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Chapter One

Early June

Now

One, two, three, four I focus to slowto make the breaths stretch slowly, closer to tortoise rather than hare, like they’re rushing right now My pal wheel, almost like they’re in clay on my pottery wheel

Why am I so nervous? I shouldn’t be This is Jason and he loves ? That we’re connected…soul h to find each other in this crazy, screwed-up world we live in

More than that, he likes it when I talk to him, when I tell hiliness Fighting parents, a dad who is always putting hi him names

I’m his haven His beautiful

Funny how out of all the billions of people in the whole orld, I found him That he calls me his beautiful when that’s what Dad always called Monora is what Dad used to call her My beautiful lady That’s how I knew Jason and I were n that I’m destined for a love just as true as my parents had Just like I always felt it was destiny for them to adopt me She was meant to be my mom

My heart starts to cal those words to ainst my ear His body wrapped around mine We love each other, I remind myself, so I shouldn’t be scared to tell Jason Now the rest of it? Thatto freak

After pulling the keys fro ht we met

If red wasn’t my favorite color before, it definitely is now He’d touched my hair, the red that surprises everyone, since Dad is Italian But then, it’s not as though I would look like him

That quickly, it had been like Jason and I knew each other forever Did he know then? Feel the draw he told me about later? Feel the same spark with me that Mom always talked about with Dad? I hadn’t at first I didn’t want to feel anything when I h hurt to last a lifetime

I love hih That’s what matters

Red hair…red dress, and now red cheeks I never knew blushing could be so damn sexy…

Half of h at him I mean, really? How dumb did he think I was? At the tihing, I talked to hi’s been the same ever since