I knew she was right.  We were statistics.  Worse than runaways.

Throwaways.

We weren't even the faces you saw on a milk cartons.  Those kids had people looking for them.  All we had on this earth was each other.

If we wanted to survive this, we had to make it happen ourselves, because no one else would.

CHAPTER TEN

WOULDN'T EVEN BE ME

PRESENT

STEPHAN

A warm, firm hand clutched mine.  I swung my eyes to meet watery black ones.

Javier cried my name, looking equal parts terrified and relieved.

I let out a sob, making agony course through my chest.  I tried to hold it back, to stop the pain, but it took a long time before I was coherent enough to say again, "Bianca?"

I had to know.  She had to be okay.

The alternative was unthinkable.

It was a fact that I would not be okay without her.  I wouldn't even be me without her.  I'd be someone else, someone with important pieces missing, pieces I couldn't get back.

He seemed to snap out it, leaning closer to me.  "She's okay.  She's recovering, but okay.  She's in better shape than you, actually."

I studied him, wondering if I'd heard him right, wondering if I was dreaming.  "She—she survived that?"

What I'd seen had looked like a headshot wound.  How had she survived that, and in better shape than me?

He nodded emphatically.

I was so worn out that I was already going back under, but at least I knew she was alive.

She was alive.

I woke up again still remembering that.  This time when Javier and I looked at each other, we smiled, though there were plenty more tears, as well.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

SHE SAVED MY SOUL

STEPHAN

Growing up, I'd had a cloud of guilt that followed me around.  Even before my uncle had started molesting me, I'd been plagued by nightmares.  An overzealous Sunday school teacher told my class one week that those of us not paying tithing would burn when the world caught fire, during the imminent second coming, and my young mind had taken it very literally.

I was eight at the time, and over the summer I'd earned a whopping ten dollars of chore money, and blown it all on candy during a trip to the grocery store.  I hadn't even thought of paying tithing for it.  No one had told me.

I'd felt horrible guilt and fear about it, even when I'd earned more money, just to pay it back.

I was a wicked boy for so many reasons, the largest of which were my thoughts.  I doubted, I feared, I resented, and in my resentment summoned up some pretty horrible opinions about my strict, mean father especially.

Mostly, I kept those opinions to myself, but occasionally, I'd snap back at him, and he always, always made me regret it.

Even after I ran away, that guilt followed me relentlessly.  It chased me down, no matter how far I went to get away from it.

And then I met her.

Bianca put it all in perspective.  She needed me.  I protected her, she accepted me, and we became inseparable.

I saved her life.  She saved my soul.

By the time I was in my early twenties, I thought I'd mostly left that heavy guilt behind me, but it still lingered in deceptive but destructive ways.

I couldn't be myself, or at least, I felt it was necessary, even proper, to hide parts of myself from the world.  This self-destructive instinct was so strong, and so knit into the fiber of who I was, that it nearly cost me the love of my life.

CHAPTER TWELVE

WAS IT ME?

PAST

STEPHAN

He was much older than me.  I was seventeen, and he had to be pushing thirty.  I knew that was bad, but he had so many other things going for him.

He was handsome.  He had a great smile.  He was even-tempered, and just as vehement as I was about staying in the closet.

I met him at the bookstore.  We were both looking for the same book.  It was so romantic.  The kind of story you could tell later and share intimate smiles about.

We hooked up the third time we went out.

We were getting cleaned up when his phone chimed.

His expression didn't change as he moved to check it, but his brow furrowed as he continued to study the screen of his phone.

"Everything okay?" I asked him, shrugging into my shirt.

He looked up, his eyes gone somewhere else.  He had to blink a few times to come back to the here and now.  "What?  Oh that?  Yeah, it's fine.  My wife is just being a nosy bitch.  Nothing new there."

My whole body froze, even my lungs, to the point that I could barely breathe, let alone talk.

Was it me?  Was I cursed, or doomed, to only pick out guys that would hurt me at the first opportunity?

"Your wife?"  I finally managed to get out.

He didn't roll his eyes, but he may as well have, with the look he gave me.  "Now don't get all touchy about this."

"You told me you were g*y.  Not bi.  Not married to a woman.  Gay."

I was careful to keep my voice down, though it was a struggle, because Bianca was asleep in the next room.

It dawned on me suddenly why he'd insisted on coming to my place.

This time he did roll his eyes.  "I am.  I'm only attracted to men, but that doesn't mean I want to live that lifestyle.  That's why I'm in the closet.  Like you."

"You're married.  You're nothing like me.  You're a liar."