---- Chapter 6 I stood there, frozen, staring at Charles in disbelief. He said he liked me? For a moment, I almost laughed. But the years I'd lived through weren't illusions. The pain I'd endured wasn't a dream. If what Charles felt for me counted as love, then being loved by him must be the cruelest punishment this world could offer. "What kind of joke are you trying to make, Charles?" I asked. "Someone like you-how could you possibly know what love even means? You're selfish, childish, and weak. At the first sign of hardship, you crawl into your shell like a frightened turtle, unable to face reality." He let out a cold, hollow laugh. Straightening up, he looked at me with twisted ---- calm, like a devil clawed up from the pits of hell. "Heh," he said. ''So you saw through me all along. " There it was again. That refusal to face reality. The one thing that made him nothing like Grayson. And yet, somehow, he got to inherit all the good things. It wasn't fair. Eight summers ago, in an alleyway soaked with damp and shadow, it was Grayson who pulled me out. But he died before I ever had the chance to tell him how I felt. Back then, I had no idea he was part of the Mankin family. It never occurred to me that life would hand me something so theatrical, so absurd. ---- My parents were too busy to care. I'd been left to grow up alone in a crumbling neighborhood. When the local thugs bullied me, I didn't dare fight back. Until one day, they went too far, crossing a line with their hands and their intentions. I struggled as hard as I could, but I was no match for them. They beat me bloody, my head splitting open against the concrete. That's when Grayson appeared. He had just returned to the country for summer break. Passing by, he heard my screams echoing from the alley. He rushed in like some kind of angel descending from the sky. He carried me on his back to the hospital. Before leaving, he wrote down his email address and pressed it into my palm. He was bright, hopeful, the kind of person who