Bad news after bad news was all the Krukowski family needed before it was decided they should move back to the small town of Ruralburgh they left ten years ago when Jamie was seven years old. Everything about that small town is the same. Even the townspeople are the same; just ten years older. Because of their current financial state, the Krukowski's have to live with their old neighbours on a farm, something Jamie isn't thrilled about but he knows he's going to have to step up for his mom and his sister after the loss of their father. Besides, living on the farm isn't too bad. Except when Jamie starts falling for the one person he shouldn't; Sawyer.

What if you could hear them? The thoughts they deigned not reasonable enough to say out loud, the things not suitable for even a giggly teenage gossip conversation. Would it be a blessing or a curse? Troye, the unlucky teenager bestowed with this 'gift', thinks of it as a curse, with good reason. Do you know how hard it is to keep a relationship with someone when you know exactly what they think of you? Impossible. It's impossible. Or at least that's what Troye thinks, considering he's given up on even trying to make it work. He's different, people shun different. People hate different. And it's better to go under the radar, to be nothing, than to be hated. Right? Tyler, on the other hand, has taken a different approach to a similar problem. No, he can't 'read minds', but he does have a part of himself he doesn't want a soul to know about. He's quarterback, every girl's dream guy, an academic mastermind, and he's also gay. He's seen how different kids get treated, hell, he's been the one to treat them that way before. Why on Earth would he ever wish that on himself? No, it's easier to hide, to be someone you're not, than to be hated. Right?

He looked over at me in the dimness, fingers loose in my grip. "You are hurting me," he said, without interest. He had caked powder on his already pale skin, all of one shade except for points made by a hot pencil. Though it was no longer the mode at court, the new fashion more ostentatious and overdrawn, he still favored it, and as I did. My fingers crept up his wrist. I felt rough punctures, half healed and raw, a scattering of them, and I pulled. Laurent could not resist, weakened by the drawing of his blood. My vocal cords had been severed by the younger one's teeth, and so I could not speak, but I pushed up his sleeve, the luxury of his white linen, and found his arm colored like a polluted river. I touched the bites with my fingertips, ten, fifteen, twenty. "I have felt your judgment already," L whispered, trying to pull his arm back, "I have felt it these now two hundred years. Judgment judgment. Cry not. Is it pity? You are a cold thing, without heart, to judge me for what I do. Prideful toad." His arm muscles worked against my grip beneath his blood bruised skin. "Unhand me. Wretched, lye-broken flesh." After a time, he made a sound like a trapped fox, a dying child's keen, and gave up, lying back on the bed such that his hair fell across my face. My other hand found his neck and stroked him. "You will not know what it feels like, good heart," he said to me, softly, doing me one of his gentle nips of an insult, "for love to change you in an instant." He relaxed under my stroking, and his tone softened. "I only meant to help him die." ** After his untimely death, the story of the vampire "L" comes together. Devotees tell the story from many points of view across history, painting a portrait of a man crushed by great loves, desperation, and the indifferent march of time. featured 3/9/16 complete 8/31/16 Editing, as of 5/11/2018. Log: 0/129 chapters edited. 0 added. Cover by @ferret-bird