My heart reached for him as we listened, staring at each other, and I felt the threads of connection between us—fragile filaments, so easily snapped. Like the poem etched into his side, we were each curving to fit inside the other, and this melting and reshaping could be deeper, more resilient. I wondered if he felt it, and when I listened to the lyrics of this song that he chose, I thought maybe he did. Now don't laugh ’cause I just might be… the soft curve in your hardline.

The hallway outside my door was mostly silent, finally, after a day of people packing up and moving out that had begun early. We talked—recent history only—and Lucas relayed the story of how Francis came to be his roommate. “He showed up at the door one night, demanding to be let in. Napped on the sofa for an hour, then demanded to be let out. It turned into a nightly ritual, with him staying longer and longer, until at some point I realized he’d moved in. He’s basically the most brazen squatter ever.”

I laughed and he kissed me, laughing, too. Still smiling, he kissed me again, hands wandering over my waist and hip. As we started to make out, I panted out the fact that Erin wasn’t leaving campus until tomorrow—and therefore could walk in any moment.

“I thought you said she was leaving today.”

I nodded. “She was. But her ex-boyfriend is charting a relentless campaign to get her back, and he wanted to see her tonight.”

His hand wandered under my shirt, exploring. “So what happened with them? Why did they break up?”

My lips parted when his hand cupped one breast, molding it to his palm as though it was meant to fit there.

“Over me.”

His eyes widened slightly and I smiled.

“No—not like that. Chaz was… Buck’s best friend.” I hated how my body clenched when I thought of Buck, how my teeth clenched when I said his name. Without even being present, he triggered responses I couldn’t quell, and that infuriated me.

“He’s gone now, right?” he asked. “He’s left campus?” Transferring his arm to my back, Lucas pressed me closer, his hand at the back of my neck.

Closing my eyes, I burrowed my head beneath his chin, nodding.

“I doubt he’ll be allowed to come back next semester, even before the trial,” he said.

I breathed him in, closing my mouth tight and inhaling the scent of him through my nose. I felt sheltered by him. Safe. “I’m always looking over my shoulder. He’s like one of those jack-in-the-box clowns… I never told you about the stairwell, did I?”

I wasn’t the only one incapable of suppressing physical reactions. His body stiffened, and his grip on me was suddenly less gentle, more charged. “No.”

Mumbling the story into his chest, trying to stick to facts and nothing else so I could temper my own response, I ended with, “He made it look like we’d done it in the stairwell. And from the looks on everyone’s faces in the hall… from the stories that circulated after… they believed him.” I forced the tears back. I didn’t want to cry over Buck anymore. “But at least he didn’t get into my room.”

Quiet for so long that I thought he wasn’t going to comment, he finally pushed me onto my back, wedging one knee between mine and kissing me roughly. His hair tickled the side of my face, and I wrenched my hands—trapped between us—free, plunging them into his hair as though I could pull him closer.

The way he kissed me felt like a brand. Like he was tattooing himself under my skin.

He knew all of my secrets, and I knew his.

But that seeming reciprocity was a lie—because he hadn’t been the one to reveal his own. I’d excavated them, and worse, he was unaware of it.

My guilt mushroomed between us, along with my longing for him to share that part of himself. To trust me with it. I was going home in three days. I couldn’t bring this up with miles and hours between us, or keep it to myself for weeks longer.

When we slowed again, wrapped up in each other and allowing our libidos and heart rates time to decelerate, I saw an opening.

“So you sort of live with the Hellers, and they’re family friends?”

He watched me and nodded.

“How did your parents meet them?”

Turning onto his back, his teeth slid over the ring in his lip and he sucked it into his mouth. I recognized this as his stress-disclosing equivalent of Kennedy’s neck-rubbing.

“They went to college together.”

The earbuds had been dislodged sometime during the last half hour. He turned the iPod off and wound the wires around it tightly.

“So you’ve known them all of your life.”

He pushed the iPod into his front pocket. “Yeah.”

Images of what I’d read, and what Dr. Heller had revealed, flashed in front of my eyes. Lucas needed comforting—I’d never known anyone who needed it more—but I couldn’t console him over something he hadn’t shared.

“What was your mother like?”

He stared up at the ceiling, and then closed his eyes, unmoving. “Jacqueline—”

The scrape of a key in the door startled both of us. The room was unlit, except for a low-watt desk lamp. When the door opened, a block of light, filled with Erin’s silhouette, fell across the floor in the center of the room.

“J, are you already asleep?” She whispered, her eyes still adjusting from the bright hallway, or she’d have seen that I wasn’t alone on the bed.

“Um, no…”

Lucas sat up and swung his feet to the floor, and I followed. Timing is everything, I thought.

After tossing her purse on her bed and kicking off her shoes, Erin turned back toward us. “Oh! Hey… er. I think I might have some laundry I need to do…” She shrugged out of her coat and grabbed her nearly-empty laundry basket.

“I was just leaving.” Lucas bent to pull on his black boots and lace them up.

Mouthing, Oh my God I’m so sorry! over his head, Erin was the picture of contrition.

I shrugged and mouthed back, It’s okay.

Following Lucas into the hall, I gripped my opposite arms, cold after the warmth of lying next to him. “Tomorrow?”

He zipped his leather jacket before turning to me, his lips set firm. His eyes slid from mine and I felt the wall between us then, too late. Our gazes connecting, he sighed. “It’s officially winter break. We should probably use it to take a break from each other as well.”

I tried to form an intelligible protest, but wasn’t sure what to say. I’d just pushed him to this, after all. “Why?” The word rasped from me.

“You’re leaving town. I will be, too, for at least a week. You need to pack up, and I’ll be helping Charles get final grades posted over the next day or so.” His justification was so logical; there was no concealed thread of emotion I could wrench free. “Let me know when you’re back in town.” He bent to kiss me, quickly. “Bye, Jacqueline.”

Chapter 25

As I drove to Lucas’s apartment Sunday night, I reviewed the numerous reasons why popping up unannounced and uninvited was a bad idea: he might not be there, he might be busy, he thinks he scared me away, he thinks we said goodbye. On the other hand, I was only going to be in town until Tuesday morning, and I couldn’t let him dismiss me without a fight.

After I knocked, I heard the bolt turn and then Lucas’s harsh voice through the door. “Who is it, Carlie? Don’t just open the door—”

“It’s a girl.” The door swung open and a pretty, blonde, dark-eyed girl was framed in the doorway. She blinked at me, clearly waiting for an explanation of who I was and what I wanted. I couldn’t speak. I was sure my heart had lodged itself in my esophagus and stopped beating.

Lucas came up next to her, scowling. When he saw me, his brows rose into the hair hanging over his forehead. “Jacqueline? What are you doing here?”

My heart revved to life and I turned to tear down the stairs. Suddenly I was airborne, my bicep caught in his grip, swinging me from the top step as he brought me against his chest and I almost, almost stomped on his instep.

“She’s Carlie Heller,” he said into my ear, and I stilled. “Her brother Caleb is inside, too. We’re playing video games.”

My heart still pounded fight-or-flight as his words sunk in and I slumped against him, feeling like a jealous idiot. I dropped my forehead to his chest. His heart was pounding as hard as mine. “I’m sorry,” I mumbled against his soft t-shirt. “I shouldn’t have come.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have come without telling me, but I can’t be sorry to see you.”

I looked up. “But you said…?”

His eyes were silver under the porch light. “I’m trying to protect you. From myself. I don’t do…” he swung a finger back and forth between us “…this.”

My teeth chattered when I spoke. “That doesn’t make any sense. Just because you haven’t before doesn’t mean you can’t.” Too late, I apprehended a different, more likely reason for his words. “Unless… you don’t want to.”

He sighed and released his grip on my arm to run both hands through his hair. “It’s not… that…”

“Brrr! Are y’all coming in, or what? ’Cause I’m closing this door.” I peeked around Lucas. Carlie Heller looked young, but she didn’t look that young. She didn’t seem resentful, though. And she appeared to be curious.

“Well, you asked for it.” Threading his fingers through mine, Lucas turned toward the door and pushed it wider. “We’re coming in.”

Carlie darted to a corner of the sofa where Francis lay across a blanket. Scooping him up, she flopped him over her shoulder like he was an inanimate object. After climbing under the blanket, she rearranged the cat on her lap and picked up the controller. Next to her sat a scowling boy with the same dark eyes, a bit younger than (but just as sullen as) my middle school boys.

“Take all day,” he mumbled in Lucas’s direction.

“Rude.” Carlie elbowed him and he rolled his eyes.

Lucas took his controller from the sofa cushion, gesturing for me to sit in the corner opposite Carlie. “Guys, this is my friend, Jacqueline. Jacqueline, these monkeys are Caleb and Carlie Heller.” Carlie and I exchanged hellos and Caleb mumbled something in my direction. I pulled my feet beneath me and watched the game over Lucas’s head.

When Carlie ushered Caleb out fifteen minutes later, his sulking hadn’t decreased. He glanced back at me. “I can’t have girls alone in my room.”

She swatted the back of his head. “Shut it. Lucas is a grown-up, and you are just a horny pre-adolescent.”

I tried to disguise my laugh as a cough as Caleb’s face flushed red, and he shot through the door and pounded down the steps.

Carlie turned to hug Lucas and beam at me. “Y’all have a good night,” she chirped, disappearing through the door.

He watched her walk across the yard and into the house, saying goodnight before shutting and bolting the door. He turned, leaning back against it, and stared at me. “So. I thought we said we were taking a break?” He didn’t seem angry, but he wasn’t happy, either.