Page 60 of Pierce Me

Manuela: Send me pics. And be careful.

Eden: I will.

Eden: Don’t teach dad to text while I’m gone, ok?

Manuela: Oh, great idea! Maybe that will calm him down. A text every minute, that’ll do it.

Eden: You suck so bad, Manu.

Manuela: That’s my job as a big sister. To suck.

Manuela: Hey, En? You still here?

Eden: Yeah.

Manuela: Is there something you’re not telling me?

Eden: Of course not. Talk soon. Bye, Manu. x

twelve

It’s not a servant girl, I think fiercely.It’s Eden.

Eden.

Eden Persuasion Elliot. Yep, her second name is Persuasion. I know she’s self-conscious about her name being ‘weird’, but I think it’s brilliant. A unique name for a one-of-a-kind girl. She told me that her dad used to call her ‘Pet’ but she got mad the one time I tried to do the same, so I stopped.

Eden Persuasion Elliot.

How do I know her full name?

Because it’s her.

It hits me like a punch in the gut. It’s her, beyond any doubt.

The coil of fear in my gut tells me all I need to know. She jumps and I watch her slender body arch in the air, my heart stopping and starting again in slow-motion as she falls and falls and falls.

I was such an idiot to try to deny it was her. Of course I recognized her. I’d have known her anywhere. You never forget a single detail of the girl your soul belongs to.

And as I see her flying through the air and plunging into the deep, green water below, I know something else too: I never stopped caring for her, in spite of everything she did.

I know this, because I don’t finish ripping my jacket off. I don’t take off my shoes. I leap after her over the cliff, blindly, my body in motion before my brain has given the order. I don’t wait to see where she lands, I don’t wait to see if she’s ok.

I jump after her.

I jump in after her, it’s that simple.

I freefall over the water, my body slicing through nothing but mist and cool air, and I know with sudden clarity that I thought it was all a lie.

I never got over her. I never forgot one single heartbeat.

The moment I see her jump, it all comes rushing back, piercing me through.

I thought I had made myself cold, unfeeling, unattached. I thought I was too hard to hurt. But here I am, heart in my mouth, hurtling through the air to get to her.

And as I fall, I know it’s true: I’d die for her.

All over again.

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