I didn't know why I was so shocked. I should have known this perfect fairytale I'd been living was impossible. Why hadn't I picked up any signs? Why hadn't I said something before everything had blown up in my face?

I didn't say anything. Instead, I brought my knees up to my chest and curled up in a little ball, as if hoping I could ward off whatever had happened and whatever was coming next. But that was a childish fantasy-just like I'd thought I could trust someone again.

"Evelyn?" Cameron asked softly, placing a hand gently on my shoulder. I automatically recoiled and pulled back, and I could feel his frustrated exhale on the back of my neck. "Evelyn, please, it's not that big of a deal."

Lifting my head, I glared at him, my vision blurred by the threat of tears. "Yes, Cameron, it is a big deal," I said. "You have no idea how much of a big deal this is. I thought I could trust you, and you've lied to me. I've had enough of that without you adding to the mix."

My last sentence clearly surprised Cameron, but he didn't respond. Instead, he stretched out his legs and raised his eyes to glance up at the sky above us.

"Excuse me?" I demanded. "Are you going to answer me?"

"There doesn't seem to be anything to say," he said coolly, still not meeting my gaze. "I'd say we're even now. You did lie to me for most of our friendship, you know."

I stood up suddenly, almost as if I'd been electrocuted. "That's all it is to you, then?" I asked shrilly. "Friendship?"

"Calm down, Evelyn." He stood, too, and sat me back down beside him-then went back to staring at the sky annoyingly. "I was just bringing up the point that you lied to me when we were friends, before you became my girlfriend and all that. Please just stop overreacting."

Huffing, I crossed my arms and stared off into the distance, where the sky was quickly growing dark. Tears were threatening to spill out of my eyes any minute, and for some reason I didn't feel like breaking down in front of Cameron.

We were quiet for a few minutes, and finally, Cameron said, "I guess you don't want to hear poor Cameron Maddox's sob story now, do you?"

"If it explains all your lies, it would be nice," I seethed. I knew it wasn't fair that I was so angry with Cameron, especially after I'd lied-and still was lying-to him. But I'd trusted him so completely, against my better judgment becoming closer and closer to him, until he'd taken all my trust and broken it.

I betrayed myself by sniffing, a signal of my weakness, and before I knew it Cameron had scooted over so that he was sitting beside me and had wrapped his arm around my shoulder.

"Evelyn, I'm so sorry," he said, pressing his forehead against the top of my head and speaking into my hair. "I didn't mean to lie just to you-it was everyone. I didn't want anyone to know."

"That makes it a lot better," I snapped back croakily.

He leaned forward and kissed my nose, then asked, "Will you please let me explain? I swear I won't lie to you anymore."

Somewhere deep inside me, I felt a twinge of guilt, but I pushed it back and settled for smoothing down my tangled hair. "I guess."

Keeping his arms firmly around me, he leaned towards me so that he was almost whispering in my ear and said, "I'm an orphan, Evelyn. There. Now the big secret's out. You're the only person who knows except for my adopted parents."

"You're adopted," I said softly, almost in awe. Adoption was something impossible for my sisters and me, since to the average person we still had a father and were living happy, normal lives. Even if we had wanted to be adopted, it would have been a lot of work finding Dad, wherever he was, and working through all the issues of custody. I still wasn't certain, though, that I even wanted parents.

Cameron tucked a piece of my dirty-blonde hair behind my ear. "I'm adopted."

"Do you mind telling me how...?" I choked a little bit over my breath, and had to clear my throat before I finished. "How you lost your parents?"

When I glanced at Cameron, I saw that he suddenly looked a lot older. In the faint moonlight, I could see every shadow on his face, and his blue eyes sparkled with a ghostly, unearthly gleam.

"I think I owe you that much," he said, closing his eyes and breathing deeply before opening them again. He blinked a few times, and I wondered if he, too, was fighting back tears, and then he eked out, "They were rock-climbing."

My stomach twisted and I wanted to tell him to stop talking, but when I opened my mouth I found no voice. He squeezed his eyes shut again and said, "We were in a state park in Oregon. We all knew how to rock-climb really well. I was feeling sort of sick that day, so I went back to our cabin to lie down and rest. They told me they'd stay with me, but I told them to go on and have fun..."

His voice cracked and he had to stop, resting his forehead against mine. When I glanced at him, I saw a single tear sparkling on his cheek.

"Their rope snapped," he rasped, his voice suddenly hoarse. "There was no way they could have survived. A park ranger and some police came to the cabin and let me know..." Another tear, this time slipping out of his right eye. "I was eleven."

The horrible, swooping sensation in my stomach was unlike anything I'd ever experienced. Tentatively, I reached out and brushed away both of the tears, one after the other, with my index finger. And then, before I could stop myself, because I knew what heartbreak felt like and because I hated myself for making Cameron relive the worst moments of his life, I broke down sobbing.

"Evelyn," he said softly, hugging my tightly until I felt like I would be suffocated, though neither of us cared, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have told you."

"I shouldn't have made you tell me," I said back, sounding like a child in the way that my voice dangled barely above a whisper. He thought I was crying because I was sheltered, because I could never imagine such a horror...it was surreal to think that two weeks ago, I would have thought the same of him.

We sat in silence for a while, and all I could imagine in my mind's eye was two far-off figures rock-climbing and the gut-wrenching sound of a rope snapping. I shuddered and slid closer to Cameron. If thinking about what had happened was so awful for me, how much did it haunt Cameron?

"I still think it's my fault," he said after a few minutes, taking my hand in his and running his fingers along the lines of my palm. "If I'd let them stay in the cabin with me, they would still be alive. The mountains still haunt me."

"It's not your fault," I assured him, but even as I said it, I knew that familiar feeling of guilt nestled permanently in my own heart. She's dead, Evelyn, and it's your fault, I thought, remembering my own father's voice so clearly in my head. Which was better: to have a parent who left you or to have one who wasn't on this Earth at all?

The sun had set completely, and moonlight was gleaming onto the rooftops of the expansive houses in the neighborhood and casting strange shadows in the luxurious gardens. Cameron's life hadn't always been like this. Who had he been before he'd become a soccer all-star with amazing grades who lived with wealthy mansion-owners? Before he'd been able to place twenty dollars in a tip jar just because?

The questions were burning, and the inability to ask them felt like a scratch I couldn't itch. But I knew better than to press, and I knew that distant, forlorn look on Cameron's face. I'd made him recite enough of his past for one night.

When the itch intensified, I knew that Cameron's revealed past wasn't the only thing that was bothering me-it was my own, which was still hidden behind a dusty curtain. I didn't want to pull aside the coverings and expose all of the awful horrors, which I would be forced to face all over again. And worse, I didn't want my life to change.

Cameron's life didn't change just because he told you his story, I reasoned with myself, clutching his hand tightly in mine. He's still living with his adopted parents, and he's still the Cameron Maddox I knew two weeks ago. But your future-yours would change.

My life would change in ways that scared me-ways that would terrify Maddie and Clare. I didn't want that. I couldn't face it. Did that make me weak, or was I just following my instinct?

"Are you okay, Evelyn?" Cameron asked quietly, his voice still shaky. He had rumpled his hair so much that it was sticking up in all the wrong places, but he hadn't bothered to fix it. I guessed here on the rooftop, his guy friends or his many admirers wouldn't have to see him for the less-than-perfect boy he really was.

I tucked my hair, which had fallen forward into my face, back behind my ear again. "I'm fine," I said, reaching up and beginning to smooth down his own spiky hair. "Are you?"

"I'll be okay."

I flattened the last bit of his hair and then ruffled it a little, finding myself looking into his piercing blue eyes. I could have sworn the moonlight was reflecting stars in them.

Carefully, he reached out and brushed the side of his finger against my cheek, swiping away all of the tears. Then he cupped his hand around the back of my neck and kissed me, soft and slow and sweet.

I knew I was still crying, and he was probably crying a little too, but at the same time I was also so impossibly happy. I would have thought it was unfeasible to be able to be so overjoyed and so depressed at the same time, but this was living proof, right now, that it could happen.

When he pulled back, I was smiling, and then he leaned forward and pressed his lips to mine quickly, one last time, before sitting back again. Two more tears had slid down my cheeks, and I couldn't tell if they were tears of sadness or happiness. Carefully, he brushed them both away and then cupped my face in his hands.

"Evelyn Caverly," he declared, his voice still hoarse and grating but his smile reassuring, "I do believe I love you."

I felt my own grin widen as I bumped my nose against his, making him laugh. "I don't have much experience with this thing called love," I said back, "But I think I love you, too."

He kissed me one more time and then wrapped his arm around my shoulder so that I could lean my head against him and look out at the lake, just barely visible from his backyard. There were too many stars in the sky to count, their reflections twinkling in the water. Far off, an owl hooted.

"All is forgiven?" he asked as the clouds shifted so that the moon shone right onto us.

I glanced up at him, saw the way he was staring at me half worried and half adoring, and said, "Of course, Cameron. You know I couldn't be mad at you for long."

"That's good," he said. "I couldn't bear you being mad at me for long, either."

Inhaling deeply, I took in the scent of fresh air and his faint cologne and smiled. I'd forgotten about Cameron's parents and the unfinished dinner sitting out on the table and even Maddie and Clare, who were waiting for me. For some reason, even in the wake of horrors and in the midst of all my stress, I felt happier than I'd ever been before.