Page 43 of Age of Shade

Lindsey has to be wrong. It must be years since she’s seen Allison… She’s remembering wrong. There’s no way.

But almost as soon as I’ve dismissed it, I realize I can’t.

Adina’s late nights working, the scent of cleaners in her hair, the things she’s told me about her past… It fits. I don’t want it to, but my personal feelings don’t change the facts. Like it or not, and as ugly as it is to admit, I know frighteningly little about the woman I’ve fallen in love with. The first night we slept together, I’d known there was more to the story. When she hadn’tcontinued, though, I wrote it off as being too much for her. I was so blinded by my feelings, so horrified by what she’d told me and simultaneously thrilled that she’d finally opened up…

It’s kept me up for years, the memory of that stoic girl with her beaten face, totally prepared to die in the cold. I’d felt confident that what I did to help her was enough and that she would move on to bigger and better things. The notes she’d left me, the little hints she’s been doing better—my stomach churns—that she was in college now.

Swallowing back the bitter taste of bile, I turn, looking frantically to the door of the closet where I’ve let Allison store her things. Never in the three years she’s been here have I been tempted to invade her privacy. Now, though… I push off the desk, moving forward, even as my mind remains scrambling to find a way around all this.

Lindsey was wrong.Iam wrong. This is a bizarre coincidence, it has to be, because the alternative... I’m not sure I could live with myself.

My chest is tight as I open the door, staring down at the lime-green bin pushed neatly off in the corner. Dropping to my knees, I drag it toward me. It’s not heavy or particularly large, yet my muscles protest with the effort it takes to lift the lid.

Before I’ve even glimpsed the contents, Iknow.

The scent of honey and wildflowers assaults my senses, an indisputable, agonizing confirmation of what Lindsey revealed. Was it only a few minutes ago that she stormed out of here? It feels like hours have passed, days even. Yet again, Adina Collier has turned my life upside down, and this time… I press my hand to my mouth, shuddering as the lid clatters to the ground beside me.

The contents of the box are neatly organized. A plastic bag of what must be laundry is shoved in the furthest corner, beside another of neatly folded clean clothes. There are tiny bottlesof travel shampoo, a toothbrush and toothpaste, a few college textbooks, and a phone charger. An entire life, crammed into a fucking box.

Numbly, I reach out to touch the T-shirt on top of the pile of clothing. It’s worn and faded with age, with a small hole just below the neckline from when I caught it on a lamp while moving. The same one I dressed her in that very first morning at The Witt.

My eyes catch on the one item which seems unessential: a small, stained-glass box. It’s resting neatly atop the textbooks, as though she opens it regularly. Knowing that what I find in it couldn’t possibly make me feel more terrible than I do already, I open that too.

Notes.

Hundreds of notes, all in my handwriting. They are, by the look of it, every single word I’ve ever written to Allison.

Not Allison—Adina—because of course she would have signed that first note with a fake name. She’d run away before and was taken back, wasn’t she? There’s no way she would have risked it again.

Which means that my angel, the woman I love, has been sleeping on a fucking couch for three years. She’s been scrubbing the fucking toilets at my practice, then dragging herself back across town to sleep in my arms. She’s been storing everything she owns in a plastic tote bin, shoved in the back of my closet. All while I slept soundly, feelinggoodabout what I did for Allison.

Now—fuck—the horrible things I’d imagined about her former life aren’t imagined anymore. I saw evidence of them three years ago. With my own eyes, I saw her bruises, her brutally cut hair, and the cold, grim acceptance with which she faced almost certain death.

The noise I make is like that of a wounded animal, and I stumble back to my feet, trying to put as much distanceas possible between myself and the box. Like if I can’t see the evidence, I’ll be able to deny what I already know. It’s impossible. Every second that passes only brings more questions and horrible realizations.

It all fits. From that first night at The Witt, I felt drawn to her, like we’d known each other for a long time—because we have. Allison was my friend long before Adina became my lover.

How could she not have told me?

CHAPTER NINETEEN

ADINA

It takes an extra-large coffee, one mental pep talk, and an accidental nap on the subway to get me to Asher’s practice tonight.

I’m so tired, my whole body hurts, and my vision is starting to do that weird buzzy thing around the edges. Apparently, adding ‘girlfriend’ to my schedule hasn’t helped the whole sleep-deprivation situation. Though sleeping in Asher’s bed has been way better than the couch in his office, and cutting out showering at the gym has helped a bit. Even my academic standards have slipped a little in the past few weeks. I’m doing well, nothing to be concerned about, but I’m not circling every extra credit assignment like a fish going after a worm.

Ruby, who definitely knows I’m still seeing Asher but refuses to acknowledge it in any way, claims I have “senior slack-off syndrome,” and she’s not wrong. I’ve never been one of those people who loves school—it has always been a means to an end—and now that the end is nearly reached… Well, I’m out and excited to never open another textbook for the rest of my life.

My distraction isn’t just due to “senior slack- off syndrome,” though.Not today. Instead of taking notes in my trauma psychology course, I spent the entire seminar writing out a speech to Asher, confessing that I’m Allison. By the end, I hadsomething I wasalmosthappy with. Obviously, I’m not going to stand there reading it in front of him, but hopefully I can at least look it over one more time before getting to his apartment tonight. Because Iwillbe telling him tonight. No more excuses. No more putting it off.

I have no idea how he’s going to react, and I’m still not sure if it would have been better to have told him at the start of this. It would have been easier to write this off as a wild coincidence, maybe, but if I’d done that, would he have fallen in love with me? Or would he have always seen me as poor runaway Allison, curled up beside the trash bins?

I thought he’d wanted something casual, and thought if that was all of him I could get, then I’d better take it. After all, my feelings for Asher go back so much further than his feelings for me. It was so selfish, but I’ve never wanted anything more than I wanted him. I think a part of me hoped that if this romance business didn’t work out, at least I’d still have him as a friend.

He’ll understand. He might be angry, but…God. I hope he understands.

It’s almost nine at night by the time I make it down the deserted street where Asher and I first met. I’ve spent so much time here over the last few years that this neighborhood is more familiar to me than anywhere else on Earth. I don’t even have to take my keys out of my pocket to find the one I need, slightly longer than the few others, and it turns easily in the practice’s door. Everything about this is routine, but as I move to disarm the alarm system, I still.

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