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Prologue
EMILY
The fog lifts as I peel my eyes open. My head is pounding like it’s been bludgeoned with a two-by-four. Maybe I’m coming down with something. I attempt to bring my arms to my face, but they’re immobile as if I’m in a straitjacket and have no control over my limbs. The flower quilt my mother made before she died is visible, meaning I’m on my bed. My eyes travel down to two strong, tanned arms holding me in place as if letting me go would mean the end of the world.
Please, God, don’t let me have done something stupid.
I try to push the body off me. “What the hell?”
“It’s okay, I’ve got you,” a deep voice coos.
Stone.
I saw him last night. We got into a fight because I told him I had feelings for him. Deep feelings—an ocean full of feelings. And he crushed me.
He told me it can’t happen cos I’m too young and he’s friends with my brother. When I told him it was my life, not Robbie’s, he said I was just a kid, and he didn’t need to deal with my shit. He said I didn’t need to be tangled up with a fuck-up like him. Told me how I was a sweet kid and should worry about school so I could get out of the neighborhood and make a better life for myself. Then he dug the knife into my heart by saying he’s not into me like that and never could be.
I called him a liar as tears streaked down my face. I tore at the necklace he gave me a week ago for my birthday and tossed it at his feet. His steel-blue eyes locked with mine and his nostrils flared as he picked up the necklace and walked over to me. His hands framed my face, and for a moment, I’d thought he was going to kiss me, tell me how he loved me. But that was just wishful thinking because he got right up to my face and screamed that I wasn’t made for him and could never handle the shit he’d throw my way. He told me I was better than this life. It was nothing more than a one-way ticket to nowhere, and I was better than a two-bit loser like him.
Then he spat that I didn’t know what I was getting into and should go home and play with my dolls or something.
But he was wrong.
I’ve known what I was getting into since I was 13 years old and I saw Stone for the first time with his black hair and piercing blue eyes. He was laughing with all his friends, my brother being one of them. They joked around like they didn’t have a care in the world to an outsider. Stone appeared to be like any other kid, but I always knew the truth because there was something shadowy lurking behind the depths of his ocean blue eyes. Stone had a secret, and that secret caused him pain and forced him into darkness—something that he didn’t share with anyone, my brother included.
It took three years to discover Stone’s secrets and understand the sadness behind those eyes. And when I found out, things changed. Stone became the center of my world and my best friend. That is…until last night when I blurted out that I wanted to be more than just besties.
I struggle to pull my arms out of Stone’s grip, but he’s got a hundred pounds on me, easy, and I’m not a little girl.
I don’t know when he got so buff. It was a gradual change that I never really noticed until now.
“Let me go, Stone.”
He ignores me and pulls me so tight towards him I can hear the erratic beating of his heart. He buries his face in the crook of my neck, and my body ignites at the sensation of his warm breath against my skin.
“Stone, let me go. Talk to me.”
“No, I’m never letting you go. Because if I let you go, I’m scared something will happen to you. And I can’t handle anything happening to you, Em. There’s no fuckin’ living for me if this world is without you. God knows I’ve already snapped. You’re my lifeline, Em. You are the only thing that means anything.”
I push against his chest, and he loosens his grip enough for me to see his face. He’s freaking me out. He sounds so crazy. The last time he was like this was when we found his mother on the bathroom floor with a needle lodged in her arm.
The first thing I see is blood, so much blood. “Stone. What the fuck happened?”
My hands roam the parts of his body I can touch, trying to make sure he isn’t hurt. I’ve seen Stone bloody before. He’d get into tussles on the street. He doesn’t run with those street boys anymore, but he looks like he’s taken part in a massacre. There’s so much blood. Not only are his clothes covered, but it coats his entire face. I can feel my chest constricting, and panic lodges in my throat, suffocating me. I don’t think I can breathe.
