Page 73 of Eternal

There’s something about the color yellow that has always spoken to me, even if it’s simultaneously always felt out of reach. Yellow represents happiness and positivity.

Yellow is warm.

Yellow is hopeful.

Yellow is the sunflower—full of promise and strength.

But I’m not strong, and I’m not bright.

Most days, I barely find the will to open my eyes. I’m the seed in the dirt, scratching for the surface, only to find I’m deeper than I thought I was.

Just out of reach, desperate for a drink of water.

I sink onto the bench next to the empty sunflower patch, and Declan watches me with his hands tucked into his pockets. The moon frames him like a halo that’s out of place for someone better suited to doing work for the devil.

Stars sprinkle the clear night, and they’re blindingly bright against the obsidian darkness.

There are very few times I remember Declan and me getting along before our cold war started. Being out in the garden with him was one of them.

I was hiding from one of my parents’ parties, and Declan wandered out here and found me. We sat on opposite benches and talked about flowers and paint and how boring it was when we were forced to attend these types of events.

He was still young then, and his innocence hadn’t fully burned out of him. That was before he became his father’s minion. It was before Ian Pierce caught him outside talking to a Donovan.

That was the last time Declan said anything remotely nice to me or treated me like I was on his level. After that, he taunted me because of my blood and my inability to interact socially, and everything good in him was gone.

Looking up at Declan now, I try to see past the coldhearted beast he has become. I search him for any hint of the boy who sat out in this garden talking to me for an hour. A boy who hasn’t existed since the clay around him hardened.

Declan stares back, and I wonder what version of me he’s seeing. The little girl who could still see the world through clear eyes or the one I’ve painted over so many times, I no longer recognize her.

I glance up at the stars at the exact moment one shoots across the sky. I should probably make a wish before it fades, but there are too many intangible things in my life already without addinghopeto them.

“I saw Alex yesterday,” I tell Declan, watching his face change at the mention of Alex’s name.

“When you went to see Dr. Parish?”

I nod. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.” He looks up at the sky.

“Were you responsible for what happened to Alex?”

I grip the bench, knowing Declan probably won’t answer me since he never really answers any of my questions, but I need to know if Patience is right.

Alex saved me when I was sixteen, and I owe him. I need to know if trusting Declan makes me a terrible person.

“It’s not that simple.” Declan rakes his hair off his forehead.

He drops down onto the bench next to me, stretching his arm across the back of it. His gaze drifts to the distance, where small bursts of colorful petals break up the otherwise cold, dark night.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

He wipes his hand down his face. “Everyone there was responsible whether indirectly or not.”

“Do you blame yourself?”

Declan looks over at me, brushing his thumb over the back of my shoulder. “I don’t blame myself for what happened in that room because I had no more control over it than he did. But I do blame myself for not doing anything about it after.”

“What happened?”