another. And here we are. I saw with my own eyes what Ben had said was the truth.”
My eyes flew in Brando’s direction. He was watching me again. Mitch knocked him on the shoulder, motioning somewhere in the distance with his finger, while his mouth moved. Brando listened while his eyes stood intent on mine. After Mitch turned to the other guy, and a few girls, they started to move away.
Brando stood there for a moment, not following. His hand came up, a slow grin making its way across his face.
All of the air seemed to be sucked from my lungs. Something about him seemed too strong for this place, too overwhelming. The shape of his mouth alone made me go weak in the knees. What was he even doing here, in this small town? He belonged in some place exotic, some place warm. He belonged in Italy.
He turned to leave and my heart exploded in my chest. I couldn’t find it in myself to move, to even open my mouth. I must have been that way for a few seconds. When I could focus again, I realized Violet had been repeating my name over and over. Her hands were on my shoulders and she was shaking me.
“Did Carlos hurt you when he knocked you down? Scarlett? Scarlett!”
“I…” And then I was sprinting toward Brando, my legs carrying me with speed and agility. Close enough to touch him, I grabbed him by the wrist, yanking.
He turned so quickly that I almost fell backward. He caught me by the arms, pulling me toward him with enough strength that my face ended up against his chest. His heart pounded loud against my ear. It was as if my panic had somehow reached him and my own heart echoed from his body.
A terrible sensation rippled through me. The horrible feeling of my stomach dipping during an impossibly deep slope made my breath catch. I had him by the shirt, clinging with all my might. I pulled back, looking up at him.
That moment in the snow with my brother came back with an intense sharpness, piercing through the layers I had created to keep the hurt from surfacing.
“You…you can’t go.” I couldn’t get the words out fast enough. “You can’t leave.”
I could see it in his eyes, a deluge of memories rushing forward. Something else was there too…reality.
“Oh God!” I cried out, prepared to admit the truth, anything to get him to stay and not leave me. “It’s you. Can’t you see? You…you were going with Elliott. After he left, I felt…”
Brando pulled me tighter against him, shielding me from prying eyes. “Don’t say it. I’m not leaving. You’ll stay with me.” He said something about light, but not loud enough that I could make out all of the words clearly—my heart felt as though it were lodged in my ears.
I pulled away a bit, looking down at his arms so I wouldn’t have to meet his eyes. A tattoo of a ribbon wound from his left wrist, above the pulse point, all the way up to his elbow. I traced the shape with my pointer finger, and goosebumps rose on his skin as though by magic. The smoke from the fire made my vision blurry.
“Stay with me,” he said. It wasn’t a question. It never seemed to be with him. “We’ll walk and talk.”
I nodded, not able to say anything else. The sensation had started to ebb, my heart starting to piece itself back together, one slow beat at a time. His decision to stay with me seemed to right my panic.
Intertwining our fingers together, I held on for dear life.
Chapter Four
Scarlett
We walked along the train tracks for what seemed like miles, not a word spoken between us, our hands still linked together. I don’t think either of us knew what to say, or where to even begin. Or I didn’t. Brando seemed fine with the silence, not bothering to break it.
I watched him as he kept his eyes forward, every once in a while rolling a sucker around in his mouth.
He looked over at me. “You want one?”
I stopped and the link to our connection stretched but didn’t break. He covered the distance between us, coming to a stop right in front of me.
“All right.” I blinked up at him, my eyes dry, perhaps from a lack of tears.
The only light along the tracks came from street posts. Their combined light created a glow that seemed to infuse the air. One of