Quiet and imaginative, Derek O'Reilly spends a lot of time watching a movie in his head. His fiancé Nathan wonders why Derek hasn't taken any interest in their wedding planning, and Aunt Fran -- his spiritual guru -- would like to know when her guilt-tripping nephew became a kept boy. When she drops Derek's childhood journal on his lap, he's forced to remember the name he's been trying to forget since he was twelve years old. Nicolai Lund. Nick was Derek's neighbor ... and first love. Weeks before Derek's engagement party, a chance meeting with Nick catapults Derek into the past. But Nick isn't that seventeen-year-old rebel anymore. He's a man hardened by invisible scars. A man struggling with grief. As Derek reads through his childhood diary, he realizes what Nick was to him, still is today, and yet might be ... NOTE: This edition has been expanded and substantially edited.

Split

I got out of bed and I pushed my dresser up against the door, and then leaned a chair against that. Good.I would be undisturbed.


I lay on my bed, staring up at the ceiling, trying to slow my heart down to an acceptable pace.


How could I not? I jumped out of bed and worked at sliding the dresser away. I turned the doorknob but jumped back into bed before Nick entered.


“Okay,” he said softly, walking in. “I’m gonna talk to you and you’re gonna listen.” He sat on thefloor, facing me, with his back against the wall. “Okay?”


I turned on my side, watching him. The wind rattled the window above my head, and at the sound of it, a shiver rippled down the small of my back. “O—okay.”


Chapter 59