I climb into Hael's Camaro, shaking, trembling, my fingers curled in the excess fabric of the ugly frock.

“If you didn't want to go home, you should've said something,” Oscar tells me as Hael pops his seat forward and lets his friend climb in.

“Havoc keeps no secrets,” Hael growls in agreement, and we peel out of the driveway, and down the street.

The guys take me to, of all places, Aaron's house.

The only place on earth that sounds less appealing than home.

My heart thunders painfully as Hael gets out and comes around to open my door. At the last second, he stops, steps back, and crosses his arms over his chest to wait. The smirk on his face is infuriating, but I brush it off. It’s hard to stay mad at a guy for doing exactly what you asked him to.

The little suburban house is quiet, almost peaceful in the night. I can hear crickets chirping nearby. Clearly, the guys felt this was the safest place to bring me. Doubt any of them live in much better situations than I do.

Aaron … is the exception.

I open the door, dragging my backpack with me. I'd have rather slept at Vic's place, in his bed. An all-over shiver takes hold, and I have to bite my lip to keep my hands from shaking.

Aaron is already at the door when we walk up the front path, leaning in the doorjamb with no shirt on, wicked fingers tapping a rhythm on the wood.

He doesn't say anything as Hael hands over my backpack, just turns and pads into the dark house.

“Sleep tight,” Hael says, giving me a pat on the back before he disappears around the corner of the garage and climbs back in his Camaro.

Fuck.

With a deep breath, I move in and close the door behind me, making sure it's locked. Aaron is halfway up the stairs, so I follow after him to the second floor.

“The girls are sleeping,” he says, tossing my backpack onto his bed. “Try not to wake them up. I'll be on the couch.” He starts to leave the room, and I reach out, curling my fingers around his upper arm. Aaron smells amazing, his dark hair wet from a shower. I rest my forehead against his arm, forgetting for the briefest of moments that I’m supposed to hate him.

“Thank you for letting me stay here,” I tell him, trying not to think too hard about our sordid past. And yet, there it is, burning like black fire in the recesses of my brain. As soon as I fall asleep, I'll dream about it, I just know I will.

“Havoc sticks together,” he says, pulling his arm from my grip and heading down the hallway. I watch after him until he disappears, and then turn back to a bedroom I haven't seen in a long, long time.

It's like a time warp in here.

My breath catches as I sit on the edge of Aaron's bed, and put my face in my hands.

I don't cry, but I remember.

Oh, I remember well.

Three years earlier …

I’m standing at Aaron’s side in the rain, looking at a single casket, as black and shiny as the hearse that drove it here. My hand reaches down for his, the only other mourner in the cemetery besides myself. Aaron’s parents weren’t well-liked. Well, his father wasn’t well-liked anyway. And his mother was terrified of him.

“She didn’t come home last night,” he says, glancing my way, pleading with his eyes for a million things I can’t give him. Stability. Warmth. Security. “I don’t think she’s coming back.”

“Don’t say that,” I tell him, but I wonder … there were clothes missing from his mother’s closet, socks and underwear strewn across the floor. And then there was the way she looked at me when I stepped onto the front porch and saw her hastily climbing into a cab.

She isn’t coming back.

“What about my sister?” he asks, giving my hand a squeeze. “What about my cousin?”

We both know the story of my brief stint in foster care. Aaron’s sweet girls, they wouldn’t survive a week. Their spirits would break along with their bodies. My eyes close, and I hang my head, blond hair sticking to the sides of my face. The wetness hides the tears, but I don’t know how to help. That happens sometimes, when one broken person tries to lean on another. We’re too rickety to keep the other standing. All it would take is a strong wind to blow us both over …

“I’m afraid, Bernie,” he says finally, lifting his chin up and staring across the freshly dug hole in the ground. His father’s funeral won’t go unnoticed by his creditors. He had a coke and vodka habit to accompany his partying and gambling problems, and shit doesn’t come cheap. They’ll start looking for his mother, and if they find her … And on the other side of the coin, if the state finds out a fifteen-year-old is living alone with his five-year-old sister, and two-year-old cousin, they’re all screwed six ways to Sunday.

“You’ll figure a way out of this,” I tell him, glancing over, watching droplets of rain bead on his full lower lip. “You always do.” We’re both survivors, me and Aaron. We have that in common. I’m pretty sure I’m in love with him, that maybe I have been for years. Young love might be fluffy and fleeting, but at least there’s a purity to it that doesn’t stain like everything else in my life.

“I wish I could take care of us all,” Aaron says, squeezing my hand, his green-gold eyes boring into mine. “I wish I was strong enough.”

His expression says that one day, maybe he will be.

No matter what that sort of strength costs.

No matter if he has to sell his soul to get it.

Aaron doesn't bother to wake me up in the morning. Instead, I find myself jolting out of sleep with a gasp, sweat-soaked sheets tangled around my legs, and an unfamiliar room surrounding me.

The sweet scent of maple and bacon fills my nostrils, and I exhale.

He's going to be down there, shirtless, covered in tattoos and cooking breakfast for his little sister and cousin. My heart starts to race at the thought, at just the idea of seeing him in low-slung sweats, being all domestic and shit.

Jesus.

I swing my legs over the side of the bed, dress myself in jeans and a white wifebeater, and head downstairs.

“Bernie!” Kara shouts, turning and spotting me from her seat on one of the stools that lines the kitchen peninsula. She hops down and races over to throw her arms around me. Her cousin, Ashley, sticks a bite of pancake in her mouth and watches me warily. We've only met once, maybe twice. And she's younger than Kara by several years. Of course she doesn't remember me.

I return Kara’s hug, and then lift my eyes to her brother. He won't look at me, flipping pancakes with one hand and using a spatula on some bacon with the other.

My nostrils flare.

It's like he's angry at me when he's the one that betrayed me, when he pushed me aside and shifted from my most beautiful dream into my worst nightmare. Back in freshman year, I used to fantasize that we'd get married one day, me and Aaron. And then when his dad died and his mom left, I thought maybe we'd raise my sister, his sister, and his cousin together.

What a joke.

I approach the counter and then pause when he plates some food and passes it over to me, finally turning those beautiful eyes to my face. Brown-haired, green-eyed, tattooed Aaron Fadler. My breath catches when he looks at me, but that fairy-tale boy I fantasized about years ago is not the same person looking back at me now.