Glass Wings (Criminally Yours #2)

Prologue

Dear Easton,

I never realized it, but I was at my lowest when we started writing. Everything that could go wrong in my life did. I had no relationship worth fighting for, my parents were in and out of my life, Kennedy and I never seemed to click, no guy ever gave me a second look … and then there was you.

I don’t think you know how lost I was back then. I was carrying so much pain, disappointment, and silence. I was drowning in my own insecurities every time I looked in a mirror, the voices in my head screaming every reason why no one wanted me. I so desperately wanted to be perfect until you.

I built walls around myself so high that even I started to believe no one could reach me.

I was living in survival mode without even knowing.

I thought I was living, but you showed me otherwise.

I was tired of pretending to be okay, tired of feeling like I had to be strong when I was falling apart inside.

And then there was you, a man who couldn’t see me.

Regardless of whether you wanted to write to me every month, you had to.

I was your ticket to freedom. Your Little Bird.

But Easton, you were my ticket to freedom, too. You broke the cage around me, turned the walls that surrounded me to glass, and with each and every letter you cracked that glass, until it finally shattered and gave me my own wings. Fragile, yet perfect.

You were unexpected, calm, and real. You never asked me to explain myself, you never pushed me to open up or pretend like you had all the answers.

Once you were released, you stayed when no one else had, when nothing was tying you to me.

You listened. You paid attention to the little things, the quiet changes in my voice, the way I pulled away when I didn’t want to be seen.

You didn’t see my eating disorder as a blackness that tainted me; you didn’t run or yell. Instead, you found help.

During a year of letters, we fell for each other without ever seeing what the other looked like.

Without forcing anything, you reminded me that I was still worth something.

That I wasn’t invisible even though everyone in my life had treated me as such.

That someone could still look at me and see more than the mess I felt like I had become.

You made me feel safe in a way I hadn’t ever felt before.

And you did it just by being you, steady, honest, and present.

You didn’t try to change me; you embraced my different colored eyes, which had always been my biggest insecurity, as if it were the prettiest thing about me.

The thing that made me a constant target for bullying in school, the one thing that made me different, you loved.

You gave me space to be vulnerable without making me feel weak. And slowly, I started to believe in myself again. Not because you told me to, but because your presence made me want to try.

But just when everything finally felt stable around me, when I had shared every secret that I had locked away, you were the one who had deceived me.

You were the one hiding the biggest secret.

A secret that you got right back into the place you hated most. A place far away from me. I’ve never seen someone possess so much rage and anger. It scared me in ways I never thought. Not you … not my Easton.

Now I’m left to pick up the pieces, to rebuild my walls. Except this time, it’s not just me I have to protect.

I’m pregnant.

And I don’t think I will ever be able to forgive you for landing yourself back in prison.

You promised you’d never leave me, that nothing could come between us, and yet, here we are.

Harley