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First published in Great Britain in 2017
by Electric Monkey, an imprint of Egmont UK Limited
The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN
First published in the USA in 2017 by Simon Pulse,
an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
Text copyright © 2017 by Lynn Weingarten
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
First e-book edition 2017
ISBN 978 1 4052 7158 5
Ebook ISBN 978 1 7803 1494 5
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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CONTENTS
SASHA
SASHA
XAVIER
SASHA
SASHA
XAVIER
SASHA
SASHA
XAVIER
SASHA
SASHA
XAVIER
SASHA
XAVIER
SASHA
XAVIER
PART 2
SASHA
XAVIER
SASHA
XAVIER
SASHA
XAVIER
SASHA
XAVIER
XAVIER
XAVIER
XAVIER
SASHA
XAVIER
XAVIER
SASHA
SASHA
XAVIER
XAVIER
SASHA
XAVIER
1 YEAR LATER
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We were holding hands, palm against palm. I could feel his heart beating, his blood against my blood.
When I looked up, his smile was wide and real. “Ready?” he said.
I faked a smile back. I had gotten so good at faking things.
I thought: You brought this on yourself, Sasha. You will never get to stop pretending.
I thought: Protect those you love, no matter what the cost.
He squeezed my hand. This is exactly what I always wanted. And nothing I ever wanted at all. And there is just no taking anything back.
“Let’s go,” I said.
“Road trip!” he said.
He couldn’t begin to imagine what this actually was. He had no idea what I’d done. What any of us had.
I turned the key. The engine started. We went.
On the eve of Xavier’s seventeenth birthday, I decided I was finally going to tell him the truth.
We were in his bathroom with