Page 203 of The Rules

Go become the man you were meant to be. I don’t expect you to forgive me. I hope someday you’ll understand that leaving is the only way I know how to love you.

—Harper

The paper crumples in my fist before I realize I’m squeezing it.

I try to count. One. Two. Three.Four.

But the numbers dissolve. They mean nothing.

Mom is still dead at any number.

And Harper is gone.

And Silas?—

Silas is in prison.

He made the choice without even telling me. Now he’s locked away and Harper thinks it’s her fault and Mom is dead and I’m standing alone in this kitchen with a cat that isn’t even mine and?—

The floor tilts.

Or maybe I tilt.

My knees hit the tile hard enough that pain shoots up my thighs but I can’t—I can’t breathe. Can’t think. Can’t do anything except stare at this sketch of Harper walking away from me because that’s what everyone does eventually, isn’t it?

Silas: prison.

Mom: dead.

Harper: gone.

Every single person who ever mattered is gone.

I did everything right. I followed all the rules. I maintained my GPA. Got into Harvard. Never caused problems. Kept my shit together. Stayed perfect.

And it didn’t matter.

None of it mattered.

The laugh that comes out of me doesn’t sound human. It’s brittle and sharp and tastes like blood.

Everything I feared, everything I tried to prevent through six years of perfect control, has happened anyway.

Sox appears at the edge of the kitchen, her green eyesreflecting the moonlight. She meows once—small, questioning.

Looking for Harper. Waiting for someone who’s never coming back.

She pads closer, pressing her small body against my leg. Purring.

I’m supposed to be going to Harvard. Supposed to have a future. Supposed to be perfect.

Instead, I’m alone in my dead mother’s kitchen, holding a sketch of the girl I love walking away, with a cat that isn’t mine and waiting for someone who will never walk through that door again.

I throw my head back and scream.

The sound tears out of me—raw, desperate, absolutely alone.

Sox stops purring.

The silence that follows is worse than the scream.

This is far from over. Watch out for the conclusion to Rules & Ruins duet where all questions will be answered inTHE RUINS, out soon.Some love stories don’t end. They just ruin you first.

Need more Caleb and Harper right now? Read a bonus chapter here about their all-consuming love.