Page 1 of Breaking You Open

Prologue

Sparrow

I was fourteen thefirst time it happened.

I’d just moved into a new foster home—the latest in a line of many and one I hoped I wouldn’t have to leave in a while. I hated moving, but this time, I was glad to move. The twin boys in my last foster home would never stop teasing me—they used to pull my hair, steal my stuff, call me names. They used to wrestle me down on the couch and spit in my face.

I held no illusions that this foster home would be different, but I hoped. I always hoped.

The first morning in my new home, Madame Sylvie poured me a glass of OJ before she hurried off to work. Straight from the cupboard, it tasted lukewarm and overly sweet.

A boy emerged from the hallway. A boy with short blond hair and the lightest eyes I’d ever seen. Green? Blue? Gray? I couldn’t tell, and I tried not to stare as he took in the sight of me.

“You’re the new one, huh?” He had a broadness to his shoulders and a sharpness to his face that I had yet to achieve. I knew I looked young for my age, but maybe he looked old for his. Still, he couldn’t have been more than a year or two my senior.

“Y-Yes,” I said, cursing my voice for the stutter I’d tried my damnedest to get rid of.

The boy’s sharp features grew attentive as he sat down at the opposite end of the table and tilted his head. “Don’t worry, you’ll like it here. Madame isn’t so bad, but she’s particular with her stuff, like the dishes and the bed, so don’t do anything until I’ve shown you how, okay?”

“Okay.”

“I’m Aaron.” He held out a hand, and I took it. When I didn’t immediately reply with my own name, he raised a brow. “And yours?”

“Sam,” I blurted out, too distracted by the feeling of his skin on mine.

Not letting go of my hand, he stroked the roof of it with his thumb. “Whoa, your hand is so soft,” he said with a chuckle. “And your hair is so long, like a girl’s.”

“I-I’m not a girl.”

His forceful grip on my hand tightened as he yanked me further over the table and reached to stroke my shoulder-length brown hair, fingers sliding over my scalp. “Have you always had hair like this?”

“I wasn’t born with it, no,” I said, a suspicious tone to my voice. People always commented on my hair but never in positive terms.

Aaron just smiled at me, his freakishly light eyes searching all over my face. No one had ever looked at me in that way. I didn’t know if it was flattering or unsettling, but I didn’t care.

When he let go of my hand, I smiled back at him, and a strange warmth filled my chest.

In the following weeks, Aaron showed me everything—from how to make the bed, to how to wash the dishes, to how to talk to Madame to avoid her wrath. He told me about the other children in the foster home: little Anna, who was mute, and Holden, who kept to himself a lot, as he was almost eighteen and was soon to move out.

Most of the time, Aaron and I were alone in the house, except for when he had friends over. I’d stand in the doorway and gaze longingly at him as they played video games, too shy to ask if I could join.

At dinnertime, I’d almost forget to eat my food, too busy sneaking little glances at Aaron between bites.

I tried to make a joke once—a pitiful attempt really—but Aaron threw his head back and laughed with abandon. I smiled up at him, a giddy surge in my chest that was wholly new. A strange feeling but a wonderful one. When he was done laughing, he lifted his hand to stroke my hair. Eyes glittering, he twined a lock between his fingers, knuckles brushing my heated cheeks.

We shared a room with Holden, who stayed at his girlfriend’s house more often than not. At night, I lay awake, smiling into the pillow while my heart raced in my chest.

I had no idea what was happening to me; all I knew was that it felt good, and feeling good was a welcome rarity.

One day, I took an afternoon bath. The house was eerily quiet, and I leaned my head back against the porcelain with a sigh.

“Sam?” The knock on the bathroom door nearly made me jump out of my skin. “Is that you?”

Aaron’s voice. I relaxed somewhat because unlike the other foster kids (who ignored me), my classmates (who teased me), and Madame (who merely tolerated me), Aaron had always been nice to me so far. Too nice. The kind of nice that made heat rise to my cheeks and my heart beat wildly in my chest.

“Yeah, it’s me,” I called back.

Before I had time to say anything else, the door opened, and Aaron stepped inside.

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