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  Every time some fact about the process tried to invade her thoughts, she pressed it down. He had no idea how hard she was battling herself. If he sensed it, he would get it wrong. He would think she was struggling with her conscience, but morality never had entered the room. All her doubts came from different places, and none of them was strong enough to weaken her desire. It came in little explosions inside her. The excitement she had sought was rushing over her in waves. She wanted to drown in it.

  When he finally entered her, her first thoughts weren’t about what was going to happen physiologically. Her first thought was, as strange as it might seem, I am becoming a woman, not a teenage girl who has been violated, not a gifted student who knows twenty times as much about her sex as a woman three times her age, just a woman being touched so deeply inside herself in places no textbook describes.

  Her pleasure wasn’t as great as her satisfaction. She realized she really was quite different from the other girls at Spindrift, even Corliss and Donna, both of whom she believed had the wherewithal to reach this place. She was simply there first, and she wouldn’t retreat. There were so few times in her life before this when she hoped something would never end.

  Afterward, she and Leo lay back and stared up at their own thoughts floating above them.

  “Okay,” he said finally, “now I am worried.”

  “About what?”

  “You, lying there, reviewing everything in ways beyond me. I’m afraid of the conclusions, especially if you’re measuring me by some scientific ruler.”

  “I’m not reviewing or measuring anything. I’m soaking in the afterward, just the way any woman should. I don’t want the feeling to end too soon. I like the feeling of floating in the afterward.”

  “That’s really nice. I could easily get addicted to you,” he said.

  She laughed. “Careful. The rehab for that could be long and painful.”

  He leaned over and looked down at her. “What should we do? I mean, in the afterward?”

  For once, she did not want to be the one with all the answers.

  “You told me when you get to point A, you simply go to point B. Maybe we’re at point A.”

  “You sure of that?”

  “No, but you know what?”

  “What?”

  “I suddenly like being unsure. It’s something I rarely, if ever, felt. It’s like . . .”

  “Like what?”

  “Being reborn.”

  He laughed. “I knew I had powers . . .”

  He lay back, and they were quiet for a while. Someone’s headlights washed across the window and the opposite wall. Darkness quickly closed in again. They heard a car door close and some mumbling voices. Another unit was entered two or three doors from where they were, and it was very quiet again.

  “Seriously, do I take you back now?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure,” she said.

  “And you like that, the uncertainty?”

  “Do you want to take me back? Is that why you’re asking?”

  “No. And I have no trouble being sure about it,” he added.

  She smiled and then laughed.

  “What?”

  “You’re traveling, running around looking for yourself, and the truth is that you’ve already found yourself. You know who you are. You’re just not sure what shoes to wear yet.”

  “I knew it. I knew you’d make me feel dumb,” he said.

  She turned to him. This time, she was the one looking down. “But you don’t care,” she said, and played with his hair.

  “No. I don’t care.”

  “That’s why I could be addicted to you, too.”

  He raised his head so they could kiss. Outside, the stars were blazing even more. She imagined it was because of them, their fire. She turned and lay back so she could welcome what he had brought to her before and would bring to her again.

  They exhausted each other with their passion. She fell asleep with her arm over his back, her face snuggled in the pillow, inches from his. Maybe he was afraid to move, afraid to wake her, but when she did open her eyes to the sunlight that threaded through the open blinds, he was exactly where he had been, his eyes closed. Gently, she lifted her arm from his back and turned. She had anticipated feeling guilty and afraid now, but she only felt hungry, or at least, that was all she would acknowledge.

  When she sat up, he still didn’t wake. She went to the bathroom, carrying her clothes in with her, showered, and dressed. She used his hairbrush on her hair, and then, when she opened the door, she saw he had awakened and was lying on his back, his hands behind his head, waiting.

  “You want me to take you back to the mall or back to Spindrift?” he asked.

  “I was thinking of some breakfast. Is there somewhere close by? I’ll treat.”

  “Sure,” he said, smiling. “I’ll just shower and dress, too.”

  “I’ll be outside. I want to take a little walk.”

  “If you’re going to disappear, let me know now,” he said.

  “I disappeared a long time ago,” she said, and walked out.

  The motel was very quiet. No one else was outside his or her room. There were fewer cars. It was too early for new people to arrive. This was a place you came to when you realized it was getting late or you were getting tired. For reasons she didn’t understand, that pleased her.

  She walked to the road and stood looking first to her right and then to her left. To the right was going back, retreat; to the left was . . . the unknown. From this place, there was nothing different about either direction. Both sides of the road were bordered by undeveloped land, woods, and bushes. Her legs were tight from her nervousness. Her body was making her rational, thoughtful.

  You don’t understand, she told herself. The others still have families. Both Donna and Corliss worry about what their parents will think of them. My father left my teddy bear with me the day he brought me to Spindrift. It was really the only thing left that would remind me I was a child once, with parents and a home. Now it’s the only reason I can think of to return to Spindrift, to get my teddy bear.

  But maybe it’s good that I leave it behind. Soon my father, or the father I once knew, will be there, and they might hand him the teddy bear with my other things. He will look at it and see me as a child, or maybe, maybe, he never saw me as a child, not the way my mother could, and she is gone.

  If I return to Spindrift, no one will see me, perhaps ever.

  She waited to hear disagreement, the way it came whenever she debated something inside herself, but it didn’t come. The silence, in fact, was loud, overwhelming.

  Yes, she thought, and she started down the road to her left. She walked with her head down, her arms folded under her breasts. No one could see. A car went by occasionally, but neither the driver nor the passengers could see she was smiling.

  She didn’t look up until Leo pulled up beside her on his motorcycle.

  “Hey,” he said. “Where are you going? You walked quite a ways.”

  “Isn’t breakfast waiting up ahead?”

  He smiled. “Yeah. It is. Then what?”

  She stared at the road in front of them for a moment. “That’s point B, isn’t it?”

  “I guess it is.”

  “Then we just go to point C.”

  “Hop on,” he said. “The rest of the alphabet is waiting for us.”

  She laughed, wrapped her arms around him, laid her head against his back, and whispered good-bye.

  It was captured in the wind that washed over them and drifted off to find someone to hear it somewhere.

  For now, it really didn’t matter who that was.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  One of the most popular authors of all time, V.C. Andrews has been a bestselling phenomenon since the publication of Flowers in the Attic, first in the renowned Dollanganger family series, which includes Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, and Garden of Shadows. The family saga continues with Christopher’s Diary:
Secrets of Foxworth, Christopher’s Diary: Echoes of Dollanganger, and Secret Brother. V.C. Andrews has written more than seventy novels, which have sold over 106 million copies worldwide and have been translated into twenty-five foreign languages.

  Join the conversation about the world of V.C. Andrews at Facebook.com/OfficialVCAndrews.

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  Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/V-C-Andrews

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  SimonandSchuster.com

  V.C. ANDREWS® BOOKS

  THE DOLLANGANGER FAMILY

  Flowers in the Attic

  Petals on the Wind

  If There Be Thorns

  Seeds of Yesterday

  Garden of Shadows

  Christopher’s Diary: Secrets of Foxworth

  Christopher’s Diary: Echoes of Dollanganger

  Secret Brother

  THE AUDRINA SERIES

  My Sweet Audrina

  Whitefern

  THE CASTEEL FAMILY

  Heaven

  Dark Angel

  Fallen Hearts

  Gates of Paradise

  Web of Dreams

  THE CUTLER FAMILY

  Dawn

  Secrets of the Morning

  Twilight’s Child

  Midnight Whispers

  Darkest Hour

  THE LANDRY FAMILY

  Ruby

  Pearl in the Mist

  All That Glitters

  Hidden Jewel

  Tarnished Gold

  THE LOGAN FAMILY

  Melody

  Heart Song

  Unfinished Symphony

  Music in the Night

  Olivia

  THE ORPHANS SERIES

  Butterfly

  Crystal

  Brooke

  Raven

  Runaways

  THE WILDFLOWERS SERIES

  Misty

  Star

  Jade

  Cat

  Into the Garden

  THE HUDSON FAMILY

  Rain

  Lightning Strikes

  Eye of the Storm

  The End of the Rainbow

  THE SHOOTING STARS

  Cinnamon

  Ice

  Rose

  Honey

  Falling Stars

  THE DE BEERS FAMILY

  “Dark Seed”

  Willow

  Wicked Forest

  Twisted Roots

  Into the Woods

  Hidden Leaves

  THE BROKEN WINGS SERIES

  Broken Wings

  Midnight Flight

  THE GEMINI SERIES

  Celeste

  Black Cat

  Child of Darkness

  THE SHADOWS SERIES

  April Shadows

  Girl in the Shadows

  THE EARLY SPRING SERIES

  Broken Flower

  Scattered Leaves

  THE SECRETS SERIES

  Secrets in the Attic

  Secrets in the Shadows

  THE DELIA SERIES

  Delia’s Crossing

  Delia’s Heart

  Delia’s Gift

  THE HEAVENSTONE SERIES

  The Heavenstone Secrets

  Secret Whispers

  THE MARCH FAMILY

  Family Storms

  Cloudburst

  THE KINDRED SERIES

  Daughter of Darkness

  Daughter of Light

  THE FORBIDDEN SERIES

  The Forbidden Sister

  “The Forbidden Heart”

  Roxy’s Story

  THE MIRROR SISTERS

  The Mirror Sisters

  Broken Glass

  Shattered Memories

  THE HOUSE OF SECRETS SERIES

  House of Secrets

  Echoes in the Walls

  THE GIRLS OF SPINDRIFT

  Bittersweet Dreams

  “Corliss”

  “Donna”

  “Mayfair”

  STAND-ALONE NOVELS

  Gods of Green Mountain

  Into the Darkness

  Capturing Angels

  The Unwelcomed Child

  Sage’s Eyes

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  Pocket Star Books

  An Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Following the death of Virginia Andrews, the Andrews family worked with a carefully selected writer to organize and complete Virginia Andrews’s stories and to create additional novels, of which this is one, inspired by her storytelling genius.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 by Vanda Productions, LLC

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Pocket Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

  First Pocket Star Books ebook edition July 2018

  V.C. ANDREWS® and VIRGINIA ANDREWS® are registered trademarks of Vanda Productions, LLC

  POCKET STAR BOOKS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  ISBN 978-1-5011-6269-5