Put Me Back Together(85)

Though he tried to do it when I wasn’t looking—a hard thing to do in an apartment with only two rooms—Lucas was still reading the paper obsessively, trying to track Brandon’s movements by the police reports. They still didn’t know he was in the area. There were no new threats stabbed through the door, and no texts, either. I tried not to wonder what that meant. Lucas thought it was a good sign—maybe Brandon was losing interest—but I knew better. If six years hadn’t worn him out, six days of watching me shacked up with my boyfriend wasn’t going to do the trick.

Letting myself think of Lucas as my boyfriend—that was another lesson.

Our argument over calling the police continued without much progress. Finally realizing I was never going to budge on the issue, Lucas stipulated instead that once I was safely installed in my parents’ home he would go ahead and make the call to the cops. I countered that calling the police once I was gone didn’t solve the problem. Kingston was still the town where I went to school. Brandon’s presence there would still be linked to me. Lucas then agreed that he would wait until Brandon had followed me back home, as we knew he would, before calling in a bogus tip about this whereabouts. But how would that help? How could we know exactly where Brandon was at that point? What kind of tip could Lucas give then except to tell the police what they already knew, that he’d violated his parole by missing an appointment with his P.O. Then Lucas inevitably circled back to calling the cops right away and the argument started all over again.

One thing he wouldn’t give up on was that if Brandon hadn’t been picked up by the time I got home, I had to tell my parents the truth. He was a little fanatical about it. I think the idea that he wouldn’t be there to protect me was making him a little mad, and he wanted to be sure that my parents understood the threat Brandon posed. I was also pretty sure he knew that when they heard the truth they’d be on the phone to the cops themselves in a blink. I never agreed to tell them—I didn’t want to lie—but I never flat out disagreed, either. I was being Switzerland on that one, and Lucas knew it.

One cloud hanging over us—besides the homicidal ex, that is—was the thought of being apart all summer. Now that I had Lucas, I found I couldn’t bear to lose him, and the very thought of all those days without being able to look at his breathtaking dimples was enough to drive me to distraction. Even his half-naked body in my bed couldn’t keep my attention, as we both learned one night when one moment we were kissing and the next I was picturing my lonely bedroom back home and making lists of all the movies I could watch to pass the time over the summer. When I shook myself out of my reverie and looked up at Lucas, he said, “What kind of alarm system do your parents have in their house?”

I guess we were both a little distracted.

But not so much that when my hand brushed over his boxers a few minutes later I didn’t feel his now-familiar arousal.

“Thinking about alarm systems, eh?” I said, and he turned on his side so we were spooning. In this position, I could feel him even more.

I could hear the grin in his voice as he whispered, “I told you, anytime you’re near me…”

For the next twenty minutes, before our minds wandered again, I learned about some of the other perks of having a live-in boyfriend.

One lazy afternoon, as the sun streamed through the windows onto the couch, I lay with my head in Lucas’s lap trying to keep the names of the Pre-Raphaelites straight in my head. (I kept forgetting the second Rossetti.) Turner had reluctantly given up his place on Lucas’s lap to me, opting instead to lie on the floor by his feet. Every once in a while he swiped at Lucas’s shoelaces.

Lucas’s questions that day had been getting more and more esoteric. Did I think of my father as strong? What was my friendliest memory? Then one of his questions struck a chord.

“What are you most afraid of?” he said. He felt my body react and immediately his hands went around me, tugging me closer, if that were possible. I felt his fingers digging into my shoulders, trying to loosen the muscles.

“I’m afraid of losing,” I replied softly. “That’s always been my biggest fear. Of telling the truth and losing the people I love. Losing you. Losing my parents. Losing Emily. When they know the truth about me, I’m afraid I’ll lose their love.”

Lucas sighed and smoothed his fingers over my hair. “You lived so many years thinking such awful things about yourself, Hero,” he said, “without anybody having the chance to contradict you. You’ve thought these horrible things for so long that you’ve convinced yourself they’re true. But they aren’t true. You told me everything and I still love you. There’s nothing awful about you at all. You aren’t going to lose anyone.”

I clung to his arms like they were a buoy as fear pumped through my veins, spurred by something I couldn’t explain. The idea of his love. And the idea of losing it. The idea of telling the truth to more and more people. And the idea of lying instead.

“Think of it this way,” Lucas said, gazing down into my eyes, “if you do lose your family over this, then what?”

My body actually spasmed at the very thought. I dug my fingers into Lucas’s skin. “Don’t,” I whimpered.

He shook his head. “You won’t, but let’s say the world turns on its head and you do. You have to know you’ll be okay. Look at how strong you are. You’ve lived with this secret eating away at you for six years and you’re still standing. I can’t say I could have done the same. You moved away and made a life for yourself. You make beautiful art. You’re in school, doing what you love. You made it, Katie. You survived. You can survive anything. You’re so much stronger than you think.”