Every Shattered Thing (Come Alive) Read Free Page B

hold and pulls me closer still.
    “Good morning, beautiful.”
    I smile and blush, and lean forward to kiss his cheek. “Mornin” My voice is a lot deeper than normal—I cough to clear the frog out of my throat from my night spent in the frosty grass. I glance out of the corner of my eye as I sit gingerly next to him—my legs still incredibly sore from the night before. I pull my hair down across my face and attempt to make my bangs fall over my blackened eye. I feel his gaze inspecting me—noticing my wincing, my sharp intake of breath, my purposeful positioning of hair across my face...
    “Your dad get a hold of you again?”
    I sigh.
    He always knows.
    “Yeah.” I sniff to stall the fresh wave of tears, but he beats me to the punch. He doesn’t even say anything at first. He just grabs my hand and squeezes it.
    “Steph...”
    “Don’t Kevin, please. Not now. I can’t handle it.” I look at him through my tears and will him to understand—to not go to those places —the ones where people ask me to leave my home or to say something against the only family I’ve ever known. They don’t understand. They won’t ever understand.
    It’s so much more complicated than just walking out the door.
    He glances down at our fingers—now interlocked. He looks at me and gives me the crooked smile that would make me go cockeyed for the rest of the day.
    “Why’d you come out here this morning?” He asked.
    “To remember.”
    “Remember what?”
    “Hope.”
    He touches the bruise on my cheek, black against the paleness of my skin, and purses his lips.
    “What, Kevin?” I whisper, not sure if I want to know what he’s thinking.
    This is it. He’s had enough of me. I’m too much.
    “I hate that you have to live like this, Steph. No one should have to experience what you do. How do you? How have you not gone crazy? I think about my own parents and...I don’t know...it’s just so hard for me to fathom someone not experiencing the safety of a healthy family.” He takes a strand of my hair and places it behind my ear and looks at me, waiting for a reply.
    “Seriously. I thought my family was crazy.”
    I laugh. “Your family? The perfect one?”
    He shakes his head, “we’re not perfect, Steph. But at least we love each other.”
    I have to hand it to him—his approach is different. Instead of asking me to leave, he asks why I stay. He tries to understand. I squeeze his hand as I fight for the words, watching the sun’s rays bathing the trees in its morning glow.
    “I don’t know, Kevin. I just...do. I have no choice but to survive. My brother helps—I couldn’t ever leave Pacey knowing what happens when my dad gets angry. It’s just the cards I’ve been dealt, I guess.” I shrug my shoulders complacently and look at him out of the corner of my eye, “The only thing I can do is hang on to the constants in my life - writing. Protecting Pacey. The hope of a sunrise.” I glance down at our hands and whisper. “You.”
    He takes my face gently into his hands and kisses me lightly on the lips, briefly touching the scar from the night before, and the birds begin to sing—echoing across the field against the backdrop of clouds that look like fire and mirror my heart—alive and bursting with a new day.
    He pulls back and looks me in the eyes. “I’m going to find a way to keep you safe, Steph. I promise.”
    Seeing the intensity in his gaze, I know without a doubt he’s telling the truth. I think about my father—his anger and what he would do if he knew I was talking with Kevin, and my blood runs cold. I look away for a second to collect my thoughts. I’m not used to this feeling —this knowing I need protection but not wanting it for fear of retaliation.
    “Kevin...my dad is dangerous. Please don’t get involved - I don’t want you hurt.”
    He studies me and shrugs his shoulders, “It’s too late, Steph. I’m already involved. I was involved the second I saw a bruise on your skin.