SAMMY POV
I used to think smiles were armor.
The brighter they were, the less anyone would look too closely. The wider they stretched, the easier it was to trick people into thinking everything was fine. And gods, I became good at it. So good that sometimes even I believed it. Practiced, perfected, polished until it was second nature. Flash the grin, crack a joke, keep people at arm’s length, and never — ever — let them see the cracks.
Because if they did? If anyone ever saw how broken I had been at sixteen, trembling under the weight of hands I never wanted on me, lips I never asked for, power pressed into my space like a cage—then they’d know. They’d see me for what I really was: weak.
Stan didn’t see me like that, though. He’d been my saving grace that night. He’d torn into the Alph
