I’d grown addicted to that sentence from him, and the way he said it, his voice like steel under velvet. I nodded. “I’m fine.”
He nodded once at me and gave Kennedy a quick glance that promised lethal injury if he saw fit to inflict it.
Kennedy blinked and looked over his shoulder to watch Lucas enter the classroom. “That guy’s in our class? And what the hell was that look for?” He turned back to examine my face more closely as I watched Lucas disappear through the door. “Chaz said some guy was in the parking lot that night. That he’s the one who beat the shit outta Buck, not a couple of homeless guys like Buck said.” He gestured with a thumb. “Is that who he was talking about?”
I nodded.
“Why did you tell me you just got away?”
“I don’t want to talk about that night, Kennedy.” With you, I added silently. I’d have to talk about it soon enough, when I had to give a deposition to the defense, and again when it went to trial.
“Fair enough. But you weren’t exactly honest with me the other night.”
“I was honest; I just wasn’t completely forthcoming. I don’t know why I even told you, especially after you asked me to drop the charges so the frat could save face—”
“That was a mistake. One that’s been rectified—”
“Yes, by a bunch of sorority girls much braver than you. Mindi was about to cave to your pressure, and if she’d dropped her case, I wouldn’t have had one at all. You of all people know that. So thanks, Kennedy, for your support.” I sighed. “Look, I appreciate your talk with Buck, and for what it’s worth, I know you genuinely didn’t want him to hurt me. But he needs to go to jail, not just be dressed down by a peer and tossed out of his fraternity.” I spun to enter the classroom and stopped when he called my name.
“Jacqueline—I’m sorry.”
Erin was right. Apologies could come too late. I nodded, accepting his for the sake of everything we used to be, but nothing more.
Dr. Heller had begun the lecture, so I slipped into my seat, accepted Benji’s smile of hello, and gave myself credit for becoming a survivor. I had survived Kennedy’s decision to end our relationship. I had survived what Buck tried to do to me. Twice. And I would survive if Lucas wouldn’t—or couldn’t—trust me with his personal demons.
***
The trees had transitioned from leafy to bare without me noticing. The shift was always a quick thing here—never a lengthy, multihued transformation like it was further north. Even still, I’d been too preoccupied to observe the alteration as it occurred. It seemed like one day the trees were thick and green, and the next, the leaves had vanished altogether, except in small, dead piles trapped in terraced corners and caught under border hedges.
The occasional warm days were gone as well. Lucas and I hunched into our coats, and my scarf was wound around my neck twice and encroaching on my face. I exhaled into it and savored the warmth that lasted about two seconds.
Lucas pulled his beanie lower. “Do you want me to come with you this afternoon? I can get someone to cover my shift at Starbucks.”
I turned my head to look at him, but my scarf didn’t turn with me. “No. Mindi’s parents are here. They’re going to make sure everything’s taken care of for both of us. They even offered to get me a hotel room—they’re keeping Mindi there with them for the next week, and then taking her directly back home after finals. Her dad’s moving her stuff out of her dorm tonight. Erin says they may withdraw her permanently.”
He frowned. “I guess it wouldn’t do any good to point out that this could have happened anywhere.”
I shook my head. “Maybe once they get over the shock of it. But Mindi might not want to come back here, even if that’s true.”
“Understandable,” he mumbled, staring straight ahead as we walked.
We were silent until we got to the small building where my Spanish class was located. “I wish I could skip again today, but we have oral presentations that count as part of the final.”
He smiled, reaching out to loosen a stubborn strand of hair that clung to my lip. I couldn’t get it with my gloved fingers. His index finger was faintly gray, and I guessed that he’d been sketching in class today. “I’d like to see you, before you go home. Outside of Saturday’s class, I mean.” His finger trailed my jaw, dipping into the pool of scarf and tucking beneath my chin.
I felt my stomach drop to my feet. I’d become familiar with non-verbal farewells recently, and goodbye was in his eyes. I wasn’t ready to see it. “I have a solo performance for a final grade tonight, a mandatory recital to attend on Friday, and my ensemble is performing Saturday. But I can come over tomorrow night, if you want.”
He nodded, staring into my eyes, looking like he might kiss me. “I want.” Students still hustled to their classes all around us. I wasn’t late to class yet, this time. He pulled my scarf back into place over my chin and smiled. “You look like a partial mummy. Like someone was interrupted while winding you into your shroud.”
A full smile from Lucas was so rare. Used to his ghost smile, dark scowls and intense stares, I was so stunned that my breath faltered. And then I smiled back, and even if he couldn’t quite see my mouth I knew the crinkles around my eyes replicated those around his, the darker blue of my eyes connecting with the his gray-blue. “Maybe I did a hammer-fist strike and bloodied his nose before he could do all that gruesome mummy stuff to me.”