In Your Head

Prologue

In the heart of Greenwood, the sun can feel like an illusion.

It’s warm golden rays too rare and fleeting to be substantial. So when those luminous tendrils do manage to break through the cloud cover and touch upon the mortals below, it’s magic. One of these beams of light shines down now, illuminating the girl’s slender form reclining against a log.

What is she reading?

I need to know if the same book resides in our library at home.

Is it Faulkner? Austen? Perhaps King? She certainly has the all-black clothing thing going on. Her style matches her cascade of ebony waves, dark eyes, and black rimmed glasses.

She is so fucking perfect.

I could stand among the towering cedars and watch her all day. Hell, I had done that—many times over the years when her family came to stay for the summer holiday.

As the book falls forward onto her chest, the embossed lettering sprawled across the cover comes into view: The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Entranced, I stride forward, out of the protection of the forest, moving like one of the long shadows shifting between the trees.

But then, I step perfectly across a brittle dried twig, snapping it and breaking the quiet spell of dusk.

The girl flutters her eyes open, turning to take me in. She lets out a gasp.

Deep pools of auburn scan me up and down, probably deciding whether to run. But she stays where she is, clutching the open book to her chest like a shield.

Then she whispers her very first words to me.

“Are you real?”

Shit. Am I real? Sometimes it is hard to tell.

I nod yes, as my feet stall in their approach. I don’t want to scare her off, and I have the distinct impression that she will bolt if given any reason.

“Are you going to hurt me?” she breathes out.

I shake my head back and forth, no.

The tension that furrows her brow relaxes, though she keeps her dark eyes pinned to mine. She sits upright and a small, golden charm bracelet shimmers on her delicate wrist.

A gift from a boyfriend perhaps? My blood boils at the thought.

“I’m Kat,” she offers.

“Zayn,” I reply. My first words to her.

She nods, vague recognition dawning across her beautiful face.

“You live by the Ruins, right? The old Bronwin Home.”

I nod again.

A loud whistle sounds out across the ravine.

“Shit,” she mouths, rising to collect her black sweater and book. “I’ve got to get home.”

Stay, I want to tell her. Want to beg her.

Instead, I bend down to pluck something from the ground near my feet. Moving toward her, I extend the offering. She holds out her hand, and I place the small, pink flower into her palm.

This close, I can see the lightest dusting of freckles across her nose and cheeks. “If you press it between the pages of your book, it will flatten and dry out. You can use it as a bookmark.”

Her eyes flit down to the rhododendron. A slow smile spreads across her lips. She nods, and placing the flower into her book, turns to leave.

I keep my eyes trained on her back until she has left the clearing and is well out of sight. A surge of pleasure swoops low in my belly that she took something I gave her.

Maybe she had taken a piece of my heart with it, too.