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we have known what Dad was doing earlier? Are we being punished because we were blind?”
    Another curse. Maddox doesn’t move, doesn’t wrap an arm around me. “None of it’s your fault, Laney. You were just a kid.”
    “You too,” I point out, but he chooses to ignore that.
    After a pause, he asks, “Did meeting him make you realize this is a shitty idea? That it’s not going to change anything?”
    “I don’t know… maybe… probably… I don’t know.”
    He chuckles. “Typical woman. Doesn’t know what she wants.”
    That makes me hit him again before I stand up. “Who knows? I don’t know what I want, remember? I don’t want to hurt him. I don’t want to hurt anyone, but… we’re all tied in this together. Maybe there’s a way we can help each other? I keep thinking of his sister. How much she misses him. What if there’s a way we can help? What if we can bring them back together?” The truth is, I couldn’t imagine being in this without Maddox. Adrian and Angel need each other like we do.
    “You can help, Laney. Not me. My only concern is my family.” His cigarette has almost burned to the end now, but he takes a drag anyway before stubbing it out.
    I want to tell him Mom’s family also, not just me, but I don’t. I’m not in the mood to fight with him today. “I’m not sure what to do, but I’m not ready to leave.” And then I add, “I just want everything to be okay.”
    Maddox stands and shakes his head at me. “You’re too much of an optimistic, little sister. We’ve gone too far for everything to be okay.” He walks into the apartment, leaving me to stand there alone.

Chapter Five
~Adrian~
    I have no idea what the hell I was thinking when I left my poem at the table. It feels like a slipup. No, more like I took a razor to my skin, like I cut myself open and left a small piece of myself behind for her. I don’t do shit like that, but seeing Angel at Ashton’s grave not long before that, plus the girl at the party with his nickname—maybe I hadn’t needed to cut myself open at all. Maybe they’d already done it for me and I was open and raw when I went in.
    Maybe I had no choice but to leave that piece of me there.
    Or it might be the ghosts in her eyes. The dark shadows that lurk there and make me wonder what’s chasing her when the lights go out.
    Hell, I might just need to let laid. No matter how I look at it, she’s gorgeous and I want her.
    Whatever the reason is, I don’t like it. Don’t like giving people a glimpse inside me to see what lives there.
    Even when it was Angel who found some of my shit and read it, I felt under the microscope. Like a rat that people study. When I was young, I was the quiet kid who didn’t talk but left his heart on paper. Now she’ll see me as the flirtatious, fucked-up guy with a hidden depth that’s not really there. It’s nothing but an optical illusion.
    Smoke curls around my living room like a dense fog. I haven’t done anything but sit on the couch since I kicked everyone out of my place today.
    The blinds and windows are all closed, so it’s almost like it’s nighttime, even though the sun has been up for hours.
    My head hurts, but I haven’t taken anything. Don’t like all that unnatural shit in my body, which some people think is ironic since I medicate in a completely different way every day.
    Pushing to my feet, I see the paper on the table this morning. My hand itches to grab it like I’m still back in that sea-colored diner and still have a chance to keep that one smoke screen in place. I think of her curves and her eyes and that little black mark painted on her face.
    I have to fix this. Pull that mask on tight to make up for the glimpse I left behind. It’s not like it won’t be fun. Even through all the fucked-up feelings that swam through my head when I saw her this morning, I still felt the burn of her beneath my skin. The part of me who sees a challenge and wants to overcome it. I want to turn her into a