Four Score

Prologue

I am afraid.

There, I said it.

Terrified, anxious, strung out, waiting for my lies and my past to come crashing down around me.

The thing that terrifies me the most? It isn’t Dornan owning me, or Jase hating me, or even dying.

No, I am not terrified of death. I came close enough to it once that I know it intimately. Death itself is not what terrifies me.

I am afraid that I’ll never feel alive again.

I used to pray, even though I’m not a religious person. I’d lie on the grass in the backyard beside Elliot in Nebraska, and stare up at the millions of bright stars that I’d never been able to see through the smog of L.A. It was beautiful, and it was terrifying.

I used to wish on those shimmering stars that one day, I’d be free. That I’d feel alive again. And the most terrifying thing is that in Dornan’s arms, reliving his grief and his loss as I kissed his tears, was the only place I felt truly vindicated.

It’s so terrifying I can barely even talk about it, but that’s my fear.

That, once Dornan is finally dead, I still won’t feel any different.

That I’ll still be the ghost girl who’s dead inside.

Sometimes that fear is almost too much to bear.