Winter’s Edge (A Series of Sharp Edges #2)

Prologue

JACE

My grief stretches out before me like an endless sheet of ice, solid from the harshness of winter but thinning with the nearing of spring.

If I’m careful, intentionally placing each step as the ice creaks below me, I can cross over it.

I can make it to the other side without a single thought of him, but the slightest pressure, even a passing memory, is enough to cause a violent fracturing beneath me.

The fissure widens until I finally fall, and the unforgiving coldness of grief paralyzes me.

I’m left to drown in him until I wonder how I was ever on the surface at all.

Beyond my bedroom window, the winter wind howls a woeful hymn, rattling the thin glass in its fragile frame.

A branch occasionally scratches across the panes, adding a sharp shriek to the chorus of the storm.

There’s a sad solace in winter’s song, and I allow it to consume me, the melody the only thing strong enough to subdue the overwhelming heartache and loneliness threatening to tear me apart.

I only wish its tune wasn’t the same pitch as the crack of my voice during our final argument.

It whistles through the air like my wavering voice did as I begged him to stay.

“I’m sorry, Jace. There’s just some stuff I need to work out on my own.”

Cyrus has been gone for a year now. Coming back to my parents’ home was supposed to bring relief, but this place is a tomb.

The walls close in. intensifying the pressure inside my chest until it crushes the air from my lungs.

I’m supposed to be rebuilding, fitting the broken pieces inside me back together—without him.

Yet, I still search for him everywhere, in everything, hoping to see him strolling through the pasture towards the house, to spot a flicker of his face amongst strangers in town.

My eyes, raw from hours of crying myself into an unsettling calm, sting as I gaze out the window.

I wince through the pain, squinting as I struggle to see beyond the expanse of snow to where it melts in the distant dark.

Flurries of snowflakes swirl in discordant spirals until they join the thick blanket of white smothering anything lying beneath it.

I close my eyes, picturing myself stripping down before wandering uncovered into the frozen abyss.

As I take one fateful step after another, the cold burns my bare feet, leaving them scalded and red.

My face stings from the bitter chill until the skin goes numb, and I feel nothing at all.

I’m ready to submit myself to the constant call drawing me into the darkness.

The winter whispers to me, urging me to lie down and bury myself in the snow.

The crows will build a wreath of pine needles around my head, the earthy color of them the same as his hazel eyes.

All I have to do is fall asleep, drift away like snow on the wind, never to be tormented by thoughts of us again.

He said he was leaving to save me, but his absence is heavier to bear than his presence ever was.

“This will all make sense one day. I promise.”

Cyrus Gibson, once the only constant in my life, became consistent in his sudden and total nonexistence.

One day, he was there, smiling in our kitchen over our morning cup of coffee, and the next, he was gone, like he was never there at all.

I didn’t realize until then how deeply I’d stitched a piece of him inside me, too deep to just pull out.

With each passing day, I pulled on the loose ends he left until I became a tangled lump of string.

I don’t know how to put myself back together, how the pieces fit without him filling in the extra space.

In childhood, we were inseparable, bound together by our family’s secrets, ones he seemed to know better than I did.

Over time, our differences slowly became a canyon between us.

Our words lost all meaning as they traveled through the open space.

He wanted me to escape from our past, to stay in the city and forget.

He refused to divide the weight of our shared burdens, even as I cradled his face in my hands and begged him to confide in me and share the load.

Cyrus stood firm in his defiance, and then he left—no final words, no reasoning, just nothingness.

The door slams.

I press my forehead against the window, the cool glass soothing my clammy skin.

From the corner of my eye, I see a shadow move across the snow, slipping from tree to tree.

Fear slides over me, my muscles tensing as I wait for the shape to move again.

Part of me hopes it’s him watching me out in the dark.

At least I would know he’s alive, that I didn’t just make up that part of our lives.

When nothing else stirs outside other than the falling snow, I shake my head, squeezing my eyes shut.

It’s only exhaustion playing malicious tricks on me; nothing would walk around in this storm.

Just in case it is more than a figment of my tired mind, I hurry away from the window and dive towards my bed.

Even after I lie down, my pulse thrums in my ears, whooshing like waves of uncertainty washing over me.

The pumping of my broken heart reminds me of how incredibly painful it is to be alive.

I roll over and scream into my pillow as every raw emotion burns through me like acid, eroding my insides until I’m desperate to feel nothing at all.

Despair rips through my veins, ridding me of any chance at peace tonight.

Hopelessness sets in like the edge of winter chasing away the final days of fall until you’re certain you’ll never be warm again.

The turning of the seasons is inevitable, and change is inescapable.

I need to accept the sharp edges of life before every part of me becomes dull.

I just pray I don’t bleed out in the process.