But unlike Hyde, I never pass up a good teasing opportunity when I see one. Hyde just doesn’t want me to feel gossiped about, but I don’t really care. Reef is the last person in the world who would discuss something so trivial. “Reef mentioned something about it once,” he rushes to say. I stare at him, questions flitting through my mind. Just to get away from the tribe and be alone.” The cave? We used to sneak out of the compound and go there, the four of us. But the way Hyde is watching me, like he really wants to know, to listen to me, makes me feel safe. The difference is that now I’m sure of it.Ī lump rises in my throat. The day she walked out of the Tide compound, I knew I’d probably never see her again. “Yeah.” In a way, I’ve been grieving for Liv since she left to marry Sable, the northern Blood Lord she was betrothed to. It feels like I lost her a long time ago, though.” I guess I was wrong about no one caring how I feel about Liv. I’m doing a rotten job at moving forward.

Hyde’s voice pulls me from my memories, thankfully. All I ever wanted was for us to stay the way we were.

My world was perfect when I was with Roar, Liv, and Perry. Even if he didn’t love me the way I loved him, he cared for me.Īnd I wanted to keep us all together, our paths heading in the same direction. But I wouldn’t have had the courage any other way. It’s the sort of thing that would reinforce the Dwellers’ view of us as savages, if they knew. It’s strange now to think the four of us lost our virginity on the same night. And I wanted to believe that fun would lead to better things. I didn’t want to trap it and examine it then. It was the kind of thought that flew like a sparrow through my mind. Liv just stared at me, and I remember thinking, She knows. “Brooke, you two don’t have to just because we are,” Liv said. That was the moment I decided Perry and I were ready too. She’d pulled me behind the cookhouse after supper. Then my memories sink deeper, and I am with Liv earlier that night. How we were both trembling and trying not to laugh in our fumbling, breathless eagerness. That night comes back to me with perfect clarity, and my face warms as I remember how he looked and how I felt. Before us, the valley slopes down to a grass clearing woven through by a line of trees that follow a dry creek bed.

Brooke by Veronica Rossi