---- I looked up with an unreadable expression. A flicker of polite confusion on my face. "Excuse me... are you speaking to me?" It had been nearly two years. I'd chopped off my long hair and dyed it red. My makeup, my style- my whole aura-were completely transformed. Kyle's eyes turned red. "Grace, I know you're still angry at me. I did those awful things because of Rose and her manipulations. I hurt you, and I'm sorry. I truly am. Please... 1 know I was wrong." Rose's schemes had never been clever. Frankly, most of them were clumsy and obvious, but Kyle and Jones had believed her without hesitation. Every single time. Thad tried-again and again-to make peace. All it ever earned me was deeper betrayal. The man] loved and the brother I once adored ---- both chose to stand with Rose. Her mother was the very woman who destroyed my parents' marriage. Nevertheless, they were outsiders. The ones who truly broke me were Kyle, my childhood best friend, and Jones, my own flesh and blood. The people closest to me had turned their blades to my heart. They didn't hesitate or miss. Thad bled for a long, long time. Two years had passed. The wounds had closed, but the scars remained. The pain? Gone. The past? Just smoke. And the people who once mattered most were now nothing more than ghosts passing through my story. They would never move me again.