Put Me Back Together(86)

“I’m not,” I protested, tears stinging my eyes, but I blinked them back angrily. “I-I’m not strong. I’m weak.”

“Being afraid isn’t the same as being weak. You’re brave,” Lucas said.

“I’m a liar,” I said.

“You’re a survivor.”

“Coward.”

“Smart.”

“Manipulative.”

“Cunning.”

“Selfish.”

“Human.”

“Cold-hearted.”

“Warm-blooded.”

“Ugly.”

“I’m not even going to dignify that with a response,” Lucas said, prying my hands away from my face. I was trying to hide again.

I looked up at him, his golden eyes, his kind face, and a new word came to my mind, one I never could have said before I met him: “Hopeful.”

Lucas nodded. “And remember,” he said, “even if everything goes wrong, and you find yourself feeling weak, there’s one thing you’ll always have, one thing you’ll never lose no matter what.”

“What?” I asked. If he said something like “your self-worth” I was going to puke, but of course he didn’t. He said the perfect thing instead.

“Me,” he said softly, and brushed my lips with his. “Forever.”

On the day of Lucas’s last exam we treated ourselves to Chinese food. Up until then we’d been going cheap and splitting every bill because I knew Lucas didn’t have a lot of extra cash. I didn’t even know how much money he was losing by not showing up to his shifts at the club all week, though he said it was no big deal. This philosophy exam, however, was one he’d been studying hard for, and, as it was an evening exam, I felt he needed a big dinner to get through it. Besides, my credit card, which my parents paid for, was happy to take the hit.


We were sitting on the stools at the kitchen counter, eating spring rolls and leaving sticky fingerprints all over each other when I heard the muffled sound of my phone ringing. I’d misplaced it the day before and had forgotten all about it.

“Check who it is first,” Lucas warned as I jumped off the stool, wiping my hands on a napkin.

“Okay, Dad,” I sassed as I searched for the source of the ringing.

It turned out my phone was underneath the rug in front of the couch—God knew how it had gotten there. Pulling it out and dusting it off, I saw that there were at least a dozen texts from Emily, and her name flashed across the screen as the phone continued to ring.

Crap.

I answered the call with a timid, “Hello?”

“I cannot believe you!” Em said. She was someplace loud. Over her yelling I was able to make out a voice asking passengers to report to the gate, final call.

Oh big, big crap.

“Oh, no. Did I—”

“Did you forget to help me pack up all my stuff?” Emily interrupted. “Did you forget your only sister was flying back to Vancouver today? Did you forget she’s terrified of flying alone?”

Due to our conflicting exam schedules, Emily was flying home three days earlier than me, though if I’d known my anthropology exam had been moved up, we could have flown together—a fact she’d been holding against me.

“I’m so, so sorry,” I said, eyeing Lucas miserably. He mouthed the word, “Uh-oh.”

“I lost my phone and I totally forgot and—”

“That’s not even what I’m mad about. Did you even look at any of my texts?”

I’d only scanned them. I wanted to read through all of them right that second, but that would have meant taking my ear away from the phone. “No,” I answered lamely.

“We haven’t even spoken since you left me that stupid note on your pillow,” Emily said, her voice shrill. She always sounded like that when she was trying to scream instead of cry. “Mariella called me that night, hysterical, saying you were screaming at her. By the time I got to your apartment you were catatonic. It was terrifying. Katie, what the hell is going on?”

I sat down on the arm of the couch and realized that amid all of Lucas’s questions I hadn’t asked any of my own. Like what exactly had happened the night I’d waited for Brandon to come and find me. I hadn’t even known that Mariella had been involved at all, though that did explain the chicken stir-fry she’d left at my door with a note saying she hoped I felt better and to call her, which I hadn’t done.

“Oh, Em,” I said, my heart filling with regret.

“Obviously the story you told about the creepy guy in the building was a lie,” she went on. “Lucas totally freaked out at me for leaving you alone.” My glance darted back to Lucas. “I was so busy with packing and studying for that insane exam for my accounting class that I had no time to come by your place and scream at you.”

I closed my eyes. I didn’t even bother replying. She needed to have her say.

“You’re keeping something from me,” she said. “I know you are. Something big. And you’ve been keeping it from me for a while.”

My heart broke a little as she said this, knowing hers must have been doing the same. The one thing Emily prized more than anything else was her belief that we told each other everything.

She said, “I just want to know one thing.”