Page 52

Chapter Twelve

Cyprus

Ihate him! I hatehim!

I hate. . .

Hate was a strong word. It wasn't a word that should be tossed around. People say it all the time, but I don't think anyone really stops to think about what it means.

Hate: Intense hostility and aversion usually deriving from fear, anger, or sense of injury. An extreme dislike or disgust.

Did I really hate Birch? No.

I hated how he lied to me. I hated that he had kept such a sensitive secret from me for all these years, knowing that it was all I ever wanted.

I wanted to know who I was.

He had been there through my tears, through my countless sobbing rambles as I went on and on about needing to know. He had rubbed my back and held me when I was at my worst. When I couldn't go to school because there was no history to give them, when I couldn't go to a regular doctor because my name and birthday were unknown.

He stood by me and hugged me, kissing my forehead and whispering sweet nothings into my ear just so I felt special when I thought the world had forgotten about me. When I felt abandoned and unloved, Birch gave me what I craved.

And all that time he had the key to what I needed.

How could he do this?!

Slamming the bedroom door, I threw myself into a rage and started kicking things on the floor. I punched the wall, I stomped a picture of Birch and I on the floor, crunching my heel into the shattered glass.

My hands were in my hair and my heart was racing, I could barely function. All I wanted to do was break stuff. I wanted to get this all out, destroy everything I could get my hands on just to release the anger that was settling inside my chest.

I want it all gone! Everything!

Darting to the bed, I pulled the diary out and held it by the binding, ready to destroy the one thing that had brought all this back. My fingers clutched the worn leather, twisting it back and forth.

When something fell out from inside. A square piece of paper, folded in half, floated to the ground like a falling leaf. Next to it was a picture, face down, with a handwritten date penned on the back.

What the hell is this?

July, two thousand and eleven?

Bending down, I picked up the paper and photo. Flipping the image over, I stared at it unable to blink.

It was Birch and I, smiling with our arms around each other and a crumbled sandcastle between us. I remembered the picture, I remembered the day it was taken and how happy I felt at the time.

We had spent all day building that damn sandcastle, only for it to fall apart right when Valentina snapped the picture. Nick was sitting in the background under the umbrella, laughing his ass off. Birch and I were covered in sand, our cheeks rosy and bright red from staying in the sun all day.

And that night. . . That was the first night we made love.

Just thinking about it made my heart hammer inside my chest and my sex throb with shadowed memories of his cock entering me for the first time. His parents had gone out to dinner and movie, and we had the entire house to ourselves.

We hadn't planned on that being the night, but it turned out to be the greatest night of my life.

Dropping to the floor, I tucked the picture back in the diary and unfolded the paper. It looked old, like it had been written years before. The white was now tinted a faded yellow, the ink had sweat and bled out around the edges.

I could never have prepared myself for what was written. Words that had been sealed away and forgotten with my thoughts.

Dear F,

I can not give you the answers you are looking for. I can't even begin to understand what this might be like for you. But I want to help. I want to fix it. The man is not as bad as you might think, he's actually a pretty good guy.