A/N: So in the world of SOA, the Hells Angels don't really seem to exist, I guess because the Sons are supposed to be the Hells Angels, but I wanted to stray just slightly from the canon in order to put them back in. Thanks to everyone for sticking with this story through the summer hiatus!

July 1995

I want to hold the hand inside you
I want to take a breath that's true
I look to you and I see nothing
I look to you to see the truth
You live your life
You go in shadows
You'll come apart and you'll go blind
Some kind of night into your darkness
Colors your eyes with what's not there…

She felt totally sick to her stomach. Most likely it was due to the fact that she hadn't really eaten anything since last night, but feeling the way she did, with her insides solid and heavy as if they were lined with lead, she had zero interest in food at all.

Tara sat sprawled across her bed, surrounded by the mid-day sun and half a dozen books, as she continued to page through them, every word she read like a smack against a tender bruise. Her head was spinning in a million directions, and she felt dizzy and disoriented like she was drunk, but without the buzzed euphoria that went with it. Leaning her head back against the headboard, she closed her eyes and tried to breathe, tried to put everything back into shape. He was coming to pick her up in a couple of hours, and then they would have to head over to the clubhouse, where the barbecue would be in full swing.

It had all started yesterday morning, when she had finally gotten a chance to skim through the book she had bought the week before about the Hells Angels. She wasn't sure what she had been expecting – some crazy stories about the '60s and life on the open road, maybe – but everything she read had been so disturbing, so awful, that she couldn't really wrap her head around it.

The movie she and Jax had watched – at least up until the part when she had gotten so distracted – had made the guys in the motorcycle clubs seem kind of scary, but fun, too. Rebels, sure, but up against all that conformity and judgment, they seemed pretty justified at telling the world to kiss their asses. What the book was talking about, though – and it was talking about real people, not just characters in a movie – wasn't really social rebellion, but just straight-up criminal behavior.

There were guns and knives and drugs, fights and assaults and stabbings, and even rapes – the book had talked about the gang rapes of two girls, fourteen and fifteen, in Monterey, not even a hundred and fifty miles away. And all the members of these clubs, they called themselves "One Percenters," real outlaws that were beyond all the rules of society. She probably would have tried to shrug it off, tell herself that the book she was reading was almost thirty years old, that it was all in the past, but then she had remembered the wall of arrest photos at the clubhouse and all her insides went cold. An inside joke, he had said. Over the past few weeks, she had forgotten about the wall, Jax's explanation made easier to believe by the fact that he and Opie were harmless, their black leather and tough exterior notwithstanding. All those things she had thought before she had known him, she had come to see that it was all just gossip and bullshit; she knew he didn't carry a gun, and she suspected he hadn't actually been in half the fights he was rumored to have been part of.

So yesterday afternoon, before her SAT class, she had gone over to the public library, to see what else she could find. There had to be something more recent, something she hoped would detail how the motorcycle clubs had eventually abandoned their large-scale criminal activities and turned into – mostly – law-abiding citizens.

The library, however, didn't offer much to make her feel better. Cross-referenced in the card catalog under "Hells Angels" were subject terms like "Motorcycle gangs – California" and "Outlaws – California" and, even more worrisome, "Organized Crime." She had quickly made her way through the stacks, pulling book after book, rushing because she didn't want to be late to her class, a sinking feeling following her until she finally got home and had a chance to look at everything.

In the growing darkness of her bedroom, she had read about Altamont and Sonny Barger. She had read about gun-running and methamphetamines and the war with the Mongols over territory in Southern California. She had read about investigations by the FBI, DEA, ATF, local police forces, and a variety of abbreviated law enforcement agencies she couldn't even entirely identify. There were pictures from the 1960s of tattooed Hells Angels and their old ladies, even arrest photos, everyone looking dirty and disreputable, their hair greasy and clothes unwashed.

At some point in the night, she had fallen asleep among the open books, and woken to a blade of late morning sunlight falling across her lap. Shaking the sleep from her mind, she had continued her investigation, becoming more and more disturbed as she read, but somehow unable to stop herself. In the last book, she finally found what she had been dreading most of all, in a chapter titled "Sons of Anarchy: California." There was the story of the club's founding and its expansion past the original chapter in Charming, into the rest of California, into Oregon, Nevada, Arizona. In the glossy center pages of the book there was even a picture of a bunch of long-haired guys in denim labelled "FIRST 9" and she gasped to realize that she recognized the pale blue bike one of them was sitting on. Jax's dad was mentioned, along with Opie's, and even though the book was a few years old, it referenced an on-going feud with a rival club from Oakland called the Mayans, all of it wrapped up in violent assaults and illegal gun sales and even the possibility of murder.

Some inside joke.

She knew that, at some point, she would have to open her eyes and get up off her bed. She would have to take a shower and put on some clothes. And then she would have to smile and get on the back of his motorcycle and let him take her to a party being held at the headquarters of what was most likely a criminal organization, where she would be surrounded by dangerous felons, men who seemed to be capable of just about anything.

Fade into you
Strange you never knew
Fade into you
I think it's strange you never knew…

She was gripping onto his waist so loosely that Jax was sure she was going to tumble off if he took a turn too sharp. It was weird, just because he knew that she normally liked to hold on tight and lay her cheek on his shoulder when she sat behind him. He liked it, too – with the feel of her arms clasped against his ribs, her hair whispering across his neck, her breath warm on his skin – even though it tended to distract him from the road.

But today she had positioned herself further away from him on the seat, as if she didn't want to get too close. Even when he had picked her up, she had been pretty quiet, just giving him a quick smile that didn't seem to quite reach her eyes and stepping onto the bike without really even looking at him. He couldn't figure out any clear reason for her to act like that; everything had been fine when he dropped her off the day before yesterday, although he hadn't talked to her since then. Maybe something had happened with her dad, something she wasn't in a mood to talk about, something that was still bothering her, even now, after she had left the house. He wondered if maybe she had been caught somehow, that maybe her dad had found out Jax had been in her room that night last week and that he and Tara had been messing around. How anyone would have been able to figure that out, he didn't really know, but it might explain how she was acting.

It probably was a good thing, then, that they hadn't ended up having sex in her room. They hadn't gotten that close: he had been pretty surprised that she had ended up taking off her bra and even more so when she let him unzip the front of her jean shorts, but he had spent a while happily exploring these undiscovered parts of her before they finally looked up to see that the movie had ended and the tape was spitting itself out of the VCR.

At that point, he had realized that he should probably take off, and as he had slipped his shirt and cut back on, he had looked at her for a moment, her dark hair loose and tangled up in itself, her skin warm and flushed pink with excitement. He wanted her so bad – that part wasn't anything new – but what he couldn't fully begin to understand was the sense of warm fullness expanding into his chest, almost painful for all that it was so new and unfamiliar. He didn't have the vocabulary for this kind of feeling, knowing only that looking at her was somehow like being ripped apart and put back together all at the same time. Before he left, he had kissed her slowly, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her against him in a way that he knew was only bound to get the lower half of his body over-excited once again. But that hadn't mattered; all that had mattered was the feel of her, soft under his hands, the heady rush that he had somehow felt everywhere, all at once. Did she feel like this about him? he had wondered. What would he do if she didn't?

At this point, though, they were almost to the club and he was still trying to figure out what he could do or say to brighten her mood. At the next red light, he shifted in the seat and turned back towards her.

"This'll be a lot of fun, I promise," he yelled over the growl of the bike.

But she wasn't even looking at him. She just nodded and gave him a tight-lipped smile, glancing over at him briefly before she gazed back into the distance. She seemed miles away, wrapped up in whatever was happening in her head. In his peripheral vision, he could see the light switch to green, and, once he sensed that she wasn't going to say anything back, he swiveled back to face the road and eased off the brake.

Even before he made the turn into the parking lot, he caught the aroma of charcoal burning in the grill, a smell that always reminded him of summer, with all its long days stretching into warm nights. It was hard for him to be too preoccupied when the evening seemed to hold such promise, eating and drinking and having a good time, surrounded by his friends, his family, his brothers, and, of course, his girl. At some point, he knew, she would push past whatever was bothering her, and then she could let loose a little and enjoy herself.

Jax drove down towards the left of the loading ramp and parked the bike at the end of a long line of Harleys, but before they could join the party, he took the helmet from her hand and pulled her in close. Looking around at all the old ladies and girlfriends milling around in front of the clubhouse, he realized that maybe she was just nervous with the idea of being around his mom, which made sense, considering the fact that she hadn't thought their first meeting had gone all that well.

"Hey," he said, his hands lightly clasping her hips as he tried to catch her gaze.

She finally looked back at him, an emotion he couldn't quite recognize flashing through her dark eyes. He knew her well enough by now to know that when she bit against her bottom lip – like she was starting to do – it meant that she was nervous.

Jax leaned in, his lips brushing against the downy softness of her cheek. Even over the thumping music blasting from the clubhouse porch and the din of voices, he could hear her hushed breath against his ear.

"It's okay," he whispered, and then he kissed her, a soft graze against her lips.

Finding her hand, he threaded his fingers in hers, and they began to make their way towards the clubhouse building, where some of the brothers and their friends were lounging around on plastic fold-out chairs, nursing bottles of beer. He caught sight of Chibs and Bobby near the front, both focused on the getting the flame on the grill to an acceptable height, although Bobby seemed to be insisting on throwing on more lighter fluid, even in the face of Chibs's very vocal opposition.

Jax kept his eyes peeled for his mom, even though he couldn't spot her anywhere. A few of the other old ladies were standing around a tablecloth-covered picnic table, pulling plastic wrap off bowls of potato salad, but she wasn't with them.

He turned towards Tara, and with his free hand pushed a stray piece of hair behind her ear. "So do you want to eat?" he asked. "Or we could just hang out for a while –"

"Oh, good, you're here…"

Jax turned his head to see Opie loping towards them, looking more than a little relieved.

Opie shifted his gaze over for a quick moment. "Hey, Tara," he said.

"Hey, Opie," she replied, and Jax was pleased to see a little smile curving along her mouth.

"Clay was looking for you," Opie said, turning back to Jax.

"Why?" he asked. All sorts of shitty scenarios involving Clay and urgent club business flipped through his brain, none of which he wanted to involve Tara in at all.

"Something about the meat, for the grill."

"I thought they picked everything up from the German," said Jax, now slightly confused, but relieved that the issue had nothing to do with the club.

"Yeah, I dunno," said Opie, shrugging his shoulders. "He was asking for you, though. Needed your help." He swiveled his head towards the lot entrance near the garage. "It's all back in his car, near the street."

Jax glanced over at Tara. She was still looking a little wide-eyed and nervous, and he was hesitant to leave her by herself where anything could happen. It was still pretty early in the evening for her to be the object of much unwanted attention, but once the guys started really drinking that could easily change, and without Jax around, they wouldn't exactly know that she was hands-off. Plus, his mom was roaming around somewhere, and he knew she would probably pounce on Tara if she found her alone. But he couldn't ignore a summons from Clay, no matter what it was about, not when he still felt like he was on thin ice with his step-father.

"I'll be back in a little bit," he said to her. "But Opie'll stay here with you, okay?"

She nodded, giving him a tiny smile as she pulled her hand from his.

Before he walked away, Jax leaned towards Opie. "Just watch out for my mom," he said quietly to his friend. "Don't let her pull any weird shit with Tara." Fuck if he was going to let her ruin tonight for Tara – or for him, for that matter.

A stranger's light comes on slowly
A stranger's heart without a home
You put your hands into your head
And then smiles cover your heart…

Any other time and Tara would have been more bothered by the awkwardness of Opie standing across from her, neither of them saying anything, as his eyes glanced around at everything but her.

But this was different. She couldn't keep her attention on Opie, not when there were so many other worrisome things competing for it. Guitar-heavy 70s rock music was blaring out of a stereo set up by the clubhouse entrance, and she cast a wide gaze over all the leather-clad men lounging nearby, many sporting black bandanas and sunglasses that reflected back the glow of the setting sun. A handful were wearing cuts, and seeing so many men in the same piece of clothing made the whole scene look vaguely official and, considering what she now knew, even more disturbing. After a few seconds of squinting in an attempt to get a better look at their faces, she realized there were a few she actually remembered from the arrest photos arrayed on the wall of the clubhouse. Instinctually, she looked away, not wanting to be caught staring, her gaze catching on the plastic buckets full of ice and longnecks, along with the two kegs set up nearby. She didn't see any other kinds of alcohol, but knowing what was stacked layers-deep behind the bar inside the clubhouse, she had no doubt they would be hitting the harder stuff later.

There were women, too, milling around with the guys, dressed mostly in tight tops and high skirts. Denim, leather, and Lycra seemed to be the fabrics of choice and she spotted more than a few tattoos hovering above low-cut necklines or just peeking over the tops of waistbands. She wondered how many of these women knew what really happened here, how many of them came here to get caught up in the thrill of being chased by dangerous men, without really knowing what kind of threat they were drawing in with their smiles and easy laughter.

On some level, it was hard for her to believe that Jax knew about everything that went on. He just wasn't like that, at least not with her. Sure, she had seen his temper, and she had little doubt that if he was provoked, he would know what to do to take care of himself, but she couldn't see him as a killer, or even being part of a group that could be involved in vicious assaults and murder. How could he be, when she had seen him be so sweet and affectionate, when she seemed to feel so safe when she was with him? She could only hope that they had kept the worst of it from him, that he really did spend his time working in the garage and doing small errands for the club. Which, of course, was still undoubtedly a criminal enterprise, she thought darkly. Was it just a matter of time before his photo was up on that wall?

"So you want something to drink or something?" Opie asked. "Food probably won't be ready for a while."

"Uh, sure," she said, glancing around, but only seeing the kegs and buckets full of beer. "Is there water or soda, maybe?"

He looked over at the object of her gaze and grinned a little to himself. "There are kids here, Tara, so, yeah, there's definitely water and soda. No beer for the kiddies." He tilted his head towards the side of the clubhouse. "C'mon…"

Around the corner, she found a couple of coolers with cold cans of Coke and Sprite and she fished one out and popped it open. Opie took one, too, and for a few moments, they stood in silence, without having much too really say to one another. And even though she was glad to have someone with her while she was here, she felt bad that Opie had gotten roped into staying with her, when he clearly would have rather been doing something else.

"You don't have to babysit me, you know," she said finally.

"No, it's cool. And Jax'll be back soon." He was quiet again for a moment or two, but then she could see his face tense up as if he wanted to ask her something. "Well, actually, can you hang here for a minute? I really gotta run and take a piss."

"Yeah, sure," she said, laughing a little. "I'll just… stay here."

"Great," he said, giving her a quick grin before he turned back towards the parking lot, setting off into a jog in the direction of the garage.

As she watched him go, she leaned back against the clubhouse wall, feeling the reverberation of the music echoing through it. She could still hear voices around the corner and more people were walking past her to join the party, one or two guys in cuts, but also some middle-aged women in less revealing outfits and even young children, running back and forth on the blacktop of the parking lot. She took a deep breath and tried to imagine that this was a normal Fourth of July barbeque, the kind she had been planning to go to – the kind she had been excited about going to– before she read all that stuff about the motorcycle clubs. Everything would be so much better if she could just stop thinking about it. Couldn't she just try to forget about it, pretend it wasn't really happening, just for one night?

As she let out her breath, Tara suddenly caught a glimpse of Jax's mom, who gave her a little wave and then started coming towards her, gliding like a queen in high platform sandals. She was wearing tight jeans and a black lace tank top, and in the time since Tara had seen her last, she seemed to have decorated the strap of her protective arm sling with tiny rhinestones.

Tara didn't know what to expect, but if this was going to be anything like the first time she had encountered Jax's mom, she definitely needed to prepare herself for what was about to come her way.

"Tara, hi…" said the older woman as she approached. She was smiling, but it was hard to tell whether it was genuine or not. "We're so glad you could come."

"Uh, thanks, Mrs. Teller-Morrow," Tara replied. "Thanks for inviting me."

"No, no, call me Gemma," she said, her voice like a soft purr. "'Mrs. Teller-Morrow' is such a mouthful."

"Uh, okay…Gemma…" Tara didn't get it; why was she being so nice all of the sudden? It was as if she was talking to a totally different person.

"Summer's treating you okay?" she asked.

"Um, yeah, it's fine. I've got a job and I started an SAT class last week." At this point, Tara realized that her mouth was moving faster than her brain; there wasn't any real reason she should be talking about her class, but she knew that on some level she must have just really wanted to make a good impression.

"SAT, huh?" Gemma said with a little laugh. "Maybe some of that'll rub off on Jax…"

"Well, I want to go to college. And med school." Shit, shit, she needed to stop now, Tara thought, before she started to sound like the world's biggest kiss-ass.

"A doctor, wow. Impressive." Gemma paused a moment, a slightly more serious expression shadowing the artfully sculpted curves of her eyebrows. "And you seem to be dealing with everything else pretty well."

Everything else? Tara had no idea what she was talking about. "I'm sorry?"

"Well, with Jax…" she elaborated, her silky voice taking on a tiny note of sympathy.

"What would I have to deal with with Jax?"

"It's hard, you know, not always knowing what might happen to them each day. It'll only get worse when he's fully patched in."

"'What might happen'…?" Tara repeated dumbly. She still had no real idea what Jax's mom was getting at, but she sensed it was something important, something that seemed to connect back to Tara's earlier fears about Jax and what he knew about the club's activities.

Gemma sighed, her gaze shifting away from Tara for a moment. "There's always some amount of danger associated with the club. Jax is lucky that his arm wasn't more than a graze."

At first, Tara didn't know what she was talking about. Jax's arm? What had happened to his arm? And then she remembered, all of it – the bandage and the blood, the story about the accident at the garage.

"Oh, honey," said Gemma, "he told you he got shot, right?"

The words hung in the air, taking shape and then burrowing a hole in Tara's brain so deep, it was as if those were the only words she was capable of understanding. She stood in shock for a moment, not caring how it looked, only knowing that her heart was breaking, only knowing that she was standing there as she watched everything she had thought and believed vanish into thin air.

"Uh, I have to… um, excuse me." She brushed past Gemma, not even waiting for a response. She had no idea where she was going, and, honestly, she didn't care.

Fade into you
Strange you never knew
Fade into you
I think it's strange you never knew…

Jax turned the corner around the garage, scanning the crowd for a petite brunette and the familiar sight of Opie's black toque.

He couldn't believe the business with Clay had taken as long as it did, especially when it was all due to what turned out to be a simple misunderstanding. Clay had somehow gotten himself convinced that he had picked up the wrong order from the German and with Gemma nowhere to be found – worrisome in itself, Jax thought – he had thought that Jax might remember exactly what his mother had ordered. Of course, Jax had no idea, so Clay had made him call the butcher shop from the garage office and confirm that they had given him all the right numbers of beef patties, sausages, and short ribs. Jax quietly grumbled, knowing Clay was perfectly capable of picking up the phone himself, but he wasn't about to argue, not when he just wanted to get the whole mess figured out and get back to Tara as soon as possible.

But now he couldn't find her – or Opie, for that matter – and he had no clue where they might have gone. While he was with Clay, he had started thinking about what he might do when he got back to her, and he realized that all he wanted was to secretly grab a few beers and then take her to find some quiet, deserted spot on the roof. They could hang out up there half the night, watch the party going on down below, and then lie back and see all the fireworks as they lit up the sky above. It would be perfect, like it was all made just for them.

The party had gotten more packed and as he made his way through the groups clustered on the clubhouse porch, he caught sight of Opie and one of the other prospects lounging in plastic patio chairs back near the fighting ring. And for some reason, she didn't seem to be anywhere nearby.

Opie was taking a long drag from a half-finished cigarette, but he exhaled quickly when he saw Jax approach.

"Jax, what's up, man?"

"Where's Tara?" he asked sharply, not even bothering to hide his concern.

"I thought she was with you," Opie replied. "I came back from the can and she was gone."

"You left her alone?" Jax could hear the volume of his voice rising with frustration. "I asked you to stay with her…"

Opie leaned forward in his chair, raising up his hands in an exasperated gesture. "I was gone a minute or two, tops. Seriously, man. Where'd she go?"

"You really don't know?"

"No, like I said, I thought she was with you."

"Shit," said Jax, rubbing his palms roughly against his face. "And you haven't seen my mom?"

"Yeah, she's right over there," Opie replied, pointing towards the other side of the lot. Jax turned to see his mom standing next to one of the picnic tables, talking to Big Otto's old lady, Luann, while they both arranged plates and napkins and little piles of plastic silverware. "She's been there since I came back outside," he added.

"Okay, well, uh…" Jax looked around one more time, and then sighed. "If you see Tara, don't let her go anywhere. Tell her to wait 'til I come back."

"Yeah, no problem," said Opie, offering a casual shrug.

Jax turned back towards the party, which was now clearly shifting into full gear, even as he told himself to calm down a little. More than likely, there was no need to get concerned. She probably had just needed to go to the bathroom herself, or had wandered in the clubhouse looking for somewhere more quiet to wait for him.

For a second, he fantasized that maybe she had gotten hold of a key to one of the dorm rooms and she was waiting for him there. Maybe tonight she would want to take off more than just her bra. Damn, he thought, that might explain why she was acting so quiet on the way over here. He could feel a wave of excitement rushing over his body at the idea of it, inciting him to move a little more quickly as he searched for her in the mass of people that occupied the space around the clubhouse building.

The sky was bleeding into shades of pink and purple as he made a hasty inspection of the rest of the outdoor spaces, finding her nowhere. The bay doors of the garage were down and the office was locked, so there was no way she was in there. Unless she had left the party altogether, the only possibility was the clubhouse itself.

As he made his way inside, he noticed that the lights were on in the main room, but it was totally deserted, dampened echoes of the bass-heavy music outside filtering in through the windows.

"Tara!" he yelled out. "Are you back here?"

He didn't hear a response, but he continued making his way across the room, quickly glancing over at the darkened interior of the chapel, light barely glinting along the edges of the carved wooden table that stood inside. He still couldn't figure out where the hell she might have gone and why she took off the way she did. He could only hope that it would all make sense later, that they could go back outside to the party and make up for lost time.

Passing by his dad's Harley, he turned around the corner of the wood-paneled hallway and caught a quick glimpse of a figure on the floor, nestled against the alcove of a doorframe. All he recognized at first was an impenetrable curtain of long brown hair, but as he got closer, she raised her head and looked at him, knees tucked up under her chin, her eyes red and tinged with hurt. And even though it made no fucking sense at all, she was staring at him like he was the last person on earth she wanted to see.

Fade into you
Strange you never knew
Fade into you
I think it's strange you never knew
I think it's strange you never knew

It was the sound of her own name that drew Tara out of her thoughts, sharp as it ricocheted through the hallway, and with it the realization that she wouldn't be able to hide for much longer.

She was used to hiding. She had done it for years, mostly in response to her father's volatile moods, always managing to find herself some little safe space, where she could make herself small and unobtrusive, invisible to the world.

She must have known he would eventually come looking for her; why else would she have stuck around, rather than just taking off and making her way back home? Deep down, she understood that some part of her just wanted to know if it was true, if he had lied to her, played her like she was some stupid little girl who didn't deserve the truth.

She could only hold out a tiny sliver of hope that it wasn't true. Maybe his mom had lied – although why she would about something like that, Tara had no clue – or maybe she had just misunderstood. But everything was staring her right in the face – all the disturbing stories from her book, the hardened and tattooed men in leather cuts outside, the portrait gallery of felons on the wall, even the memory of Jax's evasiveness when she had pressed him for details about his arm – and it couldn't be ignored. She had wanted to think that he was different, but it was more and more obvious that he was just like the rest of them.

If she asked him, what would he say? Would he even bother to tell her the truth?

She could feel her eyes seizing up with emotion, tears threatening to spill onto her cheeks, and she quickly rubbed them away with the back of her hand. It hurt so bad, like she couldn't breathe, as if her heart couldn't actually remember how to keep beating.

From behind her hair, she watched as he emerged from the hallway entrance, stopping a few feet away from her. Despite everything, she wanted to see his face, and she turned her head upwards, meeting his gaze with her own.

"Babe, are you okay?" he asked quickly, his eyes full of concern as he stepped towards her. "What happened?"

She said nothing, but instead flattened her palms against the ground and slowly pushed herself up onto her feet, never once taking her eyes off of him. Everything was frozen inside of her, everything except her heart, thrashing within the cold steel cage of her ribs. There was really only one thing she could say to him.

"What happened to your arm, Jax?" she finally asked, her voice soft but unwavering.

At first, he only looked confused, as if he couldn't figure out what she was talking about. But just as quickly, there was a resigned shift in his expression, small but perceptible, and his shoulders dropped a fraction of an inch, as if pulled by an invisible weight.

He took a shallow breath, but didn't say anything. He didn't have to.

It would have been horrible to stand there and listen to him offer a parade of excuses, or try to skirt around the truth with more lies and evasions. So how could she have known that it would be even worse to have him to say nothing at all, an unspoken confession written in the depths of his sky-blue eyes?

The moment stretched on, a widening chasm between them, somehow containing everything and nothing. She couldn't stand it any longer, looking at him like this, and she took a step into the hallway, brushing past him as quickly as she could. He made a half-hearted attempt to grasp her shoulder, but she shook it off, not looking behind her as she turned around the corner, moving even faster as she made her way into the main room of the clubhouse. All she could think of now was getting out of this place and away from him, finding somewhere she could feel safe.

How could she have been so wrong? she thought, as tears began to grace the corners of her eyes. She had thought that she knew him. But it was all just a lie – she hadn't known him at all.