When Bren flops backward on the bed with an exhausted groan, Elodie hesitates with fingertips on the doorframe as she soaks in the room with giddy delight. A surreal glow has settled over her, the flutter of anticipation in her belly sweet and tentative. She carefully closes their door, too aware of her body, her hammering pulse, the thrill of electricity turning her blood to gold.
Bren sits bolt upright, scrubbing a hand through tousled hair. “Sorry,I didn’t even ask if you wanted to, um, share this room. But if you don’t, I’ll fix it right now. I can—”
She climbs onto his lap and shuts him up with a kiss. They tumble backward together onto those stark white sheets, ravenous for each other, unruly and unstoppable. Her skin feels too hot, her heartbeat a wild thing, and she kisses him with a hunger close to starvation.
Something about this reminds her of that first time with a boy in that dark bathroom, their breathless excitement and awkward bodies, sweaty hands fumbling each other. It hits her stomach like a thunderclap, how this is only her second time. Embarrassment bites at her as she pulls her shirt over her head and flushes with sudden nerves.
But one look at his eyes gone dark with want and she knows he’s losing his mind at the sight of her.
She can let go, just for now, and think only of herself. Two days in paradise. Two days alone. That’s all the time she dares trust her parents to look after her son, though it’s all on her father to make sure Jude is fed and put to bed. Her father will do it, regretfully but quietly, because she knows part of him stayed soft for her.
Even after everything she did.
Don’t think about Jude. He won’t even care that you’re gone.
Her mind is an inferno of rabid affection as she undoes Bren’s belt and kisses him hard and fierce. This is for her; this is for her future. All she wants is this: Bren’s mouth on her naked body and the intoxicating realization that one person in this world wants her.
He doesn’t question when she says she’s on birth control. He is too drunk on her to do much thinking anyway.
Again she is sixteen, and he is some stupid boy who is doing exactly what she wants.
Even if he leaves her after this, she will have a piece of him, swallowed like a watermelon seed to blossom in her womb.
She will try again.
“What’s wrong with you?”
The way Bren glances over at her, guileless and surprised, fills her with relief. She expected him to grow guarded, to deflect and change the subject, because that’s what animals do when threatened by sharp sticks, and if she’s being honest with herself, it’s how she would react. They are still tangled together in this luxurious bed on this fairy-tale getaway, legs entwined, bodies facing each other, his hand in her hair and their foreheads almost touching. The warm afternoon has left them lazy and drowsy, sunlight unspooling over their sheets, and the sound of the ocean out the window is a sweet lullaby. She could fall asleep in his arms if she wanted, but instead she is doing this.
Picking him open.
But she needs to know.
Truth is an oil slick spread across their skin and sunk into bone, and they hold the lit match in their teeth. It will burn them both down if they cannot handle the worst things about each other.
He nuzzles her neck, turning it into a long, slow kiss while she revels in the way she feels owned by him, stained by his musky scent and mapped by his beautiful hands.
“I need to know”—there’s a small catch in her voice—“what you’ll do to break my heart.”
“Nothing. Never.” He is fervent; he is filled with passion as he pushes up on one elbow and looks down at her lying there against the pillows, flayed open by anxiety. It must be in her eyes, because there is such tenderness on his face. “I’ll never hurt you.”
“Everyone hides something.” She says it quietly, and she can’t look at him. Her fingers twitch on the sheets, but he gathers up her hand and kisses each knuckle.
“Okay. There is one thing.”
Her stomach cramps and she resists the urge to pull away from him. This is what she asked for and yet pressure builds behind her eyes, sharp as a knifepoint. She has to do this, has to pull his chest open with her teeth, splay rib bones like pinned butterfly wings, and see the truth of him before she lets his bone and blood twist about her fingers like an engagement ring.
Though she knows full well she will never pull out her own blackened, decayed heart for his perusal. Hypocrisy is tart on her tongue.
“I want you to know everything about me, I really do.” Bren lets out a long, shuddering breath and starts playing with her curls again, wrapping a strand around his finger. “I’ve told you a little about my family, about my sister, Ava—I swear she is the best person in the world, you’llloveher—but I haven’t told you how I lost my parents.”
“Oh, Bren.” Elodie places a hand against his cheek, her voice gentle with concern.
“I was ten and—” That bright, lithe energy that always pulses from him seems to stutter and he looks past her, old pain tracing lines around his mouth. He is reliving it, she can tell; he is not over this. “I begged to go the mall so I could pick out my birthday present. It feels so selfish, looking back, like we only went because of me. They were both the most loving, kind people in the world, literally thebestparents you could ask for. Anyway, there was a—” His voice has begun to pull, a hoarse strain caving in his words, and he has to stop and clear his throat. “There was a shooting and some sick fuck with a gun went after his girlfriend and my parents were in the way. Or maybe they looked like threats, I don’t know. He shot them both.”
Elodie has no words. He sinks back onto his pillows, deflated, and this time it is her who moves over so she can rest her chin on his chest, her full attention on him. He swallows hard and looks at her with raw agony.
“My dad shoved me beneath him and he… bled out there. In a mall. On top of me.” Bren gives an unfunny laugh, and it’s so racked with pain that Elodie winces. “To shield me. I spent hours like that, soaked in his blood, while the cops played cat and mouse with the shooter. Anyway, this is the most fucked-up thing to tell the girl you’re obsessed with, so if this is the part where you realize I’ve got too much baggage and want to leave and—”
