Page 89 of The Same Backward as Forward

Mercy is not why she came here tonight. “You don’t believe that,” I tell her.I know you, Hannah the Same Backward as Forward. I know you, through and through.

“My mother’s a murderer.” Hannah says the words like she’s taking a swing. “Many times over.”

I take that to mean that Hannah did not grow up on the periphery of a criminal enterprise.

She grew up dead center. “Has she ever hurt you?” I ask. Because if the womanhas—

“My mother has never laid a hand on me.” There is a tone in Hannah’s quiet voice that is difficult even for me to read. “She’s never had to.”

Something about that statement causes every jagged, half-formed memory I’ve been repressing to come rushing back at the same time.

You disappoint me, son.

You did this to yourself.

“I think…” I trail off, the words as thick as syrup in my mouth. “I think I might know what that’s like.”

It’s only after Hannah abruptly stops walking that I realize Istopped first.This is not about me, I remind myself harshly. I start moving forward again across the rocks, and so does she, and it’s at least a full minute before I am able to speak.

“Sometimes,” I say, feeling the words that I am about to speak in every square inch of my body, “when I look at you, I feel you, like a hum in my bones, whispering that we are the same. But then you do something, Hannah the Same Backward as Forward, somethingselfless, somethingkind, and I know—I know—that you’re different.” These are the truths on which my existence these past weeks has been built. This is life as I know it. “Different than me. Different than the whole damn world.”

I promised myself that I wouldn’t do this—or at least, I think I did. I am supposed to be what she needs—whatever she needs right now.

“Stop talking.” Hannah’s voice shakes. “Just stop.”

I can hear Jackson telling me the same damn thing.

“I don’t know how to stop.” I swallow. “I’m not sure I ever did.”

I make it to the lighthouse first, slapping my palm against the stone, marking the end of a trek that I should not have been able to make. I won’t be vertical much longer, but she is right here beside me. So close beside me.

“I don’t know how to quit this,” I tell her quietly, a confession in every sense of the word. “Quityou.”

I love you.The least I can do is admit that to myself. I love her. I love her in a way that makes it impossible for me to pinpoint when I started loving her. I love her too much to ever speak the words out loud.

Even just with what Ihavesaid, I can feel her mind churning, but she doesn’t back away, doesn’t back down, and I cannot help thinking that of everything I love about Hannah the Same Backward as Forward, I might love her mind the most.

She hates me, I remind myself.

Hates me.

Hates me.

Hates me.

“But I’m a selfish bastard, aren’t I?” My voice echoes through the night. “I probably wouldn’t quit you even if I could.”

She puts her hand on the lighthouse, right next to mine, turns her head to face mine. She’s standing straight, and my body is too weak to do the same, which means there’s not more than an inch and a half between my lips and hers now.

So close.

Too close.

Not close enough.

“You are a selfish bastard,” she says, her breath teasing my lips, scalding them. “And there’s nothing to quit.”

She says that like she’s issuing a challenge. She says it like it’s a dare—or another game, one ofhermaking. I tell myself that I’m imagining things. I search her eyes. Even with only moonlight to illuminate them, I know what I see there.