"Tell me something real." I threw back at him because I'm tired of talking about me.

He stopped breathing for a moment and tucked his nose into my temple; he inhaled slowly before sitting up straighter. "I sometimes think fate is more of a reality than faith even though I was taught faith was fate my whole life. Like when you connect with someone and you can just feel how right it is. A sort of invisible string that's buried deep in their body connecting your souls together and your life lines suddenly come together to share a path you can choose to walk on together if you accept that fate and stray off your own path."

I turned to look at him as his voice dropped an octave and changed the charge in the air around us.

"Are we dancing again?" I asked.

"That depends, Clary. Do you feel this thing between us the way I do?" He leaned forward as he pointed a finger from my heart to his own, his eyes hooded. "Because if you don't feel this thing between us, I think it's best to let the flame die."

Clarissa Monroe knows a few things for sure: When summer is over she's moving across the country with her best friend Anna, she's going to be a librarian, she doesn't know who she is yet, and she can't get that first kiss with Bryant Crossman out of her head.

Bryant Crossman can't grab a firm enough hold on his life. Weighed down by the expectations of his father, he's being thrust forward on a path that isn't his own. Until he makes a bold move and kisses Clarissa Monroe at a party. When he sees her again he finally decides to step onto a path of his own choosing, one that will allow Clary to walk with him. But how far can they walk before their paths no longer cross?

Crossed - pocket, Engelska, 2023