Page 132 of Chaos at Westbrook High

“Why?”

“Because I can’t think about anyone but you,” he says simply. “You’re all I can see, baby.” His arms come around me again, his head touching mine. “I didn’t realize it at the time, but the first time you looked at me like you wanted to cut me, it felt like my fucking heart stopped. After I left, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. And I didn’t. From that moment, it was all you. No one else. Only you.”

Loosening the vice grip on my photo, I leave it resting between his chest and mine and slip my arms around his neck. He takes my face in his hands, looking right into my glistening eyes. My lip wobbles as a tear runs down my cheek.

“I love you. I’m so fucking in love with you. And I will never hurt you. Do you hear me?”

I nod.

“Do you believe me?”

I nod again, meaning it. “Yes.”

He inhales a long breath, then exhales, his eyes still on mine. “You’re so beautiful.”

I stick my bottom lip out. “I look ugly when I cry.”

“No, you don’t,” he says softly, using his thumbs to wipe the tears away. “Average, maybe.”

I let out a weird sounding laugh and smack his hands away, making him smile.

“Do you like it when I call you Hails?”

“Yes,” I say begrudgingly.

His smile grows even bigger.

Sighing contentedly, I grab the photo and turn it around, letting him see it clearly and up close for the first time. Valerie’s sitting on a bench in the park across the street from our apartment building, her long, blonde hair blowing around her face. Seven year old me is behind her, my arms wrapped tightly around her neck, my chin on her shoulder. There are several little daisies in her hair, her hand resting on my forearms as she grins up at me.

“We used to make daisy chains in the park when I was little. They were her favorite flowers. Sometimes I pick a few and make daisy chains at her grave when I visit her at the cemetery.”

Taking my hand, Kai rubs his thumb over my daisy tattoo. “You look like her.”

“Yeah,” I say quietly.

Carefully taking the backing off the frame, I take out the older photo I stashed in the back. This one was taken before my biological parents were killed. I was a little over a year old. Valerie was only two years older than I am now in this picture. We look almost identical, but that’s not what has Kai frozen in place. Sitting with us on the grass is Claire Kingston, Kai’s mother, and in front of her, a dark haired little boy with a huge, goofy smile on his face. His mom is picking daisies and giving them to him, and he’s giving them to me.

“Is that…fuck, is that you and me?” he chokes out. “If that’s Wren, I’m gonna beat the shit out of him.”

I laugh. “It’s you. Your dad told me we spent a lot of time together when we were little.”

“My dad knows about this?”

“He’s the one who gave me the photo.” I run my hands through his hair, and he leans into my touch, once again looking down at the picture.

“Is this why you were so horrified the first time I brought you a daisy?”

I laugh. “Yeah.”

I was horrified. I thought he’d figured out who I was. I thought he was fucking with me. It only took one look at him to realize that wasn’t it. He picked a daisy on the way to the shop and gave it to me just because. Because it made him think of me. Because he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about me all this time…

No one else. Only you.

“What did my dad and Valerie tell you about us? About me and my brothers?” he asks, carefully running his finger over the edge of the photo.

“Just that we used to be family but we weren’t anymore. That it was safer that way.”

“Because of Maverick.”

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