جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 30

Richard's car hadn't been washed in probably three weeks, which either meant he trusted me to notice or he was hoping I'd need something mindless to do with my hands now that swimming wasn't an option. Either way, I was out in the driveway that Saturday morning with a hose, a bucket of suds, and enough pent-up energy to strip the paint off if I wasn't careful.I heard Izel's sneakers on the gravel before I saw her."Jace."Something in her voice made me put the sponge down before I even turned around.She held her phone out, screen already unlocked, and there it was — us, standing at the fundraiser banner table, heads tilted toward each other at an angle that no stepsibling relationship on record had ever required. Underneath it, a stranger's comment sat there in the open for anyone scrolling to see. wait who's that with jace."Okay," I said, mostly to myself, wiping my hands on my jeans. "Okay. This isn't — nothing in this actually proves anything.""Jace.""I'll get it taken down. I

I had never cared this much about a school assignment. Honestly, it was bordering on pathetic. My entire academic career had been built on doing just enough to secure a solid B-plus and slipping out the back door while the overachievers fought for extra credit. But this was different. My actual photography was going on a public gallery wall, subject to the judgment of strangers whose only metric wouldn't be whether I used the correct font size on a title page.To prep, we spread the entire batch of fifty prints across Jace’s comforter. We sat cross-legged on his mattress, ruthlessly sorting through the stack like cutthroat gallery curators who were also quietly, illegally dating.Jace picked up a shot of himself launching off the starting block, water droplets suspended around his shoulders, his form flawless. He frowned, tossing it onto the discard pile by my knee."Absolutely not," he muttered."Are you insane?" I grabbed it back. "You look heroic. Put this on a billboard and people

IZEL’S POVThe house felt like a crime scene that had been sanitized by expensive professionals.When I walked into the kitchen the next morning, the air was thick and completely suffocating. The giant decorative vase was obviously gone, leaving an awkward, barren circle on the granite counter. The drywall had already been patched, possibly by some guy Richard called that must have come at dawn, but if you looked closely, you could see the wet spackle. Worse, there was a faint, rusty shadow on the white oak floorboards right by the pantry. Nobody else seemed to notice it, but my eyes locked onto it like a heat-seeking missile.Breakfast was a masterclass in excruciating tension. Jace was operating on a frequency of pure, agonizing guilt. He didn't speak to me. He couldn't even look at me. Instead, he directed all his energy toward my mother, hovering around her like a remorseful Victorian ghost. He poured her coffee with absolute precision. He pulled out her chair. He practically begg

IZEL'S POVRichard didn't yell. That was the most terrifying part. He stepped over the wet gravel, reached down, and ripped the orange pill bottle straight out of Jace's trembling hand before Jace could even think about hiding it.The harsh glare of the SUV's headlights illuminated the label: Metoprolol Tartrate. Beta-blockers.I watched Richard's face transform in real time. The cold, corporate authority melted away, replaced by absolute, gut-wrenching parental horror."What is this, Jace?" Richard’s voice was a cracked, disbelieving whisper. "What is this?"Jace couldn't answer. He was slouched against the cold brick wall of the loading dock, his face the color of wet chalk, his lungs making an awful, rattling sound every time he tried to drag air in."Get in the car," Richard ordered. He didn't wait for an explanation. He grabbed Jace under the arms, practically hauling his six-foot-two athlete son off the concrete by sheer force, and shoved him into the back seat of the SUV.I did

IZEL POV"If you go into cardiac arrest at my art show, I am literally going to kill you myself," I told the mirror, violently adjusting the silver clips in my hair."Medically impossible," Jace called from his side of the room. "If I’m already in cardiac arrest, you can’t kill me. It’s double jeopardy."I spun around, fully prepared to yell at him, but the words died in my throat.He was standing by his closet, adjusting the cuffs of a black denim jacket over a soft, faded grey crewneck. He still looked a little pale, and the dark circles under his eyes hadn't entirely faded from his week in the hospital, but he looked completely, devastatingly gorgeous. It was the first time I was seeing him out of a hospital gown or sweatpants in five days, and my brain short-circuited for a solid three seconds.He caught me staring. A slow, arrogant smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Take a picture, Izel. It lasts longer.""I literally have an entire gallery wall of pictures of you downstai