“What happened the day of Daniel’s accident?”

I pressed my forehead against his and felt the warmth and security that only came when he was near.

“Time stood still,” I whispered.

“Tell me.”

We were so close that our noses were touching. “You already know. Miss Shrieve told you.”

“I went to her because I want to understand. Help me to see. Show me all of you, Addison. The parts that no one else sees—show me.”

I shut my eyes, needing the anonymity it afforded so I could retell the memory that broke me.

“I was late. My dad had been talking to me about joining the track team. He’d said it was something we would have in common, like a father and daughter kind of thing.”

“So you chose hurdles with Helene?” Grayson questioned as he stroked a hand up my back.

“Helene? Oh, Miss Shrieve? Yes.” I gave a self-deprecating laugh. “He’s never once been to a track meet.”

I took a deep breath and tentatively touched his chest. When he nodded, I placed both of my palms against him and continued.

“I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t care about that in the scheme of things…but I do. I signed up for him, and now he can’t even find the time to come and see me.”

“Why do you still do it then?”

I could feel my anxiety rising as his question echoed in my head. No one ever understood why I continued. They all thought it was for the glory. No one knew it was to try and stop the all-consuming guilt.

“Because if I quit, it means it was all for nothing. Doesn’t it?”

Grayson gave a small shrug, and I could tell he was trying to understand, but could he? Could anyone?

“So instead you became the best on the team?”

“No, that was luck.”

“Luck and talent. You forget, I’ve seen you fly down that track and over those hurdles like you were born to do it. That’s not luck.”

“It doesn’t matter what it is. None of it does. I put all of my spare time into training and making sure I’m the best because if I’m anything less…”

“Then what? Daniel died for nothing? Who told you that?”

Defensive, I shook my head. “No one.”

“Bullshit,” Grayson fired back as he frowned at me.

I could feel myself wavering. He knew I was lying. He’d met my mom and dad. It was obvious to anyone that we weren’t one big, happy family, but to someone as smart as Grayson? It wouldn’t take long to work out that the only thing keeping the Lancaster’s functioning were lies and unrealistic expectations.

“We’re not done with that, okay?”

I’d seen him in this mode before. It was teacher mode, and I knew he wouldn’t let it go, but right now he was after the…more.

So I gave it to him.

“Daniel looked right at me that day. I ran down to the crosswalk between the high school and the elementary school. There were other kids around, laughing and talking as we waited for the light to change. For some reason, I looked over the road at him, and it was like time stopped. I couldn’t even hear the crosswalk signal as it beeped and then he was just—gone.”

“Jesus,” Grayson cursed as his fingers tightened on my waist.

“Maybe if I’d been on time?” I suggested, not really expecting an answer.

“It could have still happened. You don’t know, and you never will.”

I lowered my eyes to my hands and fidgeted as tears began to fall. Trying to get a hold of myself and failing, I looked back at the man studying me with concern.

How do you explain to someone that you not only let yourself down, but everyone who ever believed in you? And how do you trust them with that secret without offering up what is left of your broken heart?

The answer is simple, you can’t. So instead, I gave Grayson the shattered pieces that remained.

“He was my baby brother. I couldn’t get to him…I couldn’t save him. I just stood there with everyone else, as the truck…”

“Oh, Addison. Hey, it’s okay. You don’t have to say any more.”

Grayson pulled me into his arms so our chests were flush against each other. Heart to heart.

I ran my hands around behind his neck and hugged him to me, discovering that once I’d started talking, I couldn’t seem to stop. It was kind of like the tears that I couldn’t seem to get under control.

“One minute Daniel was standing there, and the next…the next, he was on the ground…just lying on the road. He wouldn’t open his eyes…wouldn’t look at me, and there was blood…so much blood around him. I just needed him to say something, anything…but he never did and then she took me away.”

“Who did?” Grayson asked as my tears fell down onto his shoulder and back.

“Miss Shrieve. She took me away from him…forced me to let him go.”

I pressed my face into his hair and took a deep breath, trying to calm myself.

“One, two three. One, two, three. The crosswalk signal beeping was all I could hear after that, over and over. I started counting, trying to focus on anything but what was in front of me.”

Grayson pulled back slightly, and his eyes held mine, steady and serious. “So the counting is a new habit? Since the accident?”

It was time to trust and offer up the final pieces of me.

“Yes. It helps calm me when I get nervous or anxious...like a safety blanket, I suppose.”

He reached for my left wrist and circled the watch there. “The same with the constant time check?”

“Yes and no.”

I looked down and touched the timepiece.

“Doc tells me it’s an obsession…it’s something I need to do without even realizing it, probably because I was running late that day. See, that’s what was so funny the first day in your class. I couldn’t believe I was late. I’m obsessed with time. Everyone knows that. I always need to see it or hear it…and now I sound like a crazy person.” I laughed, but it sounded out of place in light of the current topic—hell, maybe I was crazy. “Shit.”

“No, no. Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what? Be embarrassed that I’m so fucked up? I don’t even know what it’s like to be normal anymore. I don’t even know who I was before that day.”

Grayson took my shoulders in a tight hold and shook me gently—trying to get me out of my own head.

“Addison, no one could go through all of that and come out the same. Who’s asking you to be that girl? Child or adult, that doesn’t make you crazy. It makes you human.”

“Yeah?” I mocked, feeling my crazy morphing into misplaced anger. “Tell that the to the rest of them. Tell it to my father, who avoids me unless he needs someone to slap around, or my mom, who comes to every track meet just to make sure I win. Because if I don’t…what was the point of me being late that day? The only way I made it through these last two years was to be someone else. If I am the best and the most popular, how can anyone pity me?”

Grayson took my hands and gently squeezed them. “I think for most, it’s the easiest emotion to feel when someone is—”

“Damaged?”

“I was going to say suffering.” Grayson ran a hand up through his own hair and cupped the back of his neck. “That’s why you’re attracted to me, am I right? Because I didn’t know you back then?”

“Honestly?”

“Yes, Addison. I want you to be honest, please. Always.”

“At first, yes. But not now.”

“Why, what’s changed?”

“I told you. When you look at me, you see more.” I cradled his face in my hands and let my eyes roam over him. “And when I look at you, I see for the first time the possibility of everything.”

“Fuck,” he swore under his breath. “How do I fight against someone like you?”

“You don’t. I can be good, Grayson. I can behave. Just say you want me. That you want to be with me always.”

“How?” he asked, circling my wrists. “How could this ever work? We’d have to sneak around. We’d barely see each other outside of school.” He shook his head like he couldn’t believe he was even contemplating it and touched me under the chin. “Do you want that? Can you live like that? Always watching what you say and when you say it? Not ever being able to tell anyone anything?”

“I just want to be with you, is that so wrong?”

“No. But the law says otherwise. My position as your teacher makes this impossible. Right or wrong? I don’t know which is which anymore.”

“This is right. Right here. Just you and me. Anywhere else and it wouldn’t even matter.”

“Yes, but we aren’t anywhere else, Addison. It is what it is.”

Grayson caressed my hair and then repeated the gesture several times without saying anything.

How could something so simple be so comforting?

“I wish it were that easy. There’d be no problems if you were out of school.”

Sitting back slightly, I placed a hand against his chest. I was starting to feel frustrated. I couldn’t help my age any more than he could help his occupation. “But I’m not, and you’re here anyway.”

His eyes latched onto mine, and the beating of his heart sped up as if I’d just reminded him of whom he was with.

“Yes. I’m still here. That should show you how much I’m willing to risk.”

I traced one of his brows and promised, “I will never betray you. Not ever.”

Grayson closed his eyes and tipped his head back to face the sun, and I couldn’t help but lean in and place my lips against his throat, trying to soothe his obvious agitation.

“I never knew.” He took my lips in a kiss that was as tender as it was passionate before he spoke again in a state of astonishment. “I never knew that I’d risk everything, even my freedom, just to touch someone. Just to touch you.”