Glass Heart Hero: A Dark High School Romance by Lindsey Iler

Author:Lindsey Iler [Iler, Lindsey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lindsey Iler
Published: 2021-03-22T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Breaker

“Try to keep your voice down, please,” I encourage, walking into the kitchen.

Palmer is sitting on the island, her legs spread enough for Marek to get close. Byron is nowhere to be found, and Dixon is tapping away on the keys of his laptop. He glances up to acknowledge me, unlike the two love birds who can’t stop messing with each other.

“Hello? Does no one hear me?” I wave my hands around.

“I hear you,” Palmer announces, smiling against Marek’s kiss.

“How’s our girl?” Marek moves away, focusing his energy on me once he’s gotten enough from Palmer to be satisfied.

Our girl. It’s something I used to say about Palmer. No jealousy is necessary in our fucked up little family. He’s right. Delaney is our girl, as much as Palmer is. An unwritten oath to protect them has been set in stone since they waltzed, more like bulldozed, into our lives.

“She’s sleeping, thankfully.”

“Well, by the sounds coming from your room, my guess is she didn’t get much sleep last night.” Dixon laughs, grinning over the top of his screen. I toss the bagel I’m about to put in the toaster straight at his head, but he catches it. “What! If you don’t want us to hear her, maybe partake in the old fashioned ideal of putting a pillow over her face.”

“I didn’t come down here expecting everyone to pretend like nothing happened,” I admit, catching the bagel Dixon returns by lobbing at my head, then turning to toast it.

They’d born witness to my unraveling last night. I’d warned them that what Tripp had planned would be the end of me. Loneliness will make me jump to the harshest realities. I had never expected Delaney to fly in and ground me.

“We didn’t think you’d want us to make a big deal of it.” Palmer bumps her hip into me, then wraps her arms around my waist. I allow her to hug me until the bagel pops out of the toaster. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. No. I don’t know,” I ramble, taking the cream cheese out of the fridge, using the task as a distraction.

“You know, if you need to talk about it, we’re here,” Palmer adds, placing a calming hand on my shoulder.

I spin around, and their eyes are on me. Even Dixon has abandoned whatever had his attention on his screen.

“My mom killed herself when I was eight. It’s been ten years. My sisters were two years old when she jumped,” I explain about the lifetime of trauma I’ve dealt with poorly.

Palmer’s intake of breath tells me she’s put it together. Her hand clasps over her mouth. “Break . . .”

“Don’t, okay?” I hold my hand out, stopping her from coming to me.

“I’ve kept my own secrets from you, but how did I not know this?” Marek asks, drawing Palmer into his arms.

“This is the one secret I’ve allowed myself to have from all of you. I don’t like to be reminded of what happened that night.”

“Is that why you’re always climbing things?” Palmer says, always the observant one.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.