Enshroud by Stacey Johnston

Sumner
Only time can heal your pain.
If I had a dime for every time someone said that to me, I wouldn’t have run away.
Because regardless of what they tell you, time doesn’t heal the pain.
Because what I was doing wasn’t living, it was a constant reminder of the life I’d lost.
Because I couldn’t bear the sadness I saw hiding behind Tatum’s eyes every time he looked at me.
I knew he loved me . . . But for how long?
One day he would’ve woken up and seen the same ugliness that I see every time I look in the mirror.
And that was something I couldn’t let happen.
With some help from an unlikely source, I fled to the one place I believed no one would ever find me . . . Virginia. Mark Dixon and Cole Security Forces helped conceal my past so the boy who holds my heart would never find me.
Until he did.
All I wanted was for the nightmares of that day to stop and to be left alone. I’m not the same girl I used to be, which is why I need to protect my heart from the devastation Tatum’s rejection could inflict.
But he refuses to leave me alone.
Should I take the risk and trust him?
Maybe they’re right.
Maybe time can erase the past and heal the pain.
Or, maybe Tatum will destroy what’s left of my heart forever.