his hot lips to mine. His eyes shone. Even in the dark, I could see how close he was to letting it all out.

“I would never put you in that position.”

“I’m asking to be in this position.”

“Let’s pretend tomorrow never comes. Because for me, it doesn’t.”

I was about to answer when his mouth descended on mine. I wrapped my arms around his neck, raking my fingernails along his working muscles. They bulged as he removed my top and jammies.

Rain began to drum on the windows of my room. It had been an exceptionally dry fall, and as winter wrapped around the castle, I was expecting more storms. But it seemed eerily quiet. Like nature held its breath in anticipation, just like us. The cards were about to be revealed, people were going to get hurt, and the thunderclouds let the rain loose.

Vaughn kissed his way from my lips to my jaw and down to my neck, sucking one of my nipples into his mouth. My legs wrapped around his waist in a vise.

“Fuck, you’re beautiful,” he moaned into my nipple, flicking it with his tongue. “Funny,” he murmured against my flesh as his lips moved back up, while he kicked his trousers down. “Talented as fuck.” His mouth dipped into the hollow place between my neck and shoulder, tasting me. “And mine,” he finished, thrusting into me in one go, so deep and carnal, I arched my back and let out a yelp. “A million times over, forever mine.”

He moved inside me in smooth, continuous thrusts that left me clawing at his back with impending insanity. Everything about what we did felt delicious and final and completely different from our previous encounters. This was not Vaughn taking his anger out on me or the time we lost our V-cards together. This was Vaughn apologizing for the past decade, and for what was still to come.

And it was me accepting that I couldn’t keep him.

I couldn’t ask him not to do what he was about to do. I just needed closure before he left. Because he was leaving. All this time, I thought he’d stolen the internship to spite me. Turns out, he had a much bigger plan. I was just a bystander.

A casualty. Collateral damage.

After he came inside me and rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling, I found his hand under the duvet and squeezed.

“Why do you always do that?” he croaked. “Stare at the ceiling. What’s so interesting about it? I always wanted to ask.”

It warmed my heart that he cared. That he wondered. I smiled sadly. “That’s where I keep all my memories of her. They’re written in all the ceilings, of all the places all over the world.” I pointed at my blank ceiling. “At night, I pluck a memory out, relish it, play it like a video, then put it back. I never run out.”

“You,” he whispered, kissing my cheek, “are so effortlessly yourself.”

That was the greatest compliment someone could give me. I turned to face him in bed. “I know what you’re about to do. I just need to hear your story.”

He swallowed.

“The minute it’s done, I’m leaving. I can’t let you waste your life with someone like me. You deserve more, and if trouble ever finds me, it sure as fuck isn’t going to touch you.”

Some things you just need to power through. Losing each other before we’d even had the chance to have one another seemed to be one of them. I didn’t fight him.

“Tell me,” I whispered. “I want to know why you’re leaving.”