Page 52 of The Same Backward as Forward
I’d hated him until I’d loved him, and now, I would love him until the end.
“Once upon a time…” I whispered, trailing kisses down hisjaw, his neck, along his collarbone, and down to his scars. “There was a girl…”
“And a boy…” he murmured into my skin. “And pain and wonder and darkness and light andthis.”
Once upon a time, I thought,there was us.
The next thing I knew, neither one of us was standing up. He was on the ground, and I was on top of him.
Three seconds later, we’d knocked over a candle.
The floor of the lighthouse was made of old, rotting wood. The flame caught, spreading from board to board. Beneath me, Harry froze, his limbs motionless, his chest still, like he wasn’t even breathing. I snapped out of it first and moved—fast. I grabbed the blanket, threw it on top of the flames, stamped on it.
Even once the fire was out, Harry remained motionless.
The smell of smoke was unmistakable. I knelt, reaching for him. “Harry?”
After a long moment, he took my hand in his. He held it tightly for a second or two, and then, as he closed his eyes, he placed my hand gently on the floor beside him. He let go.
“Harry—”
“That isn’t my name.” His voice sounded the same. The ache in it, the darkness, the emotion rising up like stormwater behind a dam—it was all familiar, but still, Iknew.
The fire. The flames.Heremembered.I wasn’t sure how much. An instant later, he was on his feet, prowling the room from candle to candle. He snuffed one flame out, then another, pinching the candles’ wicks between his forefinger and his thumb.
He was going to burn himself.
“Stop.” I caught him before he could make it to the last candle. He broke out of my grip, and this time, when he snuffed the flame out, he did it slow, like he wanted it to hurt.
“Stop,” I said hoarsely. I hadn’t healed his burns for him to scorch himself now.
With the last flame extinguished, Harry let his hand drop to his side. I let myself think of him that way, asHarry, one last time, even though I knew: He wasn’tHarryanymore.
“I never did know how to stop.” Toby Hawthorne said those words in an unnaturally calm voice. Not even half a second later, he drove his fist into the wall. Iheardthe impact of his knuckles against the stone,heardthe wall of the lighthouse creak, like it might come down around us.
“Stop,” I said again, my voice quiet and just as calm as his. “Toby.” That was the first time—ever—that I’d used his real name out loud.“Stop.”
He looked at me like I was an angel—and not the sweet kind with clouds and a harp but the terrifying kind, otherworldly and too bright to behold.
He looked at me like I was his world—and like that world was ending.
“You knew.” He stared at me, the muscles in his throat visibly taut. “You know.”
“You need to breathe,” I told him.
“Kaylie.” He said her name, and then he said it again and again and again. “Kaylie.YourKaylie. I killed her, Hannah. I killed all of them. The fire—I was so damn angry, and at first, it was just supposed to be the dock. But I hated my father so much, hated everyone so much, it didn’t seem like enough. And when Colin suggested we go for the house—”
He didn’t finish. When I tried to reach for him, he tore himself away from me like my touch scalded his skin more than any flame could have. He stumbled out of the building, into the night,gaining traction and speed as he went. I ran after him as he ran for the lighthouse point.
I saw then what he intended. He was going to hurl himself off the point—into the water, into the rocks. Adrenaline flooded my veins, and I made it to him before he could do a damn thing. I latched my arms around him, holding him back with everything I had.
He fought me. Toby Hawthornefoughtto die, and I fought back harder. In the end, I won, because he wouldn’t hurt me, and I had no such compunctions.
If I had to hurt him to save him, then that was too damn bad.
“You told me…” He was wheezing now, like he was right back in the fire on Hawthorne Island. “You told me I didn’tgetto die.”
“You don’t.” I caught his head in my hands and forced his eyes to mine. “Not now, not ever until you’re old and gray. Do you hear me, Toby Hawthorne?” I said his full name like he’d beenTobyto me this whole time, because suddenly, it didn’t matter—Harry. Toby.He was the same.
