It’s beautiful, cut in an egg shape and buried in gold. To the hand holding the sheets in place and the extra weight I now feel there. He looks up at me, before his eyes flit meaningfully to my chest once more. Myron stares at my chest, and I roll my eyes. With a hand, I keep the sheets held up over my chest as I rise to a sitting position. The scent of sandalwood and sweat wafts over me. Floppy curls sprawl across his forehead, and he flicks back his head to clear his vision. It’s a wonder he fits in my bed, he’s so tall. My bedsheets cover him from the waist down. “Because you’re beautiful.” Myron lies on his side, his head propped up on a closed fist. “Devils, Myron, why are you staring at me?” I ask. I lift my arms into the air, stretching like a cat, before rolling over in bed.Ī pair of brown eyes is only inches from my own. That knowledge settles within me now just as it did three years ago. I also remember what finally helped my head catch up with my pounding heart: the last word out of Hektor’s lips.

I barely remembered grabbing the knife Father had given to me for my fifteenth birthday, three months previous, with its jeweled handle and silver sheen, but I do remember that Hektor’s blood matched the inlaid rubies. When I sank my knife into his chest, words came spilling out of him almost as fast as the blood. At the time, all I could think of was the fact that I’d given everything to Hektor: my first kiss, my love, my body.Īnd when I told him I loved him, all he had to say was “Thanks, but I think it’s time we moved on.” My dream was of him, of the day he told me it had been fun but he was done. I buried Hektor Galanis in a hole so deep, even the devils of the earth couldn’t reach him. They’ve never found the body of the first and only boy who broke my heart.

The shadows between