In the near darkness, I sat at the tiny desk in my bedroom. I stared at the blackened laptop screen. Willing it to stop screaming at me to search for what it had concealed inside.

I couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t focus.

Since Lyrik had torn me open wide two days ago, it was as if my past was nipping at my heels. Razor-sharp teeth bared, waiting for the perfect moment to sink right into my Achilles heel. It was going to be a hard fall when I finally hit the ground.

But I could feel it. Advancing and encroaching and invading. Like a dark cloud that ate up the earth and was getting ready to swallow me.

I knew it was Lyrik who’d brought it to the surface. He’d made me stop and contemplate when all I’d been doing for the past four years was running just as fast as my feet could take me. Across the country. Away from my family. Burying myself in obscurity and unfamiliarity.

And just like that night two months ago, when I’d signed onto Facebook, the need to brush against something from my past was almost overwhelming. Unavoidable. As if my family was right there. Pleading with me to turn around.

Unease stirred through me when I thought back to that message.

It was from a DA.

A DA in Tucson.

From my home.

Where Cameron Lucan lived.

Yeah. Everyone thought I was from L.A.

Just another lie.

I was so good at letting them fall from my mouth.

I wondered now if anyone was good with believing them. I was beginning to doubt it.

Since then, I hadn’t looked again. But like that night two months ago, I found myself drowning in an unbearable ache. The loneliness so acute it was alive.

Fear and hope and insecurity wove a pattern of despair through the fibers of my being, trying to tie me back to that girl.

To make me her.

Tamar Gibson.

I’d spent a lot of time hating her. Blaming her. But the crazy thing was, I missed her too.

Early morning light spilled in through the sheer drapes of my window. Subtle warmth before the heat of the day.

His voice…his deep, mournful, haunting voice still lingered in the air. Still brushed across my skin.

Although this time it wasn’t the wispy tendrils of his presence that used to filter through my walls as if they were seeking a way inside, piercing me and pervading my senses.

No, this time I’d been on his living room floor with my back propped against his couch while he’d sat on it and played into the silence.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised he didn’t play the song. The one I instinctively knew curled up his arm, the cryptic notes and bars naked to the eye but obtuse to the ear.

The songs he did play had been quiet, yet somehow powerful and moving. And I’d felt as if he’d done nothing more than make love to me with his song before he’d touched my cheek, my chin, and sent me home with the softest kiss.

The man was slowly killing me. I was sure about it. Stripping me bare until I had zero defenses remaining.

And now I sat in one of those weakened moments—when I needed a glimpse into the past.

I guess I could blame the temporary insanity on him.

With a trembling hand, I slid my finger across the pad, and the brightly lit screen popped to life, slicing into the darkness. Seeping into my room as if cast with the mission to rob me of my air. Of the safety of my half-lived life.

Quickly, before I lost my nerve or my mind, I clicked onto the Internet with my location disabled, the way I always did, and I signed into my old account.

I told myself I just wanted to see my mother’s face, a grave urgency to feel her touch from across the boundless void.

Despite all the messages being marked as unread, I still recognized a new one from her. I’d memorized her words from the last time.

But it was the new message from the DA that consumed my attention. An unsettled part of me shouted its criticism. Because this was so stupid and reckless. I had to be mad. Raving mad. Which I seemed to be proving more and more often lately. I just kept stepping out and putting myself on the line. But there was a part of me that had to see.

They were instant. The tears that flooded my face. Nonstop. Because that’s all I’d ever been.

You don’t have to be afraid.

Afraid.

I wasn’t afraid.

I was terrified.

I blinked through the bleariness, and quickly marked the message as unread, before I clicked into my mother’s message. Her messages were always the same.

Her words felt like the sharpest knife, impaling the deepest part of me.

I’d written my mother only one letter as I’d hitchhiked across the country. One to tell her I was sorry. To assure her I was alive and would survive. I asked her not to worry. But I knew even then that request was nothing less than selfish. Of course she would worry.

Quickly, I marked her message as unread.

I gasped when another immediately popped up behind it.

Like I’d been burned, my hand flew back and I slammed down the screen. Panting. Blinded by the tears that kept streaming from my eyes. Frantic, I scanned my room, as if I could find a place to hide.

I jumped up and began to pace.

The fear was suffocating. I couldn’t breathe.

I gripped my hair.

How could they ask this of me?

I couldn’t.

I couldn’t face it. Couldn’t stare him down and voice the horror of what he had done.

Because I’d been weak.

I was weak.

Pathetic.

Just a naïve little girl.

And it didn’t matter how many false exteriors I wore. That was all I was ever going to be.