Page 49 of Savage Heart

When Iris wakes up, she looks wrung out but steadier. She won’t meet my eyes at first. Then she does, but she seems embarrassed.

“Thanks,” she says, barely audible.

“I didn’t do anything.”

She smiles. “You got your mom.”

“You feel better?”

“Lots.”

I exhale. “Thank goodness. You scared me.”

Later, because I ask a million questions, Mom explains that Iris is becoming a woman. I remember all the things they taught in health class, and things start to click.

Everything is changing. I wish it could just stay the same.

Chapter 12: The Present, the Past, the Pie

Iris

I stumble back inside the Broken Spur.

My chest aches. Not sharp anymore, just sore, like I ran too hard and my lungs are raging at me for it. I drag in a breath. Then another. I count them because that’s what you do when your body forgets how.

In . . .

Two.

Three.

Four.

But it’s Maverick’s voice in my head.

My hands shake. I shove them into the back pockets of my jeans.

I edge toward the wall and lean my shoulder into it, cool brick seeping through my shirt. My legs feel weak.

God. Get it together, Iris.

I close my eyes for half a second, and Maverick’s face flashes behind them—too close, too real, all sharp angles and heat and history. The way he cut in to help like he cared. Not gentle, but not cruel either, like he’d been minutes before. Controlled. Like everything about him always was.

He’s the one who made you have a panic attack in the first place, Iris. Don’t forget that part.

He left me on the dance floor. It wasn’t that I expected him to stay. I never thought he’d touch me in the first place. But he did. And that shook me.

The way he looked at me, though . . . like he was furious that I even exist.

For twelve years, he’s looked at me like I’m something rotten. Something to endure. And tonight, for a split second, I thought maybe there was something else there. Something that still mattered.

But then the things he said before he walked away . . . that’s what tipped me over the edge.

My throat tightens.

I breathe again, slow and deliberate. In through my nose. Out through my mouth.

Vera sees me from the dance floor and waves. “There you are!” she calls. “Come on. Come dance!”