Prologue #2
“Mom’s... barely there anymore. Pills. Booze.
Some days I walk in, and she doesn’t even know who I am.
” The confession landed like a punch, but his voice stayed steady, practiced.
Like he’d repeated these lines in his mind so many times they’d gone numb.
“I’m scared to leave my sister alone with her,” he adds, softer.
“She’s just a kid, Berk. She didn’t ask for any of this. ”
My heart cracked clean down the center. For him.
For his sister. For everything they’d been forced to carry.
After our mothers died in that crash, the only adult woman left in our small world—Becca Blackthorne—drowned under the grief she couldn’t outrun.
Pills became her escape. Vodka, her refuge.
Now she wasn’t just lost to herself... she was slipping away from her children too.
That reality stung the deepest. Because this wasn’t only Emerson’s pain—it was a wound that kept spreading.
“Em,” I whisper, finally turning toward him. “You don’t deserve any of this. Neither does she. Have you talked to your dad?”
The shift in him was instant.
His eyes darken—like storm clouds gathering without warning. Something sharp and dangerous flashes across his expression, and for a heartbeat, he doesn’t look like the Emerson I know. He looks like armor. Steel. Panic crafted into a mask.
“Don’t repeat anything we talk about,” he says, voice low and cutting through the night. “To anyone. Especially my father. I mean it, Berk. Promise me.”
My pulse leaps, nerves tightening in my throat. I nod fast, chest thundering. “Of course, Emerson. I’ve always kept your words private. I’d never share them. Not ever.”
A shadow of guilt flickers in his eyes—and it guts me.
Not because he’s upset. But because I can see how much he hides. How much he seals behind that calm voice and those haunted eyes. How he packs the worst pieces of his life into a box he never lets anyone open.
He carries more than anyone should, and somehow, he’s still standing.
“It’s my job to protect her,” he murmurs, “and you.”
There’s no bitterness in the admission. No resentment. Just a bone-deep certainty, like it’s stitched into the fabric of who he is. Like taking care of everyone else is the only thing keeping him from falling apart.
I want to say something—to tell him he doesn’t have to shoulder it alone—but the words tangle and die before they reach my lips.
Nothing I could say feels big enough to meet the weight of what he’s carrying.
No comfort. No solution. Only the ache of realizing that while the rest of us laughed and lived like everything was normal, he’s been sinking alone.
His gaze shifts again—softening and sharpening in the same breath.
“You’re the only place I feel normal, Berk.” His voice is barely above a whisper, like the admission might disappear if spoken too loud. “When I’m with you, I remember how to breathe. Like I’m not drowning all the time.”
My heart stumbles. Not in a sweet, fluttery way—but in a way that feels raw, cracked open, too real to hide from.
He reaches for my hand, slow and sure, as if he’s rehearsed this moment in his mind a thousand times but never dared to touch it. His fingers slip between mine, warm and steady, carrying all the unsaid things he’s never been able to voice.
I don’t pull away. I don’t even breathe. It feels too fragile—like one wrong breath could break whatever thread has finally stretched between us. So, I hold his hand, letting the quiet wrap around us, speaking for both of us.
For a long moment, we stand there in the shadows behind the community center, surrounded by the ghosts of childhood games and whispered secrets. Except now, the secrets are heavier, and childhood is long gone.
“I don’t want to lose this,” he whispers at last, voice sandpapered. “But I don’t know how to keep it either.”
I squeeze his hand once—gentle, steady. I don’t have an answer. Not yet. But I stay. And sometimes staying says everything that words can’t.
A few days later, I’m walking the familiar wooded trail behind the Calder house.
Golden hour light filters through the branches, streaking the world in warm honey, and my chest loosens when I spot Ronan by the creek.
He’s perched on a mossy log, tossing pebbles into the water, humming off-key.
When he hears my footsteps, he lifts his head—and his entire face brightens like I’ve stepped into his sun.
“There you are,” he says, as if it’s the most natural greeting in the world.
“Here I am,” I reply. No deflection. No sarcasm. Just truth.
He holds out a tiny wildflower he must’ve picked moments ago. He always does this—bringing me bits of the world like they’re gifts only I’m meant to receive. It’s soft. Innocent. Perfectly Ronan.
“You show up right when I need you,” he says as I settle beside him on the log.
“Maybe we just have good timing,” I tease, nudging his knee lightly.
He laughs, but his eyes carry a quiet weight. A softness threaded with something sad. “I hate that we all had to grow up so fast,” he murmurs. “But I’m glad we did it together. I’m glad you stayed.”
I look at him, wind brushing my hair across my cheek. “Where else would I go?”
When he takes my hand—no hesitation, no fear—it feels different than with Emerson or Rowen. Not less. Just its own kind of real. Warm. Gentle. Hopeful.
We sit there with our fingers twined, watching the water glide past, hearts slowly syncing to the same quiet rhythm. And once again, words aren’t necessary.
Because he knows. They all do. And the truth humming beneath my ribs becomes impossible to ignore.
I love him.
I love them.
Every one of them.
But the realization doesn’t clarify anything—it blurs everything even more. Because love isn’t supposed to feel like this. Like joy, guilt, longing, and fear tangled into one impossible knot.
It feels like betrayal.
Not to them.
To Reign. To the delicate bond the four of us share—one I’ve been terrified of shattering.
I don’t want to choose. I can’t.
Choosing one would carve pieces away from the others. From me.
So, I do what I’ve always done.
I smile. Just enough to convince them I’m fine. That everything between us is still whole.
And then I shove my feelings back down.
Bury them deep enough they stop clawing at the surface.
Pretending is safer than risking everything.
At least, it was—until Reign absolutely lost it at the lake the next weekend.
We’d gathered at our usual spot by the water, the sun dipping low and painting the world in molten gold, like we’d stumbled into a living postcard.
It was one of those perfect late-summer evenings where the air tasted like bonfires and whatever fruit punch Ronan had irresponsibly spiked with something mysterious he’d found in the back of his dad’s liquor cabinet.
Everyone was laughing—loud, loose, fearless. The kind of carefree happiness that made secrets feel unbearably heavy. Like they were waiting for the right moment to fall. And fall they did.
Reign shot to her feet—full resurrection energy—right in the middle of the group, arms thrown wide like she was Moses parting the Red Sea, except she was wearing cutoff shorts and a tank top with a cartoon taco on it. Her face was lit with a wild grin, eyes blazing with theatrical fury.
“Enough!” she shouts, as if she were about to give a TED Talk on Emotional Avoidance.
Every single person froze mid-laugh, mid-sip, mid-questionable life choice.
The only movement came from the wind stirring the trees, like even nature knew we were seconds away from emotional carnage.
Reign turned in a slow, dramatic circle—arms still raised—as if she were either blessing us or calling down a curse. Honestly, it could’ve gone either way.
“What are we doing?” she demands. “Tiptoeing around each other like we’re not stuck in some weird romantic sitcom that refuses to admit it’s a love story?”
Silence. Absolute silence.
Ronan blinked down at his cup, squinting like he wasn’t sure if this was actually happening or if the spiked punch was hitting harder than expected.
“Just say it!” Reign continued, voice echoing over the lake. “Say you love her! Say you all love each other! I’m so tired of pretending we don’t notice. There is more unresolved tension in this friend group than a bad fanfiction.”
I almost laugh—really, I did—until I realized every single pair of eyes had shifted to me.
Rowen, steady and grounding.
Ronan, hopeful and open.
Emerson... unreadable but burning all the same.
And suddenly, I couldn’t breathe.
My heart shot into my throat, and my brain short-circuited. If someone had handed me a fire alarm, I would’ve pulled it just to create chaos and disappear into it.
So naturally, I did the only thing that made absolutely zero sense.
I ran.
Yup—just turned and bolted. No explanation. No monologue. Just pure, unfiltered flight response, like someone had yelled “bear!” instead of “feelings!” I think Ronan called after me, but it was hard to tell over the sound of my own mortification.
And let me tell you—dramatically sprinting into the woods at sunset? Not nearly as poetic as movies make it seem. I tripped over a root, got smacked in the face by a rogue branch, and I’m positive I traumatized a raccoon who did not sign up for my emotional meltdown.
I didn’t sleep that night. I lay in bed like a useless slug, staring at the ceiling while my brain replayed every agonizing second on a loop—like it had turned the total disaster into a musical. A painfully awkward, spotlight-on-my-humiliation musical.
They loved me.
That much was undeniable.
And I loved them—every tangled, beautiful, impossible piece of them.
But what do you do with a love that doesn’t fit the mold? One that refuses to stay in its lane. A love that shatters every unspoken rule and builds new ones you’re terrified to follow.
I still don’t have the answer.
But for the first time, I think I’m ready to ask the question.
Because this?
This is where the real story begins.