“And stop doing that,” he said. “Backing away, giving me that look.”Like you’re scaring me? Maybe you are.”He stepped back so fast he wobbled and caught himself, and the look on his face—Itvanished in a second, the scowl returning.I’d never hurt you, Chloe. You should know—” He stopped. Paused. Then wheeled andstarted walking away. “Next time? Handle it yourself. I’m done taking care of you.”

“I also knew you wouldn’t stop your staring until you learned the cold, hard truth. So, consider yourself warned. I might not be the kind of guy that reads textbooks at the beach,” he said, glancing back at my open book, “but I’m smart enough to know girls like you should stay away from guys like me. So stay away.”

“Gwenvael looked down at his body. Horrified, he sat up. “What is this? What’s happened to me?”“Calm down. It’ll heal quick enough, I’m sure.”“Heal? I’m hideous!”“You’re alive.”“Hideously alive!” He covered her face with his hands. “Don’t look at me! Look away!”“Stop it!” She pulled at his hands. “Have you lost your mind?”Gwenvael dropped back to the bed, turned his face toward the wall. “You know what this means, don’t you?”“Gwenvael—”“I’ll have to live alone, at the top of a castle somewhere. I’ll hide from the daylight and only come out at night.”“Please stop this.”“I’ll be alone but not for long because you’ll all want me more. You’ll lust for the beautiful warrior I once was and pity the hideous creature I’ve become. Most importantly, you’ll want to soothe my pain.” He looked at her again. “Don’t you want to soothe my pain? Right now? Without that dress on?”“No. I do not.”Dagmar tried to stand, and Gwenvael caught her hand, pulling her back down. “You can’t leave me. I’m tortured and brooding. You need to show me how much you adore me so I can learn to love myself again.”“You’ve never stopped loving yourself.”“Because I’m amazing.”

“I’m sorry, Olivia, for hurting you,” he said hoarsely and my heart heaved in mychest. Why was his voice so gentle? Why wasn’t he screaming at me? I was the onewho did the hurting. It was me. My fault. My sin. My mess. “You will never see me again after today.” He paused and his next words struck me so deeply I would never recover from them. “I will love again, Olivia, you will hurt forever. What you’ve done is…You are worthless because you make yourself that way. You will remember me every day for the rest of your life because I was the one and you threw me away.” And then he left.”

“But, Luce, I need you to promise me something," he said, his face wrinkling. "If I ever mess things up again, whether it's a misunderstanding, or shit luck, or I just do what I was created to do and screw everything up," he paused, exhaling, "I want you to promise me you'll leave. Drop me like a bad habit and don't look back because god knows, it can't be me that walks away since I'm incapable of it.”

“You’ve suppressed all your rage and resentment because you wanted to be loved,” he says, no longer smiling. “Maybe I understand you, Juliette. Maybe you should trust me. Maybe you should accept the fact that you’ve tried to be someone you’re not for so long and that no matter what you did, those bastards were never happy. They were never satisfied. They never gave a damn, did they?” He looks at me and for a moment he seems almost human. For a moment I want to believe him. For a moment I want to sit on the floor and cry out the ocean lodged in mythroat.“It’s time you stopped pretending,” he says, so softly.“Juliette—” He takes my face in his gloved hands, so unexpectedly gentle.”