Put Me Back Together(68)

“A while?” I said timidly.

He squeezed me tight. “Try never,” he said. “And as much as I loved it, I don’t want to be your friend, Hero. I want to be with you. Only you. The girl wearing glasses and sweatpants with wild hair flying everywhere and a cat inside her jacket. The girl I can’t stop myself from wanting to kiss and hold in my arms and do everything else with. The girl who makes me feel like I might get through this if she’s there next to me. That’s the girl I want.”

Suddenly I was the one whose chest was heaving with unshed tears, whose heart felt like it might burst. I only had to turn my head slightly to find his lips waiting for me, those sweet, soft lips and that moan-inducing tongue. Before long we were lying back on the cement and neither of us felt much like crying anymore. Breaking our kiss before things got too out of hand—we were in the middle of a playground, after all—I lay my head on his shoulder and we both looked up at the cloudy sky.

“So I’m the only one who knows?” I said.

“Well, family, too,” Lucas said. “And there’s Jenny. She came to the funeral with her family. They’ve lived next door since I was six.”

“I’m glad you have her,” I said, and it was the honest truth. “It must be comforting to have somebody from home so close by.”

“She’d actually pretty pissed at me most of the time,” Lucas admitted. “I haven’t come back here to see Mom since the semester began. It’s just…too painful. But Jenny comes every few weeks and she checks in on my mom. She thinks I’m neglecting her. She keeps telling me how much she needs me now, how she’s all alone. She yells at me a lot.”

The scene on the bench suddenly made a lot more sense and I wanted to kick myself for reading it so incorrectly. I’d thought they were having a lovers’ quarrel and really she’d been scolding him for not visiting his grieving mother.

“You’ll go see her when you’re ready,” I said.

“I will,” he said. “Soon. Just not today. Maybe I’ll call her tonight instead. I could tell her about you.”

“Telling your mother about me?” I said teasingly, pinching his stomach. “That sounds pretty serious.”

“Well, that’s how serious I am about you,” Lucas said, and there was no teasing in his voice at all. It made my heart ache. My heart was really getting a workout today.

Lucas rolled onto his side and I adjusted my head so his arm cushioned it and we were lying face to face.

“That’s why it’s so hard for me to see what I did last night and not want to jump into action. I care so much about you, Katie. If someone’s trying to hurt you—”

“Nobody’s trying to hurt me,” I said quickly, the lie turning sour on my lips as I said it. He’d been so incredibly honest with me, so vulnerable. This was the moment when I had to decide if I was going to be just as honest back.

“But you know who broke into your apartment. That’s why you didn’t want to call the cops,” Lucas said. His eyes were fastened on my face. I could tell he’d been holding in these questions all morning, though he’d been dying to ask them. I wished he would look away, just for a moment, so I could think straight, compose my thoughts.

Compose my thoughts, I wondered, or compose my lies?

“I-I think it’s…an old boyfriend,” I forced out.

“Does he go to Queen's?” Lucas asked.

“No…” I said. “I’m not even sure if he’s the one who broke in. It might have been one of his friends. He’s been…contacting me lately. Texting me. He might be sort of…stalking me.”

All at once Lucas sat up, pulling me up with him. His eyes were wide and serious, his expression tense. He pulled out his cell.

“I’m calling the cops,” he said.

“No, don’t,” I said, covering the screen with my hand before he could dial. “It’s not as bad as you think!”

“Katie, you’re telling me an old boyfriend is stalking you, that he broke into your apartment, and you expect me just to do nothing? I’m not going to let this guy hurt you!”


“But I’m not hurt,” I protested. “He hasn’t done anything to me except rip up a couple of my paintings. Please, if you call the cops it’ll do more damage to me than to him.” If the police got involved the whole story would come out, I knew it. And then everyone would know I was a liar, Lucas included. I pictured myself being led away in handcuffs. I pictured the look on my mother’s face, on Emily’s face.

All of a sudden I couldn’t catch my breath. I pressed my palm to my chest as I struggled to get in some air. Lucas’s face was narrowing to a pinpoint.

“Okay, we won’t call the cops,” Lucas said, dropping his phone in his lap as he put an arm around my shoulders. “Just breathe, Katie. It’s okay. I won’t let anyone hurt you.” I pressed my cheek into Lucas’s chest as my heartbeat slowed and air came rushing into my lungs.

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled into his shirt. “It’s just that everything that’s happened between Brandon and me…the story is long and complicated. I just—”

“You don’t have to tell me everything,” Lucas said, smoothing a hand over my hair. “Just promise me if you’re ever in trouble you’ll come to me. If you see him anywhere, if you hear from him, if you just think you see him, or if you feel scared, I’m the guy you call, got it?”