Seconds ticked on, the wind howling.
His grip never loosened.
“I wasn’t going to give you a hope for a future that I can’t guarantee. Put you in danger and make promises I couldn’t keep. I did that once before, and I won’t do it again.”
I tried to force the armor around my heart to stay locked tight, but each word he spoke pried it apart. West was offering me the future I’d been scraping at. Out of Crowne Point. Away for good.
“Is there hope now, Grayson?” I whispered.
His jaw was clenched so tight the muscle popped.
Then he nodded, so slowly I wondered if he didn’t want me to know.
It burned my chest.
“Your family will never accept me, Grayson. They’d rather kill me. We just keep knotting the thread further and further. There’s no hope for us, Grayson. None at all.”
“Don’t say that.”
“You fought. You fought so hard. It doesn’t matter. No matter what we do, we’ll never be together.”
Even though I knew, deep in my marrow, Grayson and I wouldn’t be together, there was still this part of me that wouldn’t stop poking at the idea. It was a dream and a hope. You can’t shake those, they exist like their own shards of glass, cutting you with the image of happiness.
But now I finally saw.
It would never happen.
Ever.
I fumbled with the locket at my neck. Ready to open and end this thing between us once and for all, when his hand came to mine.
“Stop.”
My eyelids burned. “Let go of my hands.”
“We’re almost there, Snitch.”
“We’ll always be almost there, Grayson. Don’t you see?”
“I know you don’t trust me.” He spoke like the words were smoke burning his chest. “I’m your shard of glass now.”
He thumbed a tear at my cheek that I didn’t realize had fallen.
I wished I could tell him otherwise, but he was right.
“But we’re almost there, little nun.”
GRAY
* * *
Later that night, as the sun set on the ocean, I gripped the papers in my hand until they wrinkled. I could be a hero for my family, or I could be a good man for Snitch.
But I couldn’t be both.
“Grayson?”
I lifted my head at Lottie’s soft voice. She held her left arm with her right hand, her silk pajamas wrinkled. She looked like she’d had less sleep than me.