A faint smile curves her lips—calm, sure.
It feels like a secret.
I want to know all of her secrets because someday they might be my only way out.
And she’s all I have.
Her thumbs rub gently across my temples.
“Now let me show you how to find the rain in the midst of a storm,” she whispers.
34
ALEX
“D-did… did he rape you?”
I’m not even sure I want to know the answer… but the truth is already written all over his face. Still, I need to hear him say it. Because I can’t let him carry this alone.
Noah doesn’t speak right away. His lips part, tremble, then press together like he’s trying to trap the words before they escape.
“He touched me,” he finally whispers. “He made me touch him too, and, um… kiss him.”
He wipes his mouth with the back of his wrist as if the taste of him still lingers there. Then he looks me dead in the eyes.
“He raped my sister.”
Fuck.
I wasn’t prepared for that.
Meera had never—ever—hinted that something like that happened to her. Not once.
If she told me… even a little… maybe I would’ve understood. Maybe I could have made sense of that brilliant, broken, chaotic mind of hers.
“I never knew,” I choke out, barely able to form words.
Noah’s tear-streaked eyes stay locked on mine. I try to find something in them—comfort, meaning, an answer towhy.
But all I find is pain.
“It’s okay,” he says softly, almost like he’s trying to console me. “She was in the rain.”
“But—”
He presses a finger to my lips.
“He couldn’t touch us in the rain, Alex. You can’t touch what you’re not able to see.”
My gaze drops to the tattoo on his thigh—raindrops and tears spilling down in a tangled, colorful mess. I feel caught in it somehow. Trapped in the storm inked into his skin.
He folds his legs beneath him and tugs at the neckline of his shirt, fidgeting.
“I need you to understand her,” he says, barely above a whisper.
I shake my head slowly, heart sinking—because I know.
I know I’m about to step straight into the storm.
