Page 77 of Sparrow

And then I found Mars.

“Not for a long time,” I murmur.

“What did you do first, when you left?”

I have to think about that for a long time, because there are a lot of answers. I ran to a friend’s house and asked if I could sleep there for the night. And then I kept running, moving from house to house until I ran out of friends to stay with. Then I tried living on my own. I can still remember my first night on the streets by myself.

It was raining and I couldn’t find anything more than a doorway to crouch down in. I was cold and wet and very frightened. Rats chewed my shoes in the middle of the night, and I didn’t think I’d ever eat again.

I was thirteen years old.

But those aren’t things I did. Those were survival instincts. The first thing I did was...

“I changed my name.” It’s a whisper. Barely a memory. But I’d been dreaming of doing it since I could start dreaming.

Her response is also a whisper. “You don’t need to tell me if you don’t want to.”

I’m shocked when I realize that I do want to tell her. For the first time since that first night, I want the feel of someone else knowing who I really am.

“Caedyn,” I say. “My real name is Caedyn. It never fit me, though, and I don’t think it’s even a real name. Something my mother made up, maybe. A joke of some sort.”

The name fees strange on my tongue. Foreign, like it doesn’t belong to me.

“No on in this town has ever heard it, not even Mars, and there are good reasons for that. It’s not that I don’t trust Mars. I trust the man with my life. But saying the name out loud brings the old life back, and no one is allowed to know about that. I’ve never wanted anyone knowing who I actually am. I don’t want to be Caedyn ever again. I want to be Orion. But Caedyn has a bad habit of popping up when I least expect it and punching me right in the face.”

It takes a moment before she responds, and I suddenly feel like I’ve said too much. I’ve told her that I’m not the person I’m pretending to be, and that no one knows who I really am. And gods, for a girl like her, that’s got to be a huge red flag. A sign that I can’t be trusted.

That I really am as dangerous as she originally thought.

Fuck, I’m stupid. This is why I don’t tell people anything about my past. This is why I work so hard to keep everyone at a distance from me. Letting them get close is just asking for trouble.

I’m about to get to my feet and get as far away as I can when she finally answers.

“Caedyn.” The word is a soft breath, a gentle exhalation. When she looks at me, she’s smiling. “I like Orion better. It feels more like you. You just need to give Caedyn a bit more time to disappear. But he will.”

God, this girl.

One word, one line, and she’s erasing years of tension from my shoulders, decades of fear from my mind.

Caedyn isn’t someone to be afraid of. He’s just the boy I’ve outgrown. But he’s still in there because he’s still me.

Of course he is.

I put my hand out and trace her jaw with my fingertips, amazed at how easy it is for her to look at me and see who I actually am. See, instead of the monster so many people construct, the human man with all the emotions. I trusted her with the one thing I’ve held for myself all these years, and the world didn’t fall down around me. I didn’t explode. She didn’t get up and run away, screaming. She just smiled and told me that I’m not that lost kid anymore. And somehow... Somehow, that was exactly what I needed to hear.

How the fuck did I ever survive without her in my life?

“Where have you been all my life?” I ask softly.

She leans into my touch, her eyes soft in the moonlight. “Learning enough to be able to see you, I guess.”

Fuck. Me.

I’ve known this girl less than a week and she already knows me better than anyone ever has. And I don’t know if that’s terrifying... or perfect.

Arden

Idon’t think I sleep well in this house.