Page 6 of The Other Side of Green

Jack.

I struggled to breathe, my legs shaking.

How could I come back knowing what I’d done? I’d slept with my own brother.

Closing my eyes, I tried to breathe. Finding something inside of me, anything, that wasn’t broken grief.

A flicker of recognition fizzled in my brain… a small kindle, like the spark of a match and the first catch of a candle wick.

Mom.

This was her doing.

She’d failed Luca and I so many times. In so many ways. This though was her ultimate betrayal.

Had she really slept with Jack’s dad all those years ago?

Was this why Luca and I looked so different?

Grams always said it was a genetic throwback. That it happened.

“Lyra?” My blood ran cold, washing through me like the Mississippi in January. I wanted to have all the anger, all the hatred, all the annoyance, but in the moment, nothing came at all.

My shoulders shook, my knees knocking.

Luca’s arms came around me, pulling me tight into his chest. His large hand smoothed the back of my hair, not his usual playful rub at my curls to make them static.

I hated him so very much for the lies he’d kept, but the circle of his hold gave me what I needed to keep on standing.

Nothing was straight about grief it seemed.

“I hate you.” I wiped at my nose, trailing a wet mark down his T-shirt. He smelled like home and it hit me he must have been staying here for a while for his clothes to have picked up the scent.

“I know.” He nodded his cheek against the top of my head, still holding me tight enough to keep me together.

I let it go then. One long cry and then I’d find strength again. But the cry didn’t want to end. The tide of tears wanted to pull me to the depths of the ocean where sand and forgotten rocks could tether me down. One tear rolled and then another. I gasped, trying to catch my breath, but only found a sobbed hitch that didn’t reach my lungs.

“Lyra, shh.”

Eventually I pushed out of his hold, swiping at my sticky face. “I don’t think I can go in without her there.” I pointed at the house. It looked empty, like light and noise would never fill it again. The kitchen door stood wide open and I waited for a shout, “You lettin’ all the hot air out.” Or more often, “You lettin’ all the hot air in.” The phrase was always the same dependent on the season, a record that got changed twice a year.

Luca leaned down, lowering to meet my eyes, nose close to mine, gaze intense. “I know. It hurts.”

“She’s not still in there is she?”

He shook his head and wiped his thumb along my cheek. “No, Lyra. She’s at the funeral house.”

“Oh, okay.” I shook my head. Stupid Lyra. What did I think? That they were going to leave her sat in her chair for me to get home just so I could see her there one last time?

I was losing my mind.

“Come on.” His fingers caught mine and gave a squeeze. “Just through the back door. I’ll make you some sweet tea just the way you like it.”

Luca set off another waterfall of shaking sobs. No one could make sweet tea like Grams—it was why I hadn’t even attempted the god-awful stuff in the cafeteria at college.

Oh God.

Campus.