Bound to You

Chapter 1

I was fifteen when Dad brought you home. You had sad eyes, and when you talked, introducing yourself in that intriguing accent, it was like you didn't know how to speak above a whisper.

"I'm John," you said. "John Warner." You said you worked with my dad, and when my mom asked if you were a surgeon too, you said no and didn't elaborate.

"John is a consultant for the hospital," my dad said. I learned later that that meant you had PTSD and you counseled people at the hospital dealing with emotional trauma. When my mother whispered this to me after dinner, while we were scrubbing dishes, I thought you must have been a hero. Only a hero would spend their time helping people, right? But then, look at my dad. He wasn't exactly Superman, even if he thought otherwise.

"Where are you from?" I asked you when we were all sitting around the fire. It was Thanksgiving, and dad invited you because you didn't have anywhere else to go. No family in the States, he said, as if anyone in America actually referred to the US as the states.

"London. Moved here at eighteen. To go to Yale. Knew your father there."

Dad smiled proudly. Of course he did. Yale was in his blood, as he was so fond of telling me. It was in mine too. I'd go to Yale, just like Dad, and just like my boyfriend, Jason, because that was what I was supposed to do. I'd probably marry Jason too, because his parents were rich like my dad and went to Yale, as well.

Over coffee (this was an after-dinner tradition that I never really understood), you and my father started talking about literature, and I got an immediate buzz in my blood. I loved books, and all night, you'd been talking about the hospital and about Yale and about things I didn't understand, so to hear the conversation shift to something else was exciting.

"The first American novelist I really paid any attention to was Twain," you began, and even though I knew my father would scowl at me, I cut in.

"Twain is boring."

Your eyes shot to me, and even though we'd spoken on and off throughout the night, it was the first time you'd really looked at me, like up until that point, I'd just been a ghost. "You think Twain is boring? Which ones have you read?" I knew immediately you were testing me, not because you were cruel, but because it was the way you were trained at Yale. Call it machismo, call it cynicism, whatever. It was in your blood.

"Sawyer and Huck Finn. Twain was a douche."

My mom's eyes were wide as saucers, but my dad actually laughed. "Lena's opinionated," he said, as if that was a trait that was unique to myself, like not all women had opinions.

Your mouth twitched up at one corner. "What would you call great literature? Sparkly vampires? I'm sorry if that's not really my scene." You had life in your eyes for the first time that night.

I snorted. "Have you ever actually read Twilight?"

You shook your head.

"If I had given my opinion on Twain without having read any of his work, would you value said opinion?" I sounded like such a snob. It was the way my dad had taught me to talk around his Yale mates and his surgeon buddies. I wasn't supposed to sound like a fifteen-year-old. That wasn't allowed.

Your smile faded, and I couldn't decide if you were more handsome with or without it. "No, I don't guess I would."

"Then why should I value yours on sparkly vampires?"

The room was silent, only the sound of the crackling fire. And then your face changed, a sparkle in your eye and a real smile, not the polite one you'd been using on Dad all night. "You got me there."

"She's a firecracker," my dad said. He was always saying that. I wondered if he would be surprised if I exploded like one, all over his pristine furniture.

We didn't speak again after that, but I watched you. I didn't even know why. You worked with my dad, you were an adult, you were a man. But every once in a while, you'd glance my way with a look in your eye, like we were sharing a private joke, and I loved it. I loved the way you made me blush in the heat of the fire. It felt like a secret.

When you got up to leave, I rushed upstairs to my room, back before you even made it to the front door. Without any sense to whether it was polite or not, I shoved the large stack of books into your hand. You didn't even look down at them. You knew what they were, and you were looking right at me.

"Lena," my dad chided me. "Absolutely not. John doesn't need your ridiculous—"

My dad reached for them, but you snatched them back, out of his reach. "No, please, Richard. I want to read them."

My dad's face went purple with anger. "You're not reading those books. They're for teenage girls with stalker fantasies and bad taste."

I flinched and started to reach for them. It wasn't worth the humiliation. But you snatched them away from me too.

"I look forward to discussing them with you when I'm finished," you said and turned away. I was amazed.

I didn't notice the scars on your neck until you were walking out the door. They were shaped like toothpicks, raised above the rest of your smooth skin. I wondered, wondered, wondered but I knew I couldn't ask. It was rude. My father wouldn't abide by that. So I just smiled and waved as you got into my dad's car, ready to be escorted back home, wherever that was.

Mom sighed as soon as you were gone. "From what your dad tells me, that man has been through a lot for someone who's just turned thirty. I can't even imagine." She gave a little shake of her head and walked away, but I was still standing by the front door, frozen to my spot.

Thirty.

Shit.