After all this time he kept it.

I feel more of my defenses crumbling. The wall I built around my heart is in shambles, and apparently Des doesn’t have to be here to destroy it.

The next sketch is of me sitting on the floor, my back against my dorm room bed, giving a petulant look to the artist drawing me. Scrawled beneath the picture is a note: Callie wants me to stop drawing her. This is how she looks when I tell her no.

I grin a little as I read that. Mighty words, but Des had at least partially caved into my request; he drew me all sorts of landscapes and Otherworldly creatures in addition to the portraits of me he was so fond of.

The next drawing is one I’ve never seen, and unlike the other sketches, this one’s more painstakingly executed. At first all I can make sense of is the odd angle of the drawing, like the artist was on his back, looking down the length of his body. Then I make out the woman curled up against the chest we’re looking down at. I recognize my dark hair, the top of my nose, and the contours of my face, which is somewhat buried against Des’s chest.

This could’ve been one of many nights where I fell sleep curled against him, but something about the image … something about it makes me think it was one of the bad nights, the nights where Des stuck around to scare off my nightmares. I can feel an echo of that old pain even now.

Those evenings were what made me realize I loved the Bargainer. That it wasn’t just infatuation, but something I could feel on my skin and in my bones. Something that couldn’t be extinguished.

I didn’t fall for Des because he was handsome, or because he knew my secrets, but because he stuck around when I was least lovable. Because he was a man who didn’t try to take anything from me even when I lay next to him, but instead gave me peace and comfort. Because each one of those nights he saved me all over again, even if it was from myself.

And if this picture was anything to go by, it was a moment Des wanted to remember as well.

I flip to the next image, this one in color. Most of the drawing is set in deep shades of blue and green. In it I’m smiling, a ring of fireflies resting on the crown of my head. I remember this night too—

A knock on the door jolts me from my thoughts.

What am I doing? I definitely shouldn’t be looking through these. Even if I am clearly the Bargainer’s muse.

Hastily I close the portfolio, arranging it how I found it. I throw several glances back at it as I cross the room. He kept those old drawings all this time. Again I’m reminded of his confession about how he felt leaving me.

Like my soul was ripped in two.

And once again, I feel hope so sharp it’s almost painful.

That too is whisked away when someone pounds on the door again.

Who would visit Des here?

I get my answer a few seconds later, when I peer through the door’s peephole.

“Shit,” I mutter under my breath.

“I heard that, Callie,” the familiar, gravelly voice says.

The Bargainer doesn’t get visitors here.

I do.

Chapter 21

May, seven years ago

“Holy fuck,” Des says, materializing in my dorm room. “It’s a warzone out in your hallway.”

In the hallway I hear a muffled shout as some girl loses her shit because her nail polish smudged and ohmygod there’s no time to fix it.

I close my laptop and swivel around in my chair. I glance down at my bracelet. I hadn’t called the Bargainer tonight, nor had I the day before, and many nights before that. Somewhere along the way, Des started inviting himself over.

Des crosses my room and peers out my window. Far below us, girls in gowns and boys in tuxedos cross the lawn. “What’s going on tonight?”

“May Day Ball.”

Des glances over at me, his eyebrows raised. “Why aren’t you getting ready?”

“I’m not going,” I say. I pull my legs up onto my chair.

“You’re not going?” He sounds surprised.

Isn’t it already obvious? I’m wearing boxer shorts and a worn T-shirt.

I suck in my lower lip and shake my head. “No one’s asked me.”

“Since when do you wait for permission?” he asks. “And also, how is that possible?”

“How is what possible?” I ask, staring down at my knees.

I’m grumpy. Officially grumpy. If I still went to my former high school, I wouldn’t have to hear the excited squeals of girls as they got ready, and they wouldn’t notice how my door was ominously shut.

“That no one’s asked you.”

I shrug. “I thought it was your job to understand people’s motives.”

When I look up, Des’s arms are folded across his chest, and I have his full attention.

“What?” I say, suddenly self-conscious at all the attention.

“Do you want to go to the May Day Ball?” he asks.

Oh God, I’m not admitting this to him. I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “I don’t see how that matters.”

He cocks his head, and sweet baby angels, he’s going to read me. He’s already reading me.

“It does matter. Now, do you?”

I open my mouth, and I know that everything is in my eyes. That I don’t fit in, and people don’t entirely like me. That I’m an outsider and I want in, I always want in, but I don’t get to walk inside that particular door. I’m forever banished to watch other people live their lives while I wait for mine to begin—or end. It really could go either way. My existence so far has mostly consisted of me holding my breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop.