Page 43 of No More Secrets

She scoffs. “I’ve been suspended, remember?”

He glowers because he’s genuinely curious about her plans. He spent half his senior year in juvie studying precalc and American lit alongside criminals hardened before they were out of diapers. It was no picnic. By the time he got out, he was messed up. Not even close to being in his right mind to finish school on campus surrounded by his peers. Just the thought of walking through crowded hallways sickenedhim. His dreams of a USC football scholarship and majoring in architecture scrubbed, he studied for his GED online. Does she intend to do the same?

Did Lily finish school?

The thought gives him pause.

What did she do after she ran?

The impulse to reach out to her almost forces his hand to the phone. Every day it gets harder to resist the urge to call Olivia to apologize for running off and ask for Lily’s number, especially now, after what Shiloh told him this morning. But resist he does. She’d never accept his apology and doing so won’t change what happened.

Shiloh spreads her hands across the counter. “So, what now?”

He drops a pan on the stove. “Now we eat.”

She scopes out the food. “No salad?”

Lucas pulls a face. “This isn’t a five-star restaurant.” And he isn’t serving a balanced meal. Should he? He looks at the food on the counter, second-guessing what he selected.

“Fine with me. I can’t stand the stuff.” He grunts, and Shiloh lifts a fist. “Bump for no greens.”

Something about her posture, the angle of her face, reminds him of Lily pulling faces over salad. They were at the Whitmans’ cabin at the time, and she didn’t want to eat it.

He stares at Shiloh, astonished by how much she keeps reminding him of his sister. His gaze loses focus, and the past becomes the present. He starts to feel light, untethered, and he stumbles, catching himself against the counter.

“Whoa. You don’t look so good.”

Afraid he’s about to black out, he abruptly leaves the kitchen. Brisk strides take him to his room. He slams the door and sits on the edge of the bed, dragging in long pulls of air. One breath. Two. One more. His racing heart eases. Perspiration on his forehead, nape, and in his pits cools his skin.

When he feels in control again, he lifts his head. The switchblade on the nightstand winks at him. He snatches the blade, flips it over in his palms. Flicks it open, closed, open again. Traces the tip down his scar, the cool metal a bolt of electricity up his ulnar artery to his auxiliary, through his subclavian and straight to his heart. A warning.

He flicks it closed and fists the blade. Plants an elbow on his thigh and rests his forehead against the blade in his palm. It’s been years since he thought of their summers with the Whitmans, friends of their parents who took him and his sisters in while his father campaigned for Congress and his mother worked long hours.

But that memory Shiloh’s expression triggered... He saw flashes of Lily in her. The smirk, that teasing glint in her eyes.

It was summer, one of the many spent at the Whitmans’ cabin. They sat at the table for dinner, all of them. Blaze, Olivia, him, Tyler, and Lily. Mr.Whitman at one end, Mrs.Whitman at the other. She’d set a bowl of salad in the middle of the table. Lily didn’t like salads, or anything leafy and green. She made a face. Her lips pulling in opposite directions, her tongue sticking out. It was such a visceral reaction that Lucas barked a laugh. Lily’s cheeks pinkened. Embarrassed, afraid she’d get in trouble, she ducked her head. She never would have made such a face at home in front of their parents.

“What’s so funny?” Mr.Whitman stabbed a fork into his meatloaf.

“Nothing.” Lucas unfolded his napkin and laid it over his thighs. He wouldn’t look Mr.Whitman in the eye, and it was probably one of the last times Lucas had come to Lily’s defense, covered her actions. But when Olivia served herself salad, Lucas made a face back. Lily snorted and made another face. And soon everyone at the table was making faces and doubled over with laughter.

But the next day. The next day...

Lucas blinks away the burn in his eye as one memory tumbles into another.

The next morning Lily found him by the lake. He’d brought his breakfast outside, a paper plate of scrambled eggs and buttered toast, and left it on the ground. Distracted by a school of minnows, their air bubbles looking like raindrops on the lake’s surface, he’d scooped up a handful of pebbles and started chucking them into the water, aiming for the fish. He hit a few, knocked them right in their heads and laughed.

Bored with that, he’d chucked the remaining pebbles into the water and returned to his food. Ants swarmed his plate. Livid, he yelled and started stomping the trail, killing as many as he could.

Lily came outside and ran over to him, asking why he was upset. When she saw what he was doing, she pleaded for him to stop, tried pushing him away from the ants.

He picked up his plate, and one by one, flicked the ants into the lake.

“Stop, Luc.” Her eyes shimmered and he rolled his.

“They’re stupid ants.”

“They’re living, breathing things.”

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