Put Me Back Together(69)

“Yeah,” I said weakly, trying to imagine what that would be like. If I really did as Lucas asked, I’d probably be on the phone with him twenty-four seven.

We stayed a little while longer, snuggled in each other’s arms, watching the clouds rushing by as the wind picked up. Then Lucas helped me up off the ground and we started walking back to his car. It had only been about an hour, but I felt like days had passed since our drive into Christie. This morning was a distant memory. My mind was full of everything I knew now, and everything he didn’t know, my brain working so hard to keep it all straight I was starting to get a headache.

“So his name’s Brandon?” Lucas said as he unlocked the passenger’s side door for me.

I nodded.

“Will it freak you out if I say I wish I could find Brandon and pummel him in the face?” Lucas said. “I won’t, I promise. But I really, really want to.”

I smiled weakly as we got into the car, but the truth was his words did freak me out. Now that Lucas was involved in my life, I worried that he’d also get involved in my past. I didn’t want to pull him into that mess. I didn’t want him to defend me. I didn’t want to make those same old mistakes again.

Lucas had said he wanted to be with me, only me. I tried to cheer myself up with this thought as he drove us back to Kingston, but the lies I’d told him kept popping up in my mind, dampening my mood. Well, I hadn’t lied exactly. Every word I’d said to him was true. I just hadn’t told him the whole story.

That’s right, Katie, said the familiar voice inside my head. That’s how you lie without lying. That’s how you make sure he never, ever knows the real you. Because when he does, he won’t want you anymore, you can count on that.

“What does he think you lied to him about?” Lucas asked as we approached campus. “I saw what he wrote on your wall.”

Keep lying, girl, the voice said.

“Just something that happened a long time ago,” I said.

Once upon a time I’d thought of the truth was my enemy. I’d lied without question, without even thinking about it, the lies ready and waiting on my tongue, prepared ahead of time for easy use. Now, as I butchered the truth to suit my purposes, I found that lies, even lies of omission, were starting to take their toll.

I’d didn’t want to lie to Lucas ever again.

I just wasn’t sure I was ready to face the truth.





17





“So are you guys doing it or what?” Mariella said.

“Shut up!” I hissed at her, raising a spatula threateningly and shooting a glance down the hall at the closed bathroom door. I could hear the shower running, so I was pretty sure Lucas hadn’t heard her. “We just fell asleep on the couch watching movies, that’s all.”

“Seems like you’ve been watching a lot of movies lately,” Mariella said, her implication plain. She snatched a piece of bacon out of the pan as I moved them onto a plate.

“We’ve just been hanging out,” I said, “and making out.” I gave my friend a sly grin and she bumped her hip with mine, smiling broadly.

“That’s what I’m talking about!” she said. “I told you he’d come around.”

Lucas had actually been coming around a lot lately. Since the day we’d gone out to Christie we’d spent at least part of every day together. The thing he’d said about my calling him whenever I felt like I was in danger seemed pretty amusing now, since he was almost always with me.

As the school year wound to a close we’d gone to our separate classes each day and then almost always met up for lunch before art class. Now that exams were on, we often studied together at my place or at the library or worked on our final portfolios in the studio. I’d even hung out at The Limo with him during his shift, sitting behind the bar on a little stool, listening with delight as Brit imitated the irritating customers and watching the overdressed girls drool over Lucas—which might have bothered me if he hadn’t made a point of kissing me dramatically whenever he got tired of them. That didn’t bother me one bit. We’d definitely been doing a lot of kissing and touching—maybe it was more like groping—but we hadn’t advanced any further than that. I wasn’t really sure why, because I certainly wasn’t the one hitting the brakes. I kept wanting to ask him why he was hesitating, but at the same time I didn’t want to spoil a good thing. Just making out with Lucas was still plenty exciting.

“And now you’re making him breakfast like the perfect little girlfriend,” Mariella went on, pressing her hand to her chest. “I think I smell love in the air.”

I swatted her hand with the spatula as she tried to steal another piece of bacon. “Nobody’s said anything about love,” I chastised her. “And don’t you have a child to parent or something?”

Mariella leaned toward the open door as I grabbed the eggs out of the fridge and cracked them over the pan. “Are you alive, child of mine?” she called into the hallway where Ethan was playing with his toy cars.

“Still alive!” Ethan called back, and I heard one of his cars hit the wall beside my door.

“Great parenting technique,” I said as the eggs sizzled. “I guess what I was really trying to say is stop prying into my personal life.”