Page 106 of Forget Me Not

“Ask me a question. I’ll answer.”

He looks like he really doesn’t want to, but there’s something like grim resolve in his eyes. Like he’s kept these secrets for so long that now, he has to tell someone.

Perhaps, telling me will help him. Someone he’ll never see again, so he won’t have to worry about my reaction.

That’s how I felt after Jack died. I felt like if I told anyone what was really going on between us, everyone would judge me for who I was and not who I am.

“How did you get the scars on your back?”

It may be a tough question to start with, but seeing them made something dark and possessive curdle in my stomach I’m not accustomed to. Like I could find the person that did it and make them pay for what they did.

Even if I know I can’t.

“I was in foster care. One of the family’s was different about their punishments.”

Wetness burns behind my eyes, knowing what those scars mean, but I force them back. If I show him I care, he’ll run. He’ll get angry, storm out, like he normally does.

“What did they use?”

His jaw feathers, and his eyes harden.

“Switches. Tree branches they used to make us cut off ourselves, so they could whip us when we did shit they didn’t like.”

“That’s terrible.”

“That’s what some people do,” he murmurs.

“It’s not right.”

“I’m not saying it is, but I can’t change it. No use thinking about it, now.”

A tear slips down my cheek and I hope to God he doesn’t see it before it hits the pillow below me, but of course, he does, watching its path like it’s personally harming him.

“Don’t cry for me.”

“I’m not,” I grumble, forcefully wiping the tears out of my eyes. Sitting up in bed, I pull the covers tighter around myself, as if I can shut the tears up with the warmth from the blanket. “I’m crying for the boy you were when they happened,” I murmur. “I’m crying because people can be so cruel in this world. And I’m crying because children deserve better than what we give them half the time.”

I feel the weight shift on the bed and then the hardness of his chest pressed into my back.

“Some people shouldn’t be parents, Nova. Some people don’t deserve the punishments they were given. Others do.”

I jerk around to stare at him, a line forming between my brows. “Are you saying you deserved this?”

I wait for his answer, but I can see he’s already shut down. He won’t tell me anything else tonight. Not with that cold and guarded look in his eyes.

“Little bird, it’s late. We need to get back before they come looking for you.”

The conversation Reid and I had about his scars stays heavily on my mind after our night at the Whitaker house. During class, I find myself looking out toward the ocean where I know he and Manto are out, working on the water to prepare for his departure in a couple weeks.

It’s . . . strange. How connected to him I feel after knowing him for just a month. Maybe it’s just because it’s something new. Puppy love. Or maybe it really is something deeper.

Twin flames can be disastrous. They come quick and sometimes, they leave just as fast. Where you can have many soulmates in life, you can only have one twin flame. One chance.

At least, that’s what I read on the internet.

I’ll admit, I was pissed at Reid for throwing my phone over the cliff last night, but now that it’s not blowing up while I’m trying to teach? It’s opened a whole new door to freedom, I didn’t know existed. He told me he would get me a new one, but now that I can breathe, I’m starting to regret ever having one in the first place. This must be what it’s like to truly live in the moment. No one can reach me whenever they want to. I’m not at any one’s beck and call.

I’m just free. Free to experience everything right in front of me.

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