It’s the first time since being rescued I’ve let someone hold me while I cried. But I don’t allow myself to draw too much comfort from it. Because if there’s anything I’ve learned from my time adrift, it’s that you can’t depend on anyone. They will all abandon you in the end. “You can’t blame yourself, Frances,” he murmurs. That name on his lips jolts me, wrenching me from the past. I push away, dashing the tears from my eyes and shaking my head to clear it. “You’re right,” I tell him, walking back inside. I shuffle through the stack of notebooks on the bed until I find the one I’m looking for. Flipping it open, I thrust it at him. “I blame them.” I point to the photo of Grey and his father, taken moments after they’d been rescued. It ran in half the newspapers—the powerful Senator and his golden-boy child who survived. He starts to laugh.
