But every time, I hold her tightly. Every time, I promise I won’t leave.
Eventually, she drifts to sleep, and I pull the stack of letters from my side table and continue reading. Since Clover sleeps with the lights on, I doubt I’ll disturb her.
I have fourteen years’ worth of words to get through that will tell me so much about who Clover Danforth is.
And why I’ll do anything—destroy anyone—to keep her safe.
Dear Valen,
It’s been four years to the day since I last saw you. Four years since Miriam dropped me off with the Danforths and never looked back.
Four years since you promised you’d protect me for the final time.
I’m not angry that you broke that promise. I have to believe it wasn’t your fault. If I don’t, I’ll go insane. Maybe I already have. I’m still writing to you, right?
But sometimes, late at night, I pretend you’re reading these letters. That you know what’s happening in my life. That we’re still connected even though we’re apart.
Because I still feel it. I feel you. It’s not a connection that severs so easily for me.
I turned nineteen this week—two years older than you were when I lost you. My adoptive mom threw me a party. It was small. Just her, me, and Barney because I didn’t tell my college friends it was my birthday. My “mom” said her husband would have been proud of how far I’ve come. And it was the first birthday party I’ve ever had where I didn’t look over my shoulder, waiting for Terra to punish me for not conforming to one belief or another.
Mary, the woman who adopted me, told me that Terra passed away a while ago. I don’t know the details or how she got them, and I don’t want to. Did you know? Were you there? Did you go to her funeral? Spit on her grave?
I think that’s what I would’ve done. The spitting, I mean, not going to her funeral. Does that make me a bad person?
When I blew out my candles this year, I wished you were here.
It’s the same wish I make on every falling star, every candle, every lost eyelash.
I wish you were here for everything.
But since you’re not, I’ll keep telling you about it. Honestly, I don’t know how not to tell you things now. Maybe this is all we’ll ever be.
Or maybe someday I’ll wake up and this will have been one really messed-up nightmare.
Is it strange that I pray for the nightmare, and not that you’re willingly choosing to move on without me?
I Google you every time I go to the library, you know? It’s like you never even existed. Is this why you said it was safer for me if I didn’t know Vivi’s last name? It made it easier for you to disappear.
I love you.
I hate you.
But I always come back to you.
Clover
I read her words until the sun comes up, memorizing them, feeling them, experiencing them.
Every hope. Every fear. Every moment of her life she was thoughtful enough to share.
Because now Iknowher.
And Terra Stone will never touch her again…even if I have to burn the whole world down to do it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CLOVER
