Page 114 of The Wrong Heart

Melody catches my eye beside Amelia, our gazes locking for a striking moment. Her warm, sunny smile entices my own, and I realize we’re just sitting there, smiling stupidly at each other from a few feet away.

When I bring my eyes back to Amelia, her own smile greets me, and she says, “I’m glad you got your happy ending.”

A deep-rooted part of me wants to say something scathing, to repel her kind words with barbs and steel. But I don’t because a bigger part of me doesn’t want to do that at all. A bigger part of me feels like a total jackass for adding to her heavy weights and despair with my snide remarks and apathy. My teeth gnash together as I duck my chin to my chest. “I, uh… I’m sorry for being a dick to you. I know that doesn’t mean much, and I’m not really good at this nice-guy shit, but for what it’s worth…” I lift my eyes, straining my jaw. “For what it’s worth, you’re actually kind of cool, and I know you’ll have a lot of stories to tell someday. Good stories—not the bloody kind.”

“I like the bloody kind.” Her grin broadens, a metal retainer and silver lip ring gleaming back at me. “But thank you for that. I won’t forget it.”

I send her a curt nod, feeling mildly uncomfortable with my foray into sensitivity. But it also feels sort of…good.

Ms. Katherine interrupts our weird bonding moment, turning her attention to Amelia while she clings to her leather-bound journal. A soft expression decorates her made-up face, and she bobs her head with encouragement. “Why don’t you finish off the starting points for today, Amelia.”

Amelia twists the hem of her dark lace dress, sending me a final smile of gratitude before facing Ms. Katherine. She breathes out a contented sigh. “My hamster, Nutmeg.”

—TWENTY-SEVEN—

“My hamster, Nutmeg.”

The room fills with Amelia’s willowy voice, her familiar response causing a smile to tip on my mouth. She really loves that hamster.

Parker’s vulnerable words to the troubled teen gallop through my mind as I straighten in the plastic chair, my head shifting left to peek a glance at him. His expression mirrors his stance, a little rigid and contemplative, lost in thought. Pensive. He’d apologized to Amelia only moments ago, releasing his burden of casual disregard to the girl with a beautiful old soul and ugly stories on her skin. My heart warmed.

Parker is changing, evolving before my eyes, and the hardened man I’d been drawn to for reasons unexplained is slowly cracking, his shell disintegrating little by little. I spent a lot of time studying him, trying to learn him, taking notes—he carried his pain so well, and I was desperate to know his secrets.

But his pain was never tempered.

It was buried.

He was a master at hiding, camouflaging in the dark, and if I’ve learned anything over the past year, it’s that there is no healing in the shadows. Parker’s graveyard of broken bones is breaching the surface, coming up for air, while golden shafts of sunlight rupture through the soil.

He called me a revolution that night in my rain-soaked backyard beneath angry clouds and black skies, and I’d been offended at the time. It sounded like an insult—anarchy, riots, disorder.

But maybe he didn’t mean it like that at all.

Maybe I’m…reform.

Maybe I’m those glimmering sunbeams, eager to reach beyond the dirt and warm the cold, hollow remains underneath.

His confession slices through me as I study him. His past. His horrible, horrible past. Parker gave me a gift on his couch one week ago, and it was more than just his first kiss. It was more than his body molding into me, moving with me in perfect time, as his palms cradled my face like I was truly special to him.

He gave me his trust.

And as I watch him from my perch in the red chair with Ms. Katherine’s voice posing as a comforting score to my musings, I know that I’m falling for him, too.

Parker finally feels the heat of my stare, lifting his chin and meeting my thoughtful gaze from around Amelia. They blaze into mine, flickering green, and visions of my backseat grip me in a hot hold.

My thighs clench.

I wonder if he knows what I’m thinking about because his lips turn up, another smile surfacing. It’s a smile that evaded me for months, one I craved to witness, to experience for myself, and now it’s mine. It’s just another offering of trust he’s given to me.

I promise to keep that smile safe.

Smiling back, I duck my head, trying not to be ambushed by images of working Parker to oblivion with my mouth while I’m sitting in the middle of a suicide prevention meeting.

The class ends a short while later with Ms. Katherine issuing us her parting words. I’m not exactly sure where to go from here, considering the only time Parker and I really see each other is at these meetings. His communication leaves a little to be desired, and I understand why now, but there is already a part of me that’s yearning for more—a part that’s desperate to run with the connection we’ve been building, to keep it blooming and growing.

I want to water it, so it never wilts.

Knowing that will likely take initiative on my end, I rise from my chair, only to be hindered by Amelia.

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