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I tried speaking to you and even got up the nerve to ask you out but your disinterest scared me. I didn’t want to make our nights together uncomfortable, so I didn’t ask for anything more. I looked forward to our nights all day long. I couldn’t mess those up.”

He dropped his gaze down to his hands, which he’d fisted in his lap. “Then Kendra called and she started crying, saying she needed to talk to someone and I was the only person she trusted. I told her I had somewhere to be but she cried harder and begged me. I agreed to stop by her house. She is dealing with some things in her home life that I already knew about and she needed someone to listen. When I realized I wasn’t going to be able to leave her, I wanted to call but I 48



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couldn’t call you in front of her and explain it. So, I didn’t. I was just going to deal with the bad grade. I had no idea you would even care.” He glanced up at me with a pained expression on his face. “I was wrong and I’ve never been so mad at myself.” He stood, shoving his hands in his jeans pockets with a look of defeat on his face.

I smiled. “Please don’t be mad at yourself. I don’t blame you for anything.” I wanted to say more but I couldn’t. He watched me a moment before nodding.

“Is there a chance I haven’t completely screwed things up between us?” he asked.

“What is it you’re worried about screwing up? I’ll still tutor you, if that’s what you’re asking.” He chuckled softly and gently took my hand. “I’m really grateful that you’ll remain my tutor but that isn’t what I’m asking. I was scared before of messing things up but I don’t think I can mess anything up any more than I already have.” He sat back down in the chair beside me and gazed at me with baby blue eyes that were framed in such thick lashes it made it hard not to sigh. “I don’t want you to just be my tutor. I want you to be the girl I look for in the halls every morning and save a seat for in the cafeteria. I want you to be the one waiting for me when I walk off the field at my games.

I want you to be the one I pick up the phone to call just to make me smile.” His eyes watched me. Leif Montgomery actually appeared nervous.

He was waiting for me to say something. I could see the question in his eyes. Leif wanted to take this to a level I’d thought I wanted before, so why was it so hard to accept now? Fear flickered in his eyes and I managed to nod my head. I’d agreed to let things change between us, but somehow, deep down, something didn’t feel right.





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Chapter Five


I remained in the hospital for an entire week. Every night, I went to sleep to the gentle strum of a guitar. When I would wake in the middle of the night it was never to an empty hospital room but to the dark, mysterious soul I’d grown attached to. He sat in the shadows and played a lullaby I’d decided belonged to me.

Every day Leif would come directly after his football practice with the food I’d requested smuggled inside his leather jacket. We would work on his homework, and then watch television and eat the food he brought. Being with Leif made me smile. I loved every moment we spent together.

However, at night when the soul sat in my room and played for me, music seemed to fill the lonely places. I had a need for the soul I didn’t understand. My desire for him scared, and fascinated me. My last night in the hospital his voice joined the strum of the guitar. He put words to my lullaby.

“The life I walk binds my hands

it makes me take things that I don’t understand I walk this dark world unknowing of what they hold true,

forgetting the me I once knew,

until you.

The life I walk eternally was all I knew nothing more held me here to this earth until you.

I feel the pain of every heart I take I feel the desire to replace all that I have grown to hate Darkness holds me close but the light still draws my empty soul

The emptiness where I used pain to fill the hole no longer controls me, no longer calls me because of you.”





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As my eyelids grew heavy and sleep crept over me, my heart ached for the pain in his words. They were words I knew meant more to him than I understood. The song he’d filled my nights with was much deeper than anything I’d ever known.

Miranda ran up to me the moment Leif opened the front door of the school and held it for me as I walked inside. The excitement on her face caused her brown eyes to twinkle. I smiled, waiting on her to explain the cause for her joyous behavior on a Monday morning. My being back at school couldn’t be the reason for the euphoria on her face. Since I’d come home from the hospital she’d spent a good deal of time with me. My returning to school wouldn’t cause this response.

She stopped and glanced up at Leif. He cleared his throat.

“Um, I’ll see you in a few minutes,” he excused himself with a smile and headed toward my locker carrying my books.

“Okay, he’s gone. Now, tell me what has you in such good spirits this morning.”

She linked her arm in mine and leaned close to my ear.

“Dank Walker is here. Like, at our school. Like, as in, enrolled at our school. Can you believe it? I mean, I know he went to a high school in Mobile, Alabama up until last year when his band landed a hit song and started playing all over the United States instead of just the Southeast. GAH! Can you believe he is here! At our school? I guess if he had to go back to high school, our little quaint coastal town is preferable to somewhere in Alabama. But still, I can’t believe this.”