Page 24 of The Other Side of Green

“Lyra,” he whispered my name, a low and tumulus prayer. Ignoring my weight leaning in the opposite direction, he pulled me in, reeling me tight. “I’m sorry if I scared you with the truth, I never wanted to do that.” I tried not to sob as his fingers slid through my curls. “And it wouldn’t have mattered if you or Luca had that hoodie with the evidence on it. I would have still come back for you. I know I said no straightaway when you told me about Grams, but I would never have kept to that.” His palm tilted my face forcing me to look up at him. “You know I’d do anything for you, right?”

I nodded, unable to speak as his words ebbed between us.

Tears slipped down my cheek, one after the other, quicker and quicker. “Jack, we can’t be together.” I pulled at his hand, pressing my palm against his and lowering it from my face and hair.

Rocking back, that dirty green gaze I’d dreamed of my whole life swept my face. “Why? There is literally nothing holding us back now. Not college rules, the Collins’, not even Luca I think can question this now.” His gaze burned.

The truth knotted hard in my stomach. Unable to speak that truth, I could only lie. “Jack, how can we be here, be seen together when everyone is going to find out where you’ve been. It’s not going to take long for the fact you worked at college to get around. Then what?”

“So? Do you even care what these people think? A few days ago, you were planning on never coming back.”

I blanched. “And I’m disgusted with myself, disgusted that I would have left Grams. She died as a punishment of that choice; I know it.”

“Lyra.” He caught my hands again holding them tight against his chest. “Lyra, she was sick. I went to see Mom earlier; your Grams was sick for a long time. I think she only hung on this long because she wanted to see you right.”

“Yeah, and she did, with a scholarship she worked damn hard for me to be able to win, and what did I do with it, Jack? I nearly threw it all away for you. For a boy, a boy who left me heartbroken all those years ago.”

His lips hardened into a firm line. “You know I had no choice. I see now I could have done thing differently. Everything that’s happened since that night has been a direct result of bad choices made, but I would never have left you if I thought there was another way.”

The lie burned on my lips, slicing little cuts around my heart. “I know. And that disgusts me. I was fourteen.”

Jack stumbled back. “What?”

“You disgust me. Now leave me alone. Go back to Boston. Do what you need to do. Hell, go anywhere, just don’t come near me. Luca was right all those years ago, what we did was wrong.”

“And the other night, when you gave me everything, was that wrong too?”

I nodded, a sharp bob of my head. “Yes.”

“I see.”

I held his gaze, making sure I stayed firm, didn’t waver. The slightest hint I was lying, and I knew he’d be able to tell it, to taste it in the air between us.

He turned for the window and stalked for the sill. “Fine, Lyra Lennox. But know this. I’m not leaving town. So if I disgust you so much, I suggest you get ready to move on. I’m done running from the Lennox family.”

He didn’t wait for a response, not that I had one to give. He slid onto the sill and edged his way down the drainpipe, just like he had hundreds of times before.

Jack and I were both back home, but I’d just set fire to the foundations of anything we’d ever had.

I fell back onto my bed, my chest heaving, tears blurring my view of the yellowed ceiling.

“You okay?” Luca poked his head around the door.

I refused to look at him. “Stop eavesdropping.”

“You did the right thing.”

I rolled over and faced the wall. It was the right thing, so why the hell did it still feel so wrong?

Chapter Seven

Jack

I jabbed my finger on the doorbell. I hadn’t been given a key, didn’t even know if I would be given one. Hey, I’m home. Sorry I haven’t been here for four years. Oh, can I have a key for the lock? Yeah, maybe not.

“All right, all right.” Detective Lufette, Phillipe apparently, opened the door, rattling chains. The house was in the slightly nicer area of the hood, and when I say nicer, I mean there was a patch of grass outside with the flowers, and the windows weren’t broken on the other houses on the street, but we were still in the ‘No-Go Tourist Area’. I mean, they practically handed out flyers to tourists arriving at the airport telling them not to come down our neck of the woods. Really, who could blame them?

You had to be on your toes to survive.