Beneath These Cursed Stars

by Lexi Ryan

Genres: YA Action & Adventure; YA Dark Fantasy; YA Romance

Synopsis

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Lexi Ryan comes a romantic fantasy in which a human princess armed with death’s kiss and a fae shifter on the run become unlikely allies when a mission to assassinate an evil king collides with a fatal prophecy.

Princess Jasalyn has a secret. Armed with an enchanted ring that gives her death’s kiss, Jas has been sneaking away from the palace at night to assassinate her enemies.

Shape-shifter Felicity needs a miracle. Fated to kill her magical father, she’s been using her unique ability to evade a fatal prophecy.

When rumors of evil king Mordeus’s resurrection spread through the shadow court, Jasalyn decides to end him once and for all. Felicity agrees to take the form of the princess, allowing Jas to covertly hunt Mordeus—and starting Felicity on the path that could finally take her home.

While Jasalyn teams up with the charming and handsome Kendrick, Felicity sets out to get closer to the Wild Fae king, Misha. Kendrick helps Jasalyn feel something other than anger for the first time in three years, and Misha makes Felicity wish for a world where she’s free to be her true self. Soon, the girls’ missions are at risk right alongside their hearts.

The future of the human and fae realms hangs in the balance as fates intertwine. Between perilous tasks, grim secrets, and forbidden romances, Jasalyn and Felicity find that perhaps their stars are the most cursed of all.

Release date: July 30, 2024

Publisher: HarperCollins

Print pages: 432

Sample

Jasalyn

THE MALE I CAME TO kill is drunk when I find him. He’s lounging on a chesterfield sofa at the back of a crowded underground alehouse, his elven ears poking up through his mop of dirty-blond curls.

I weave through the crowd and sit on his knee as if we’re old friends.

“Hey there, beautiful,” he says, head lolling to the side, his smile as sloppy as his words.

Disappointment is an unexpected sharp pain in my otherwise numb heart. It’s a pity—the drunkenness. Killing him while he’s this inebriated won’t feel like the triumph I’m after. I’m tempted to come back another time, but I won’t risk losing my opportunity.

I tilt his face toward mine, remembering every nasty word he once hurled from his too-pretty fae lips. “I’ve been looking for you, Vahmer.”

“Are you real or a dream?” he asks. His gaze is fixed on my mouth.

I give him my most wicked smile. “What do you think?”

“I think if this is a dream, I don’t want to wake up.”

I cup his jaw and stroke my thumb across his cheek. “Don’t worry,” I whisper. “You won’t.”

A mere three years ago, the faeries in this room—the nastiest, greediest citizens of the Unseelie Court—were enjoying ill-gotten wealth under Mordeus’s rule. When he died and my sister took the throne, they scrambled like rats from the sun, hiding away and hoarding their riches, scheming to overthrow the rightful queen.

Here, in the deepest caverns of the darkest mountains, they live like kings. Throwing parties where pleasure is the purpose and cruelty is the side act.

“Tell me what you want,” he says, attention still fixed on my lips. “Anything I have is yours. Anything I don’t, I’ll get for you.”

Such sweet words from a mouth that spit in my water just to see me cry. Such a hungry gaze from eyes that danced in amusement as my cellmate drew bloody pictures into my flesh with a knife.

Without the moonstone ring on my finger, I’d never be able to tolerate having him so close, but this ring puts as much of a spell on me as it does on those in my presence.

I rise from his lap and back away. “The only thing I want is for you to come with me.”

He follows, and the other revelers watch with stars in their eyes, wishing they were so lucky.

Like every night I seek out my enemies, my lips are bloodred. I painted them before I left my chambers—a reminder to myself of their deadly power. Neither the makeup nor my hooded cloak hides my appearance. They don’t need to. The magical ring on my finger enchants everyone around me. They won’t recognize me. They’ll be too bewitched to consider why my face looks familiar.

“I’ll go with you,” a barrel-chested dwarf barks. “He can’t give you anything worth having.”

A beautiful white-haired female reaches a delicate, pale hand my way. “No, take me instead.”

The crowd surges toward us.

They won’t touch me. They want to, but they wouldn’t dare without my command.

“You all stay here,” I say sweetly. “I’ll be back later.” It’s so tempting to poison their wine and command them all to drink, but I’ve never seen them before. I don’t know the atrocities they’ve committed. Anyone who’s part of this crowd is no doubt guilty of many, but even with this cold heart, I won’t execute without cause. I won’t be like them.

I lead my captive up the stairs and aboveground to the rain-slicked street. The air is crisp tonight, promising an early winter. I crave winter. Crave the bitter cold. The ice. The numbness that creeps into my fingers and toes.

This winter, thanks to the ring on my finger, I’ll have a heart to match.

“I’m very strong,” my newest victim tells me. “Strong and important. I could take good care of you.”

I spin on him. “You didn’t take care of Crissa when she was a prisoner in Mordeus’s dungeon.” I curl my lip and narrow my eyes. “You hurt her.” 

“Who’s Crissa?”

Of course he doesn’t remember her. Humans are inconsequential to the fae. “She was the girl who shared my cell.”

“Why are you so worried about a human?” He says it like someone might ask why I’m worried about a piece of trash.

We were all cheap toys to him, and using his magic to control her, making her cut me up with no way to stop herself, that was nothing more than a game. “She was my friend.”

He shakes his head. “There were a lot of prisoners in that dungeon. I wouldn’t have hurt anyone if I knew they were friends with you.”

“You did hurt her. You made her cry and then you took her away.”

His brow creases, and his lower lip trembles. “I was doing my job, but if I’d known you wanted her safe, I never would have handed her over to the king. I would’ve been punished, but I’d take any punishment for you.”

“Where did Mordeus take her? Did he kill her?” She told me he wouldn’t. Told me she was worth more to him alive than dead. She was so sure she’d be rescued. “I need to know if she lives and where I can find her.” The green-eyed faerie before me isn’t the first guard I’ve found since acquiring this ring, and he won’t be the first or last to know my wrath, but he’s the one who took my friend away. He’s the one who can tell me where she is.

“I took her to the king. Perhaps he can tell you where she is.”

I frown. “The king is dead.” My sister killed him herself after she freed me from his dungeons.

His eyes flare bright. “You do not know! Our king lives! The gods have listened and given him back to us!”

“That’s not possible.” My words snap in the quiet night.

“But it is. Mordeus was wise, and he prepared for all eventualities. We never should have doubted.”

Fear is a chisel chipping at my icy heart.

I yank my heart back and lock it away where it belongs.

The faerie reaches for me but stops, his hand just short of my shoulder. “Are you mad at me?”

“I am. You are the reason my friend cried and shook in the dark. And you are the reason she is lost to me.”

His face crumples. “I’m sorry. So sorry. I didn’t know,” he blubbers, tears sneaking out the corners of his eyes.

I wish I could’ve seen him like this in the dungeons—could’ve seen him begging. My disapproval hurts him. While I wear this ring, he would do anything to be in my good favor.

“Tell me what you want,” he pleads. “Anything.”

It’s getting late. Too soon the sun will rise, and my sister will be looking for me—looking for the weak and frightened little girl she expects to live inside this skin. So I don’t draw this out the way I prefer. I bat my lashes and fist the fabric at the front of his tunic.

I curl my lips and watch his heartache wash away. My smile makes him happy. My smile makes him believe he’s done something right. “There’s only one thing I want,” I say, leaning closer.

“It’s yours.” He’s breathless. Desperate for my command. “What is it?”

“A kiss.”

“Thank you.” He exhales—relieved and grateful. I’ve given him permission to take what he’s wanted since he set eyes on me.

This is where the magic truly is. The moment these red lips touch his.

His breath hitches. His lips part in horror, and life leaves his eyes. He becomes a heavy weight—death leaning against me. I smile in earnest now. He can no longer torment those weaker than him. He can no longer find pleasure in others’ pain.

Once I release his shirt, his lifeless body falls to the ground.

I slice off a handful of his curls with my dagger, then slip away as quietly as I arrived, knowing the faeries in the alehouse below will have no memory of my visit, no memory of the chestnut-haired woman with the face of the shadow princess.

My chambers are warded against goblin travel, so I have my goblin bring me to a remote area at the back edge of the palace grounds. The sun hasn’t yet begun to rise, but the palace is lined with paths lit by torches that illuminate my companion’s pimpled face.

Gommid is two feet shorter than me with a big belly, a bulbous nose, and a tongue he can’t quite keep inside his toothy mouth. He eyes my magic ring and shakes his head. “Perhaps you should learn to face your enemies without that wicked crutch,” he says.

I ignore this. I don’t know why the ring doesn’t affect goblins, but I know Gommid well enough to know my secrets are safe with him, so I don’t worry about it.

I reach into my pocket and retrieve the handful of my victim’s curls—Gommid’s payment—but hold them away from his grasp. “A male I spoke with tonight told me Mordeus is back. Did he speak the truth?”

“You ask about the honesty of the male you killed?” He sniffs and flicks at the tip of his nose with his long tongue.

I shouldn’t be surprised that he knows how I spent my night. Goblins are the keepers of secrets in this realm, and they always know more than they’ll share. My sister told me their knowledge is collective. What one knows, they all know. She wasn’t warning me so much as letting me know they are a useful resource, but I’ve always wondered what they do with all that information. No

one really knows where goblins’ loyalty lies.

I shrug. “Is it true?”

“Your sister’s claim to the throne is secure. Do not fret.”

I scowl. “I’m not afraid.”

“Oh? Is that why you wear that ring and hunt your enemies in the dead of night? Need I warn you again? You must be yourself more than the Enchanting Lady, or she will control you.”

I retreat a step, backing toward the palace. “I’m in no mood to be lectured by a creature who does favors for fingernails and locks of hair.”

Grunting, he snatches the tangle of curls from my hand and disappears.

I don’t bother sneaking into the Midnight Palace. There’s no need when I’m wearing the ring. I walk right in through the doors off the gardens and into the east hall, where servants have already begun to prepare for the day. I feel their eyes on me as I stroll through the kitchen and up the narrow servants’ stairs.

“I would consider it a personal favor.”

I pause at the sound of my sister’s voice coming from one of the small meeting rooms on the second floor.

“You don’t need to ask,” someone replies—a familiar male voice.

I turn out of the stairwell and stand just outside the cracked-open door. I spot the dark head of the Wild Fae king. He’s seated at an oblong wooden table, his back to me. My sister paces the opposite side of the room, her fiery red curls flowing down her back.

“You’re going to wear a trench in the floor if you keep that up,” Misha tells her. “Sit and take a breath.”

She spins to face him, and I step out of view—just in case her eyes stray to the door. “I cannot focus on my duties when I am so consumed with worry over my sister.”

I flinch. She’s always worried for me, and I hate that. I hate that I’ve brought her so much grief and pain in her short years.

“It’s been three years,” my sister says, her desperation drawing out the words, “but she walks around with the same terror that was in her eyes right after she was freed from Mordeus.”

“Your sister is always welcome in my court,” Misha says. “She can stay as long as she likes.”

Stay in the Wild Fae Lands? Is my sister planning to send me away?

Brie crosses her arms. “She won’t want to stay. All she ever wants is to sit in her room and hide and sleep and pretend that she isn’t months away from becoming fae.”

A light brown hand reaches toward her, and I realize my sister’s partner, King Consort Finnian, must be at the end of the table I can’t see. He brushes his fingers against her wrist. My sister looks his way and nods. I can see the calm wash over her. Finn steadies her, brings her comfort and peace and, when needed, his own strength. I love him for that. Even if he is fae.

“She’ll need to agree to it,” Misha says. “I’m not interested in holding her captive.”

“She will,” Finn says. “If Brie makes it clear that’s what she wants.”

“She’ll let it be known that she’s displeased about it,” Brie tells Misha. “But I think you could win her over.” She flashes a weak smile. “As you did with me not so long ago.”

“I’ll do what I can, but you know your sister. She isn’t very . . . open to friendships. But I will try.”

“I’m afraid I must ask you for more than your friendship, Misha. I need you to give her a purpose. Otherwise, she’ll do the same at Castle Craige as she’s done here for three years.”

Misha leans back in his chair. “And what makes you think my efforts to make her live her life will go over any better than yours?”

Brie grimaces. “She’s too gentle to tell you no.”

Gentle. It’s all I can do to stifle my scoff. I just watched the life leave a male’s eyes, and it was the best part of my week by far. That they think I’m gentle proves they don’t know me at all.

“What do you have in mind?” Misha asks.

“It can be anything. Just get her involved with the day-to-day of running the territory. Take her with you when you travel. Get her outside. Anything.”

“And you’re sure she wouldn’t be safer locked in her chambers here?”

“If the rumors are even true,” Brie says, “I suspect Mordeus will stay in the Unseelie Court, where he can gather his followers and pull power from the land. He knows this court and this palace better than anyone, and he knows too well what I would do to protect her. I can’t risk being the reason she’s hurt again, and I can’t risk this court being in danger if the worst happens and Mordeus is able to get his hands on her again.”

Mordeus? Am I the last to know these rumors?

I must make some sound, because Misha and Brie swing their heads toward me.

“Jas!” my sister squeaks, rushing around the table to swing the door open and greet me. Her pale skin flushes at the sight of me. “Why aren’t you in bed?”

I rub my thumb against the ring still firmly in place on my middle finger, a reminder that none of them will remember this interaction. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“I’ll call for your handmaid. She can get you more—”

“Please don’t. Mordeus is back?”

“There are rumors,” Misha says, standing and coming closer. “You are stunning,” he says, sweeping his gaze over me. “May I be so bold as to ask you to walk with me?”

Brie shoots him a puzzled look. “I’ll handle this.”

I roll my eyes. The ring is effective, but sometimes the results are . . . absurd. “Focus,” I tell them. “Tell me what you know about Mordeus.”

Brie looks to both Misha and Finn, who’s pushed to his feet to come closer, but they’re both under the spell of my ring and offer her no help. She sighs. “My sources tell me that his followers have been chattering about his return—a supposed resurrection,” she

says. “We have spies in the field as we speak, trying to find out more, but I don’t want you to worry about it.”

I cock my head and study her. She seems her normal self. Almost as if she’s unaffected by the ring.

I don’t have time to worry about what that could mean. Finn comes toward us, and when I meet his silver eyes, a shiver of revulsion goes down my spine.

I shift my gaze and focus on his dark curls, so different from the straight, silver-streaked hair of his wicked uncle Mordeus.

Finn gestures to his chair. “Please, take my seat. Let me get you some tea.”

“No, thank you,” I say. “I’m tired and want to go back to bed.”

“I’ll walk you,” Misha says, eyes bright. “I want to make sure everything in your room is as you like it.”

“You all stay here and finish your meeting.” I step back toward the stairwell. “You never saw me anyway.”

I turn away from the doe-eyed affection on their faces and walk quickly to the stairs. Behind me, I hear my sister ask, “What is wrong with you two?”

I bite back a laugh and go to my chambers.

The sentry who stands outside my door beams when he spots me, his eyes bright, his smile comically wide.

“What can I do for milady?” he asks. Dryus is a distant cousin of Finn’s, with the same silver eyes, light brown skin, and dark hair. He’s young and kind and has been nothing but good to me in the three years he’s been charged with my protection, but his pointed, elven ears are a reminder than he can’t be trusted. My once-human sister excepted, no faeries can. I was a stupid little girl for ever believing otherwise.

I cock my head to the side. “Do you tire of babysitting a human girl?” I ask.

“It is both tedious and a privilege, milady. But what of you? Are you tired? May I help you in any way?”

I sigh. His honesty is boring. I was hoping for evidence of an ugly heart beneath that pretty face. Perhaps it’s the ring that makes me crave a reason to hate him. “Remember, the princess was in her room all night. She passed the hours reading because she couldn’t sleep.”

“Of course, milady.”

I step around him and through the door, hanging my cloak and stripping out of my dress. I pull on the sleeping gown my maid helped me into eight hours ago. It seems like a lifetime.

Mordeus is back.

I stare at my magic ring, at the smooth moonstone framed on either side with a silver crescent moon. It’s time to take it off, but I dread the brutal humanity that will follow. Maybe this time it won’t. Maybe I can block out the pain the same way my tutors have taught me to block faeries from my thoughts.

The second I slide the

silver band from my finger, my terror hits me like a tidal wave, and I collapse onto the bed.

Mordeus is back. Mordeus is looking for a way to destroy my sister.

I know I should care about what he wants beyond that—the part where he intends to steal back the throne and rule this kingdom, but I don’t. I want no part of it, royal fae blood and destiny be damned.

I drag myself to my pillow and bury my face, muffling sobs. I have my own wing in this palace, but no privacy. In addition to the sentry outside my door, there are two more at the top of the main stairs and another standing at the servants’ stairs. If they hear me cry, my sister will know about it by morning.

I grip the ring so hard it bites into my palm. I want to put it back on. It will ease this ache in my chest—turn it to ice, numb my heart, and cool my anger. It will transform this nightmare I’ve found myself living into a plan for vengeance.

I could. I could slide it on my finger and slip right past the guards. Let them greet me and forget me just as quickly. But Gommid’s warning chimes in my head. You must be yourself more than the Enchanting Lady, or she will control you.

Would that be so bad? To never feel so deeply again? To never fear? To never hurt like this? To spend my days and nights ending the most wicked creatures in this land?

Across the room, the first fingers of dawn stretch into the window, reminding me that my ring has a magic meant for darkness and using it during the day comes at a cost.

Sleep. Just sleep.

After tucking the ring into the hidden pocket I sewed into the back of my mattress, I find my herbs from the apothecary. If my heart can’t be numb, I’ll hide in deep, dreamless sleep.

I take a double dose.

 

Jasalyn

“GOOD MORNING, SLEEPYHEAD!”

My sister’s cheerful voice cuts through the thick blanket of sleep and drags me from my nightmare with a gasp. For a moment I expect to find myself in a dark cell, the scent of urine filling my nose, the icy cold of the stone floor seeping into my bones.

But the bed is soft and my blankets are warm. Day has come and, with it, the honey glow of light through the cracks in the curtains.

The bed shifts and I smell Brie’s cinnamon and vanilla soap, sense her warmth. And her worry. Always her worry.

“I’m sorry to wake you,” she says softly, knuckles brushing the back of my hand. “But I have a meeting in the northern mountains in a couple of hours, and we need to talk first.”

Before I was sold to Mordeus and dragged to Faerie from my home realm, the human realm of Elora, I never wasted much time imagining what it might be like to be queen of a faerie court, but I would’ve guessed it involved decadence and balls and . . . I don’t know, appearing before your subjects like some beneficent goddess. But judging from my sister’s experience in the last three years, it’s mostly meetings and more meetings. When she’s not convincing the lords of the court to assist in her rebuilding efforts, she’s mediating petty squabbles between shadow fae, like a schoolmistress teaching children to play nice.

As if dealing with the politics within the court isn’t bad enough, she’s also left to navigate the politics between courts. While she calls the king of the Seelie Court and the king of the Wild Fae Lands both friends, the subjects of the three main territories of Faerie aren’t keen to follow her lead. The Seelie and Unseelie fae were enemies for centuries before Abriella took the throne, and though historically neutral, the Wild Fae were reluctant allies at best.

“Jas?” Brie says, taking my wrist in her hand.

I force my eyes open before I fall back to sleep.

Brie’s wearing her riding clothes—brown leather pants with knee-high boots, a soft white cotton blouse beneath a leather riding vest. I catch her frowning at the puddles of dried wax on my bedside table from all the nights I’ve left candles burning while I sleep. She knows I hate the dark, but I don’t talk to her about it because she gets that crease between her brows and guilt fills her eyes.

It’s not her fault our aunt sold me to an evil faerie. It’s not her fault the darkness reminds me of those long nights in Mordeus’s dungeons and the horrible things I endured there.

She gently strokes her thumb over the circular scar on my wrist. It’s as wide as a plum and gnarled like a knot on an old tree. I hate the pain and worry that contorts her face when she looks at my scars, and I yank my wrist from her grasp and pull down the sleeve of my sleeping gown.

“Any new marks this morning?” she asks, eyes searching my face.

“I don’t know.” I yank up my blankets, tucking them under my arms before she gets any ideas and tries to look for herself. There are already more than she knows about, though I’m guessing my maids have told her about the game board of puffy scar tissue that’s appeared across my abdomen.

“Perhaps next time Finn and I visit Juliana in Staraelia, you could—”

“Is my appearance so disturbing to you that you need your High Priestess to fix me?” I snap.

She flinches, and I wish I could take the words back. The scars began appearing at random intervals shortly after my birthday. Once Abriella found out about them, I agreed to let her healers look at me, but their salves do nothing to make the marks fade, and they haven’t had any answers for their queen about my mysterious scarring. But I fear the High Priestess and whatever magic she has would tell my sister too much.

Abriella is a powerful queen, but with me she acts like a nervous child. And that’s all my fault. It’s all my fault because I’m broken. It’s all my fault because while this life in this world has made Brie grow and thrive, for me it feels like trying to breathe underwater.

I don’t need Brie knowing that though the timing of the marks’ appearance is random, the scars themselves are not. Each corresponds to an injury inflicted on me in Mordeus’s dungeons. 

I don’t want her knowing about what happened to me during those weeks. What good would it do, anyway?

At least now I have the ring and my nights tracking down my enemies. At least when my heart is cold, I feel like I can breathe.

On the other side of the room, my handmaid draws the curtains, and the streams of golden sunlight turn to swaths that fill the room.

I squint, push myself up, and lean against my velvet headboard.

“It’s nearly lunchtime,” my sister says. There’s no censure in her tone, only concern.

“I had trouble falling asleep.” A lie. Once I took my herbs at sunrise, sleep came hard and fast. And the nightmares with it.

The dreams of my days in Mordeus’s dungeons haunt me, but worse than those are the dreams where I’m in his body. My mind twists my worst memories until my dreams show our “visits” from his eyes. In those dreams, I have to see the terror in my eyes as he steals all my control. I have to see myself writhing in pain from his brutal torture. But the worst part is how I feel in those dreams. How much I relish the power. How satisfying it is to see myself suffer.

Brie stares down at her hands. Her red hair falls forward, a curtain hiding her face. I always loved her hair—an orange red like the lilies in the Court of the Sun. It’s grown long again in these last few years, and now the waves flow down to the middle of her back. Once upon a time, I’d sit behind her and weave it into braids.

But that was before. Before the dungeons. Before the Throne of Shadows. Before the person I loved most in the world became what I hate most: a faerie.

“It’s normal, you know,” she says. “Excessive sleeping is a symptom of depression and—”

“I’m not depressed.”

When she lifts her head, I flinch at the pain I see in her eyes. “I know you’re not happy here. You can talk to me.” Her desperation hurts worse than the many daggers twisted into my flesh while I was Mordeus’s captive. “I fight every day for the people in this court, and all the while I feel like I’m losing you. I can’t do this if you are the cost.”

Then don’t. But I can’t ask that. Not when leading these people means everything to her. Not when, if it weren’t for me, Brie would be happier now than she’s ever been in her life.

And besides, what’s the alternative? Brie uses her magic to glamour herself so we can go home again? I miss the realm of Elora, the land where we were born and raised, the way I miss the innocence of my childhood. There’s no going back, and we both know it.

“You’ve suffered through so much,” she says. “Two major traumas that you never speak of. If you needed to talk—”

“I don’t.” I tear my gaze from hers and stare at my lap, counting down the seconds until she leaves me alone.

“You don't

even want to sew anymore.”

“This again? Why are you so fixated on me sewing? You probably have a hundred servants capable of the job.” I give her a smile. Not the seductive smile of the Enchanting Lady, and not the satisfied smile that curves my lips when death takes my victims. No, I give her my Princess Jasalyn smile. This is the expression of the girl I’m supposed to be. Meek and scared, but grateful. “I’m truly fine. You’ve given me a home, and I am content here.” Another lie. I’ve gotten too good at this.

“Nevertheless, I would like you to go stay with Misha for a time.”

Everything from last night comes back in a rush. Mordeus is back, and my sister wants to send me away.

But I’m not supposed to know any of that and she doesn’t seem to remember, so I cough out a laugh. “I’ll pass, thanks.” Misha is my sister’s best friend. He’s a nice enough male, but when he visits, I always feel him poking around in my head. Luckily, he’s also the one who taught me how to guard against such mental exploitations. He taught me well, but I find it unnerving nevertheless. I always fear slipping in his presence. What would he do if he knew my secrets? Tell my sister, surely, and then what?

What would Abriella do if she knew her terrified little sister was leaving a trail of her enemies’ bodies throughout the mountains?

What would she do if she knew what I traded for that power?

“The Wild Fae territory is beautiful,” Brie says.

“I’m sure it is, but I don’t want to go.”

“You could go riding and explore the village.”

“I could go riding here.”

“You could start fresh—away from the court where so many terrible things happened to you.” She tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, and I flinch before catching myself. She yanks her hand away as if she’s been burned. “You could make new friends. New memories.”

My heart pinches. She doesn’t just want me to visit her friend. When they were talking last night, I thought she meant a few days, maybe a week. “You want me to live there?”

“I think it would be good for you.”

“Is it that bad?” The words are out before I can stop them. “Having me here?  Knowing that I struggle a little? ...