Page 129 of The Truths We Burn

“Come on, sweet boy. Let’s dance.”

I looked out at the heavy pour of rain, then up at my mother. Her eyes did that crinkling thing at the corners like it always does when she smiled. Dark waves of brown hair fell way past her shoulders, brushing her lower back.

I didn’t want to dance today.

I was sad, and all I wanted to do was stay inside, away from the rest of the world.

“But Momma, it’s raining,” I mutter.

She squatted down, lowering herself to my height. Tucking a piece of my growing hair behind my ear, she rubbed her palm against my cheek. It made me sleepy when she did that because that was what she did just before bedtime every night.

“You had a hard day today, yeah?”

I nodded.

Kids at church had been extra mean today. They’d all stood around me, shouting nasty things about my birthmark, picking on me because I was different than them. If I would have known they would have been so cruel, I wouldn’t have shared anything in Sunday school.

I would have just stayed quiet.

“The rain will wash all of that away. All the sadness and pain will slip right off your shoulders, cleaning you right up. The best time to dance is in the rain.”

“Dad says I just need to toughen up.”

She laughed. “Your father must have forgotten what it was like to be picked on because I’ll tell you a secret, sweet boy. Your dad was not always so tough. He used to be a boy, just like you, and he wore these glasses that kids used to make fun of. Just because he was different. But that’s what I liked about him, what I love about you. Being different will mean you will feel alone at times. But when you find the people who accept those differences, they will be with you for a lifetime.”

And then we danced in the rain.

We let the rain pour down our skin, and I remember feeling like was I swimming rather than in a rain shower. I didn’t come inside until I was soaked to the bone.

I felt a lot of things when my mother died.

But alone wasn’t one of them.

Because I had them, and from the moment we all met, I felt like I was understood. I never had to explain myself to fit in; they just got me. They accepted me. Scars, trauma, and all. And just like my mother said, they would be with me for a lifetime.

“How long?” Alistair asks as he walks onto the patio, with Thatcher and Silas close behind.

“Nine inches.” I pull the cigarette from my lips. “That’s hard. Do you need to know soft measurements too or?”

He rolls his eyes, yanking the smoke from my hand and taking a long draw before talking again.

“How long have you been fucking with Sage.”

I drop my head against the wall, knowing this conversation needed to happen. Knowing it’s time to tell them, but I just don’t know where to start.

Keeping her from them was never with malicious intent or because I didn’t want them to know. I think it was because I was afraid to say it out loud. If I spoke on our history, on her, then it made it real.

And that makes the loss of her even more real.

“We wanted to wait for you to tell us on your own time, but we need to know what this is to you before we kill someone over her. I’m not adding another body to my list because of a quick fuck.”

I’m not surprised they already knew.

When you know each other on the level we do, you don’t miss much.

We know each other’s body language, the tells, our emotions. It’s all connected—we feel each other. It’s been that way for as long as I can remember.

“We aren’t killing someone for her. As Silas said, this is for Rose too.”