Page 100 of Promise Me Sunshine

“Are you still devastated over Anders?” I ask bluntly.

He blinks. His eyes narrow. “You saw the bedroom, didn’t you?”

I shrug and nod.

He lets out a long sigh. “I should have warned you. I know what that looks like.”

“It looks like a shrine.”

He considers this and then nods reluctantly. “I had to face the rest of the house because Ilivedin it, you know? And I moved into the large bedroom. So I eventually went through all my mom’s stuff. But that room? I don’t know.”

I consider this for a while. “You don’t really talk about Anders.”

Miles closes his eyes and when he opens them, he’s looking straight through the fire, seeing a different life. “Anders was…”

“Your Lou?”

His smile is quick and gone. “No. Sort of. We weren’t best friends. I was five years older than him. When he came to live with us I became…the big brother.”

His voice goes hoarse on the last two words and Miles drops his forehead to his arm and silently cries. Just like that. Open wide.

He hides.

No, he doesn’t.

He needs a gentle touch.

No, he doesn’t.

I crawl over to him and plop my head onto his back, right over our wolf, ear to his ribs. I listen to his crying through the drum of his chest. It doesn’t last for too long. He scrubs a hand over his face and takes deep breaths that balloon my head toward heaven and then back to earth.

“He was so young. Just eighteen. It’s so fucking fucked up that he died,” Miles says simply.

“It tore your heart out.”

“It was hard to know what the point of living was without them. But…I wanted to. Keep living. So I did.”

I give his back some pats and then sit up and do a very comprehensive two-hand back scratch. He grumbles low in his chest and drops his head to one side. His eyes are closed and his eyelashes are wet.

“I like hearing about them, Miles. When you’re thinking about them, you can tell me.”

His eyes flutter open and land on my bare feet next to his shoulder. He unfolds one hand and flicks my big toe. “Okay.”

It’s a one-word promise that he’s just made.

We sit like that for a long time.

Miles gets up and fiddles with the fire. “You must be exhausted after all that too.”

I yawn and stretch and then curl up tight. “It’s definitely been a social few days.”

He smirks over his shoulder at me. “You love a social day. You’re a butterfly.”

I scowl. “Am not.”

“Oh, please. You’re incredibly socially gifted.”

“Oh, fine. Maybe you’re right. But it’s all so much more exhausting than it used to be. Plus, these days I get nervous. I didn’t use to get nervous all the time.”

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