PROLOGUE
PRESENT
• • •
I’m twenty-one years old and I don’t know how to stop loving him.
That’s the part no one tells you.
That you’ll end up hating yourself for it.
Because I gave him everything.
The best version of everything I had.
I wanted to see if I could love him and understand him and not be ruined by him all at once.
Beautiful things can still destroy you, and no one really warns you about that either.
Because for as long as I can remember, Cassian has been the light in my life.
But he was also the darkest part of it.
I opened the window every time he knocked.
And I would do it all over again. That’s what breaks me. Even after everything.
I know now what it means to orbit too close to a sun.
You don’t feel it burning.
Not at first.
You just feel warm.
And then one day you look down and realize you have nothing left.
CHAPTER ONE
EIGHT YEARS OLD
• • •
Cassian moved into the house next door when I was eight years old.
I remember because he had the brightest blue eyes I’d ever seen.
Even then, he intrigued me.
Even then I’d catch myself losing track of whatever I was supposed to be paying attention to, just looking at him.
I was fucked from the start.
Actually, I blame my parents.
They’re the ones who had taken me over to meet the new neighbors.
Because that’s who they are — kind, almost aggressively so. They brought homemade baked goods and wide smiles and the kind of warmth that makes people feel immediately at home.
