I swallowed and tried to calm my heart, but it was still racing. “Actually, I do.” I approached her with my hands up as I felt tears well in my eyes. “And believe me, it really was my fault.

All my fault. The entire thing. I did it. A mess of my own making, and a little boy died because of it. He would have been my son. I mean, I was going to help her raise the baby even though he wasn’t mine. Even though he was my brother’s. So betrayal? Lies? Losing a child? Yeah, I think I get it, Lyss. So next time you start to feel sorry for yourself, next time you allow yourself to feel the raw pain of guilt, maybe you should think just for a second that the world is only what you make it. You live in hell because you choose it.”

“And what are you offering?” Alyssa turned away. “Heaven in your arms.” Her lips pulled back into a scowl.

“No.” I shook my head and sat on her bed. “I’m offering you peace.”

Tear streamed down her face as she walked up to me and slapped me hard across the cheek. It stung, but she was tiny, and I knew she was just acting out. It broke my heart into a million pieces to see her hurt like that.

“Do you feel better, now?” Hit me. I wanted to scream, Hit me! If my pain would cause her relief, I was ready for it. I wanted it.

“No.” She cried into her hands. “I’m sorry. I just reacted. I just…” She fell to the floor. “I’m just so messed up.”

I knelt down next to her and pulled her into my lap.

“Welcome to the land of the living, sweetheart. Everyone’s messed up. It’s what makes us human.”

She shook in my arms. I whispered things in her ear and rubbed her head as she sank into my arms.

“I just…” she sighed. “I just need to fix things. I want to feel like myself again. I don’t want to be broken, but then I’m afraid that if I get fixed —”

“You’ll forget him,” I answered for her.

“Yeah.” She shrugged. “The pain sucks, but it’s better than forgetting him like everyone else does. I feel crazy sometimes, like I’m the only one who cares about what happened. Everyone else just keeps moving on with life, and I feel like I can’t because I feel so guilty all the time.”

“He wouldn’t want you to,” I answered using my thumbs to rub away the tears from her cheeks. “Believe me, he loved you. I mean, who wouldn’t? I love you, and you’re kind of a mess…”

Holy crap. I just admitted that out loud, and I believed every word, because it was true.

Her eyes got really wide and then she looked away from me.

“I don’t feel very lovable.”

“Okay, get ready because I’m going to only do this once.”

“Huh?”

“I’m going to act really smart right now. I’m just preparing you, because it doesn’t happen often. If you want to take a picture to document it, I’m okay with it, just don’t sell it online.”

“You’re insane.” She giggled through her tears.

I shrugged, because really, she kind of made me feel insane.

“Some scientists did this psychological experiment with dogs—”

“Did you just say psychological?”

“Shut up and listen,” I ordered and cleared my throat. “My mind is a little fuzzy on the particulars, but scientists would put a dog in a box, and then put a divider in the middle with its food on the other side. The scientists wouldn’t necessarily abuse the dog, but they would shock it over and over again each time it crossed into the other part of the box. Finally, they stopped shocking it, and showed the dog that it was safe, that it could cross over and get its food, but it refused to move. Even though there wasn’t a threat anymore, even though everything was fine. It’s a type of classical conditioning. You get burned so much that even when there isn’t any danger, you cower in the corner.” Wow. I can’t believe I remembered that from last year’s psychology class.

“Am I the dog?” Alyssa asked quietly.

Crap, probably a bad comparison. “You are like the dog, Lyss. You’ve been so scared for so long that even though there isn’t any danger anymore, you still pretend there is, so you refuse to leave the box and experience anything. What do you think happens to the dog when it can’t get its food and water?”

“It dies.”

“Your soul isn’t meant to be in constant pain, Lyss.” I rubbed her head again and sighed. “Your heart isn’t meant to stay in pieces, and you sure as hell aren’t meant to mourn your dead boyfriend for the rest of your days.” She was silent for a really long time. I kept wondering if I screwed up, if I possibly pushed her too far.

Her knees cracked as she got up and held out her hand to me. “Will you stay the night?”

Seriously? I tried to keep my face from looking too shocked.

Tried, and failed as I felt my smile widen. “Yeah, that would be nice, but what about your parents?”

Alyssa went to her door and locked it. “They’d probably be so excited I was socializing with someone my own age that they’d feed you breakfast. But I’ll lock this just in case.”

I followed her to the bed and helped toss the pillows off.

Honestly, and I’d never admit this out loud, I was so freaking exhausted that I wasn’t really thinking about sex. I just wanted to hold her. I sighed. If Alec could see me now.

She turned off the lights and joined me in bed, tucking her head right underneath my chin. “Thanks, Demetri.”