Page 107 of The Same Backward as Forward

“Aboutyou,” I vow—and itisa vow. “We can stay here or we can go, we can run or we can hide, but anything I do—I am doing itwith you.”

This is me, holding on like hell.

“You don’t understand,” Hannah insists. “You don’t know what you would be giving up.”

Me? She doesn’t want us to leave here together because of whatIwould have to give up? “I know what I won’t give up, Hannah the Same Backward as Forward.” I reach to cup her face in my hands. “I won’t give up the person I am with you. For you.”

I am real because of her. I amhere, in so many ways, because of her.

“This…” I touch her face like I am trying to memorize it, like that isn’t already a fait accompli. “Thisis real. My life before can stay a bad dream, and you can tell me,Hannah, O Hannah—who made you look like this?”

There’s sorrow etched into her familiar features—and fear. And Iknowthat Hannah does not frighten easily.

“One of my cousins.” It’s a very Hannah kind of answer, guarded and deceptively calm.

“Did he threaten you? Touch you?”I’ll kill him.I think the words, and a moment later, they make their way out of my mouth with a life of their own. If some member of her criminal family has so much aslaid a hand on her—

“No. You won’t.” Hannah grabs me by my shirt, but she doesn’t look down, and I wonder if she even realizes what she’s done. “We’re running.”

“We.”

“We’ll start over,” Hannah—myHannah—whispers, “far, far away.”

“Far, far away,” I whisper back.Just the two of us. Hannah. Me.She drops her hold on my shirt, and I respond by reaching for her. I lower my mouth to hers. “Once…” Lips brush lips brush skin. “Upon a time…”

Hannah the Same Backward as Forward kisses me like she needs me, like she knows me, like the world begins and ends with the two of us, like we are a story the universe will tell. Her lips move from my mouth to my neck. I can feel my pulse beating beneath her lips.

“Sagas.” Hannah’s lips curve upward. “Level. Aha.”

Reified, I think.Deifier.I pull off my shirt and offer a simple sentiment out loud.“Wow.”

She turns her attention to my scars, trailing kisses down my neck and over my collarbone to get there, whispering a love story to me all the while. “Once upon a time, there was a girl…”

A good girl, I think. “And a boy,” I say out loud.A horrible boy.“And pain and wonder and darkness and light andthis.”

Once upon a time, a fisherman pulled me from the sea, and I asked the most beautiful girl in the world to let me die. Once upon a time, that girl hated me and saved me and hated me some more.

Once upon a time, things changed.Ichanged.

She pushes me toward the picnic blanket. Soon enough, I’m on my back, and she’s straddling me, her hair streaming into her face.

Once upon a time, I think,everything was perfect.

And then, suddenly and without warning, it’s not.

Chapter 35

Fire.I stare as the candle’s flame catches and spreads. Unblinking. Unable to move.The world is on fire.I would fight the flashback if I could, but I can’t. I can feel the heat of an explosion throwing me backward. I can feel my body flying, falling and falling and falling, hitting water.

I can feel myself going under, and I cannot breathe. And when my body finally does manage to suck in a breath, the smell hits me.Kerosene.I hear myself yelling the word, but my lips aren’t moving. I’m not saying a damn thing, but screams—my own—echo through memory.

Kerosene.

Kerosene.

Kerosene.

The smell is pungent and strong, and there is something in my hand—something in each of my hands, actually.Kerosene.Containers full of it.