Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 124135 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 621(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124135 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 621(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
A flash of pain burst in my chest. “You have to promise me, East.” I stared into his blue eyes. “Promise me that you’ll stay strong. No matter what. Don’t give in to the demons that threaten to take over.” I pulled on his hand when he looked away. “Promise you’ll talk to your therapist. To Mama, Papa, Cromwell. Just someone.”
“Cromwell doesn’t know anything about it. Only you guys do.”
“Then talk to us.” I stared at my brother, and worry stabbed at my brain. “How are you now?”
“Sad,” he said, completely demolishing what was left of my useless heart. “Because of you. For you. Not because of my head.”
Relief was a balm to the chest pain that never left. “You promise?”
Easton smiled, making my skin warm, and held out his pinky finger. I hooked my pinky in his. “I promise.”
I smiled and moved back against the bed. My eyelids felt heavy. “It’ll be like last time.” I rolled my head on the pillow to face Easton. He raised an eyebrow. “This upcoming surgery.” I didn’t mention that the surgery may never happen. Or that a heart may never be found. I never let myself utter those words aloud. I wouldn’t let them loose in the universe that way.
I watched the pain of that distant hope wash over Easton’s face. But I smiled and said, “I’ll wake up and you’ll be beside me. You, Mama, Papa, and…”
“And Cromwell,” Easton finished.
I stared into my brother’s eyes and, mustering courage I didn’t know I had, said, “And Cromwell.”
Something in his expression changed. “I think he loves you,” Easton said, knocking the wind right from my sails. My heart bounced in my chest like a basketball that was slowly deflating. I heard its dull thud and unrhythmic beat. My voice had left me. Easton held up his fist, his knuckles red. “I hit him tonight.”
“No,” I whispered. I didn’t have the strength to say more.
“I saw you guys in Charleston. I saw him kiss you.” Redness bloomed on my cheeks. “And I see the way you look at him.” He sighed, defeated. “And the way he looks at you.”
“How?”
“Like you’re his air. Like you’re the water to whatever hellfire lives inside him.”
“East,” I hushed out, my body warming with happiness at his words.
“I had to make sure he wasn’t gonna hurt you.” Easton pushed his cuff back up his wrist, his scar hidden once again. “I had to be sure he wasn’t gonna mess around with you.” He paused, then said sadly, “Especially now.”
I smiled, even though my lips wobbled. “Always looking after me.”
“Always, Bonn. I’ll always look after you.” He smiled, and it was like seeing the sun burst through a gray cloud. “I’m your big brother, remember?”
I rolled my eyes. “By a whole four minutes.”
He dropped his smile. “It doesn’t matter. I’m your big brother. I had to be sure he wouldn’t hurt you.”
“He won’t.” I’d answered without thinking. But then a peace settled over me at my response. Because I knew it was true. I knew Cromwell wouldn’t hurt me. I thought of his blue eyes, deep like the night. I thought of his messy black hair and olive skin. Of the tattoos that covered his skin. The piercings that shone when they hit the light. And my erratic heart lobbed back into its form of a steady beat.
Cromwell Dean inspired my heart to try.
“You like him a lot too, huh?” Easton said. When I met his eyes, my face set on fire. He’d been watching me as I thought of Cromwell.
“He’s not what everyone thinks.” I traced the rose pattern on my bedspread with my finger. “He’s moody and curt. He was awful to me when we first met.” But then I caught the echo of his music in my head, and my body felt weightless with light. “But he’s not like that with me now.”
“No?”
I shook my head. “He’s…he shows me he cares in many ways. He holds my hand and refuses to let go. He wants to be with me, even if all we do is sit in silence. And best yet, he shows me he cares in the only way he knows how.” I stared at my piano, and I could see him sitting there in my mind’s eye, his fingers at home on the ivory keys. “He brings music to my silent world, East.” I smiled, feeling my chest shimmer. “He plays music for me that says more to my heart than his words ever could.”
I searched for the words to express what I meant. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to convey completely what being with Cromwell had done to me. “Cromwell doesn’t speak much with his voice, but he screams what he feels with melodies and notes and the change of keys.” I took a deep breath. It barely inflated my lazy lungs, but it gave me enough air to say, “I know I’m being selfish, but I can’t seem to make him leave me, East.” I met my brother’s gaze. It was filled with tears. “I know what lies ahead. And I know how hard it will be.” I gathered my strength and said, “And I feel stronger when he’s beside me.” I pictured myself sitting next to him on the piano stool, my head lying on his muscled bicep as he played. As he told me the story of us with eighth notes and perfect fifths. “It may sound crazy. It may sound rushed and impossible…but he speaks to my soul. Cromwell is damaged and dark. I know it. And he has yet to let me in. But from the minute we met, his music has made it impossible for us to be apart.” I shook my head in disbelief. “He says I’m the one who inspires him to play. I’m the one who’s brought something inside him back to life.”