Page 114 of Leah

“We’re not kids anymore,” I grumbled. “A walk like this used to be nothing.”

“We’d have walked to the ends of the earth if it meant staying away from home,” he muttered thoughtfully.

I nodded, cracking a smile. “Remember we walked all the way home from the train station?”

“Because you lost our bus pass—”

“You never let me forget it every time we went somewhere.”

He chuckled softly. “I didn’t punish you for it at the time.”

I rolled my eyes. “No, you got me ice cream instead.”

He nodded. “That’s right.”

I looked at him oddly. “I don’t know why you did that.”

“What do you mean?”

I shrugged. “You barely had two pennies to rub together, and you’d just spent whatever you had on those all-day bus passes.”

“Don’t you remember what you were like?” he questioned, looking at me wryly. “You were thirteen, but you carried on like you were five and dying of starvation and the heat—”

“That summer broke records.”

“The ice cream ensured I didn’t suffer from a fucking migraine the next two hours we walked back.”

I studied him, raising a brow as I murmured, “I don’t believe you.”

He stared back at me, unflinchingly. “I don’t care, that’s the truth.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Then what’s the truth, Leah?”

“I think you didn’t want me to be upset.” I shuffled closer, tempted to prod his ribs in a teasing way, but resisted. “Under that don’t-give-a-shit façade, you cared for me then.”

He didn’t say anything for a few moments. “You said you read my letters.”

“I did.”

“Then you already know all this.”

I shrugged, half-heartedly. “But I’m not reading your letters at this very moment in time. I’m talking to you right here and now.”

His lips twisted as he considered that. “You want me to admit it to you again?”

“Maybe.”

“Why?”

“Because it might help you drop your guard and let me in.”

He didn’t speak, frowning now as he looked away from me. “I’m not shutting you out, Leah.”

“We’ve barely had a conversation since the hospital.”

He let out a long sigh, staring down at his cast now. “I keep waiting for you to run.”

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