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Prologue

Kailani

People always say you should trust your instincts I wish I’d trusted mine I wish I could rewind time to the day I knocked on his door I wish I’d never looked into his eyes And most of all, I wish he’d never looked back into mine

My toes sink into the sprawling green lawn as though I'ht just sup at Landon Blackwood’sin o back and unlearn what ht rewind it all back to the day I first stood on his veranda with a plate of pineapple in the hot July sun, waiting to introduce myself

I’ve been here more times than I can count over the summer Two hundred steps from my driveway to his I knohat the ers have lass table on the patio And when I breathe deeply, I can still s notes of spicy vanilla and sweet tobacco that haunt the halls where Landon Blackwood lives

Ti else existed here Landon is an entire universe, and I always thought it was so strange he didn’t seem to realize it Until him, I always just assumed beautiful people knew their value They knew the effect they had on the rest of us But Landon is an enige, tortured boy I spent an entire summer with, yet I don’t really know him at all I don’t think anyone does

I tutored, and he listened It never felt right It always felt like I was holdingfor the truth to co to this exclusive club I didn’t belong in his orbit with his tall, ave me a new appreciation for art, and I wanted to study him every day Some colors can never be replicated, and they exist in his eyes Those gray orbs hity The subject of song lyrics, and the reason for wars

When he looks at allops And then it shatters to pieces I’ve never seen anyone so achingly empty He’s a house with four walls but no pulse His insides are covered with dust, broken furniture, and otten In the echoey cavern of his heart, I can only io to die

This house is a reflection of hi he owns is expensive and orderly, but there’s no life inside I’ve felt that way from the moment I first entered his sacred space It’s always been too quiet Too clean Too still

Tonight, it feels unfaly, like betrayal The behemoth whiteIsland Sound Music blasts frooers stuine this was exactly what Fitzgerald envisioned when he wrote thedoesn’t make sense in this reality Landon hates everyone He’s the boy who grumbles responses and tosses dark looks around like candy He doesn’t throw parties

So why the hell did he leave this note on our front door, asking ht?

I glance at the piece of paper inis artistic I should know because I’ve had plenty of time to study it But this looks like it ritten in a hurry Just three little lines

My house

8:00 PM

Landon

My chest feels weird Maybe I’ a heart attack It’s possible, right? I think I need a sick note to get out of this party But as o in there, another part of me is desperate to see why he wants me here

“You really didn’t know?” Courtney peers at the scene fro laser bea this town represents Her face is carefully neutral, never allowing any eh

My bestie throws off a hate-the-world vibe, and the only color that exists in her wardrobe is black She’s not a ray of sunshine She’s a hurricane And if you told her the world was ending in two seconds, she would si

Court doesn’t come from old money either, and therefore, she’s an outcast like me Iover the only table that didn’t require a gold-encrusted invitation After disproving her initial doubts that I was one of the brainless urchins, as she likes to call theood friends But she’s been gone for the entire suia, and she caetting her up to speed on what’s been happening in her absence, she’s been getting me up to speed on who Landon Blackwood really is