truth. Grayson Crowne is more honest than you will ever know how to be. Because you’re wrapped in so many lies, I’m starting to wonder if even you know the truth.”
His eyes flashed.
“I tried to warn you,” he yelled. “All those months ago…I told you he would marry her, and I told you this is all you could ever have. A place at my side.”
His words stabbed my kidney. Stabbed that constant, needling fear…that maybe he was right. Maybe no matter how hard Grayson and I fought, we wouldn’t ever win.
“I’m not at your side, am I West?” I said softly. “I’m behind you. Voiceless. The only reason you ever chased me was because you wanted to ruin me all over again. From the very beginning, this has never been about love. It’s been about greed. Stop lying.”
“You want me to stop lying?” he asked. “Fine. I was only ever allowed to marry you because my father saw an opportunity. I could ruin your reputation and spend months looking for a coin right under your nose. It was the perfect plan.”
He’s been looking for that long? He had a months’ long head start on us. I tried to swallow back my hollow fear.
West tilted his head, reading me. “You can get so much accomplished when your wife loves another man.”
“Was anything real?” I whispered.
He gave me a look. “I don’t know, Angel, was it?”
I looked away. “I was honest with you. I told you I didn’t love you. You pretended to love me. You used me. Stop saying you love me, it’s over, you won—”
“You think I’ve won?” he growled. “I won’t have won until you love me again.”
“Then I guess you’ll always be a loser,” I gritted, “because there is no happily ever after for you.”
Silence descended, the sound of a soft wind blowing sand and snow along the beach outside.
Then he smiled, but his eyes were cold. “This is our happily ever after, Angel.”
Eighteen
STORY
I can’t stop thinking about Grayson on his knees. I went to church once, when my mom was seducing a pastor. The image of Christ on the cross still haunted me.
Naked.
Head down.
Suffering.
In my dreams, I saw Grayson this way. Thrown to his knees over and over again, the memory distorted.
I wished I could write Grayson more than anything, but I had no phone. No way of contacting him. Curious, I opened up my nightstand to see if Grayson’s notebook was still there…
It was.
I fingered the worn leather. If I couldn’t write him directly, I would write alongside his old words.
Dear Atlas,
The night we kissed you shone like a god.
I remember thinking you were cruelly, fatefully designed like only a god can be.
Angels will do anything for their god, right?
Fight, fall, bleed.
But angels aren’t supposed to kiss their god, and I did.
I kissed the lips of a god, so fate punished us.
The constellations ripped themselves apart.
Reworked and remapped;
Their paths hidden from us.
You are divine, so we were divinely punished.
But I will wander the heavens for eons until I find those secret trails.
There aren’t enough stars in the universe for us to cross.
The door creaked, and I scrambled up, dragging my sheets with me and chucking the notebook under my pillow just as West entered the room.
“You’re awake.” He looked…sheepish? Rubbing his neck, looking up at me through thick lashes. “Merry Christmas, Angel.”
He was still in pajamas, red and green plaid with little Christmas trees. He looked…innocent. No sooner had I noticed the arm securely tucked behind his back, then he brought out what was hidden, shoving a poorly wrapped red satin present into my hands.
I stared at it, trying to banish the thought that he had wrapped it himself. “What is this?”
“Open it,” he all but grunted.
My fingers shook as I lifted the red-bow wrapped box. I nearly dropped it when I saw what was inside.
“What…how?” It was all I could manage.
Once upon a time, I fell in love with a boy who saw me—he was the only one who had ever seen me.
Until Grayson.
I slowly lifted the proof of that out of the box, hundreds of gum wrappers, brittle with time, falling through my fingers.
I never told West the secrets I told Grayson, the truth of my mother or why I was really at Crowne Hall. We were kids. That summer, while Grayson had kicked over my bucket, West had snuck me gum.
I never told him I kept the wrappers in a box like the lovesick teenager I was. After the night West raped me,