Ten years ago I moved into my grandmother’s old house. I hadn’t wanted to leave my school, my friends.
Then I met a boy, and he was in my class. I met a boy, and we grew up at each other’s sides. I met a boy, and in time I fell in love with him. Our stories were intertwined. I loved that.
But that story ends here—with rage and a bullet and a broken heart.
Because Matthew Weston just fired a gun at me, or at Jax, and maybe I’ll never know for sure. But I do know that Jax is clutching his arm as blood spills from between his fingers, and Matthew is on the ground, unmoving.
Gripping the back of Jax’s sweatshirt, I scream as my ears ring with a blank, high-pitched tone.
I don’t move until I’m sure it’s over. When I open my eyes, I start to go to Matthew but Jax grabs the side of my head and pulls my forehead to his.
“What have you done?” I say. Tears slide down my face, onto my lips. Salt and sorrow.
“I ended it. It’s done.”
“I have to look at him.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do.”
Jax releases my cheek. I take a shaky breath, then look.
Matthew lies on his side, totally still. I think I can handle the sight but I just can’t and instead I fall to my knees, my body bending into itself. My heart shreds itself in half over and over until there is nothing. The night is so cold.
“He fired first,” Jax says, crouching beside me.
“I know,” I reply, but the voice doesn’t feel like my own. This person is empty, and broken. Gently I reach out and try and look at Jax’s arm, but he pulls it back.
“I have to go now. Give me your gun.”
When I don’t move, he takes it gingerly from my hands. “Let’s go,” I say.
“No.” He lifts his good arm and pulls my head close, kissing my forehead. “I have to go, alone.”
“Jax?”
“Goodbye, Valerie.” Then he goes.
I call his name, aware I may be marking myself to the police. I’m alone, me and Matthew.
Somehow I make it over to him. Put my head on his chest and wait for the steady beat of his good, good heart even though I know it won’t come. The fabric of my jeans soaks with his blood.
I am gutted.
I do not know how long it takes them to find me, and I don’t know how they do. Mako lifts me like I’m dead, and I smell Kate’s perfume as she checks my pulse.
The godless heathens leave the dead and take me home.