Page 39 of Torn

“Let’s sit.” He leads me to the bench and I fall onto it with a big sigh of frustration. “I know it’s hard growing up, Kenz. Change can suck, but it can be good, too. You’ve had a rough couple years.”

“That’s an understatement.”

“And fuck those idiots at your school. They don’t know you.”

“I guess…”

“I just want you to be happy.” He says it like it should be so simple.

“I’m trying to be. Life just keeps getting in my way.”

We watch the water splash in the fountain for a few minutes, and then he digs into his front jeans pocket.

“Here.” He holds his hand out to me and drops a penny into my hand. “We can make wishes here in your fountain,” he says.

“I never thought of that.” My smile returns. “You go first.”

He cocks his head as he thinks for a moment; then he tosses his penny into the water.

I watch the shiny copper coin sink to the bottom of the fountain. “Okay… tell me what you wished for.”

“I wished you would never doubt me again. I’ve spent almost eighteen years being here for you, Angel. Because Iwantto. No one ever made me or expected me to. You’re just where I always wanted to be.”

My heart nearly stops.

I close my eyes for a long moment as his words echo through me, bouncing off the walls of my soul before settling into my heart, where they’ll live forever.

“Tor…”

“Don’t.” His voice is low, a subtle warning. “Just make your wish.”

My hand shakes as I throw my penny. I miss, and it lands in the grass somewhere, lost in the dark.

“Shit,” I mutter. My wish lies in the lawn someplace, unspoken. And maybe that’s for the best right now.

“I’ll get it.”

I can’t take my eyes from him as he kneels over in the dark, hunting for my penny like it’s a buried treasure. His inked arm flexes with hard muscle as he runs his hand through the grass, and my insides flutter in response. I shouldn’t be looking at him this way, or thinking of him this way, but I can’t tear my attention from him.

You’re where I always wanted to be.

It was obvious he didn’t want to say those words. But something inside him made him say it, like hehadto say it, like they were eating at him, threatening him to let them out. The taboo of what could be hiding in the depths of him awakens a part of me that feels like it’s been waiting, patiently, silently for him to come.

Warmth starts in my stomach and spreads like a slow fire, down between my thighs and up to my chest. My pulse speeds up as I watch him, my head becoming light.

I can’t think.

I should be scared. I should recognize this as wrong. I should go inside.

But I’m not, and I don’t, and I can’t, because he suddenly looks over at me and smiles, holding my lost penny up triumphantly like my eternal hero, and it chases all those doubts away, leaving the truth staring me right in the face.

We are an us.

CHAPTER 8

Kenzi—age five

Toren—age twenty