Page 27 of Break the Ice
I pause at the mouth of the alleyway as a group of people walk past. I can’t risk anyone overhearing this conversation. You never know who’s listening these days, and the last thing I want is the world looking too deep into my past, where we come from.
The rumor mill is already circulating all kinds of vendetta stories about Fin and I, our relationship. A few days ago Jayden showed me a baby watch article Kailey sent him.
“You don’t want to do this, Elijah,” Mom huffs. “You don’t want to turn your back on God, on your family…”
For years I’ve tried to make sense of my life in that place. For years I’ve given everything asked of me, hoping that one day it would be enough. That I would be good enough.
Except enough doesn’t exist to them.
“Remember this, Elijah. God’s word is certain and clear… Those who turn away from the Lord will be cursed by him. They will be cut off and rest in the congregation of the dead.”
My heart sinks at the underlying meaning of her bible quote.
“Stop hiding behind the scriptures.” Mom sucks in a sharp breath at my directness. It’s not how things are done in Havenview. There’s always a film, a veil to cover over the truth of it all—the bullshit. “It’s cowardly, and I’m certain scripture makes it clear that cowards will burn like the rest of the faithless and the sinners.”
“Elijah—”
“Goodbye… Mom.” With a hard tap, I end the call.
No amount of breaths can steady my hammering pulse or slow the whir of my convoluted thoughts. Nothing can quieten the chaos my mother’s words turned over.
Finley’s right. The only way to move on. To be free. Is with a clean break.
No more arrangements. No more deals. No more feeding the hand that beats us down.
I have Finley. I’m done, and I’m out.
CHAPTER 8
FINLEY
There’s only so much of the day I can spend in bed, tracing the lavender shadows and soft edges of the pretty room Elijah made for me.
Staying here means I don’t have to think about the silence from Havenview—no calls from my parents, from Elijah’s parents, from the Elders.
Silence isn’t mercy.
In The Fellowship, silence is the inhale before the strike. They whipped me to make me “worthy” of the man they chose. The same man who tried to drown me because my brother said so.
They won’t let me go. Not without a price.
I pull the blanket tight around my shoulders and tuck it under my thighs, so it hides the scabs. Elijah’s T-shirt skims mid-thigh, but with no underwear it feels reckless to wander his home without a shield—for modesty, sure, but mostly to keep his eyes off the wounds. Every time he notices them, something in him goes winter-cold.
The living room is still ruffled from last night; rumpled throw, dent in the cushion where I fell asleep while Elijah played video games.
When he didn’t go to Jayden’s to study tape after the game, I thought we’d talk. But this Elijah doesn’t talk much. In the two weeks I’ve been here, we’ve learned how to be quiet beside each other.
I fold the blanket and set it neatly on the couch. In the utility room, a clean pair of his boxers sits folded on the dryer—salvation. Once I’m decently armored, I drift back to the windows. The late morning sun lays a bright stripe across the floor, glass warm against my palms as I take inthe far city and, below, the ocean lifting and falling like a sleeping animal.
So much water.My lungs cinch just looking at it. I’ve wanted to see the ocean since I knew what it was—real sand, driftwood that smells of salt, foam that clings to ankles.One day soon. When I’m braver than the memory.
“You’re awake,” Elijah says behind me.
He sounds breathless. I turn to find him in the open doorway, flushed from a run, shirt clinging, hair damp. He looks like the boy I knew if someone drew in the lines and shaded the muscles—familiar and startling at once.
“You good?” He scans me head to toe, then offers a white paper bag. “I got you something.”
His other hand plants on his hip in that nerdy, endearing way of his. I meet him halfway, take the bag, and hold his gaze as I open it.
