Page 79 of City of Love

And that’s on me.

The sleep that I do find is far from restful. It’s laden with dreams of Lydia, visions of things I have no right to see anymore. Her soft skin, her lips, her hair—they don’t belong to me. Nor do her smile or her laugh, her witty banter or her fascinating conversations.

She is not mine.

I remind myself as I toss and turn that it’s better this way. Because ultimately, when it comes down to it, I am a criminal. And even if I’ve gone straight, there will always be a past that could come for me. Not to mention the fact that a man with my moral codes doesn’t belong with someone like Lydia. I’ll do what I think is right or necessary, even if my methods are unconventional or questionable. Eventually she would have problems with that, and she would end things anyway.

But I’m not sure I know how to be anything but this man. So I’ll find a way to live being just friends with Lydia.

When I finally pull myself out of bed, I can tell from the weak light outside that it’s still early. I’m surprised, then, to find my mother in the kitchen.

She stops bustling around when she sees me, and then she sends me a glare that stops me in my tracks.

“Do you want to tell me what happened with Lydia?” she says, her voice clipped.

My eyes widen, a sudden jolt of panic racing through me. “What do you mean?” I say. “Is she hurt? Is she okay?” I don’t know why my mind jumps there, but it does.

I leave the room before my mother can answer, making my way back down the hall. “Lydia?” I say. When there’s no response, I speak more loudly. “Lydia?”

But ice is spreading through my veins—ice that paralyzes even my thoughts. Its cold numbness moves slowly at first, a trickle of chilly fear creeping down my arms and legs, before it suddenly transforms into a violent flood, overtaking the rest of me. And all at once I know—Iknow,because the ice that has doused every inch of me can’t lie—that when I open Lydia’s bedroom door, I won’t find her there.

I open it anyway—fling it open wildly, an outlet for the increasing panic that’s threatening to drown me. But I was right, and I’ve never been more devastated about it. Her bed is made neatly, and the closet is bare, devoid of her clothing. Her bags have all vanished, and the cheerful sun shining timidly through the window just seems cruel.

She’s gone. In fact, to look at this room you’d never know she had been here at all.

Before I can think about what I’m doing, I stride to the bed, yanking the pillow to me and pressing it to my face. I inhale deeply, everything in me searching for some sign that she wasn’t just a figment of my imagination—an absurd thought, but one I can’t quite banish. As soon as I scent her spicy-sweet smell, though, I breathe a sigh of relief.

It’s followed by an almost blinding nausea, because she washere. She was here, her scent proves it, and yet she’s gone now.

“She went to stay with her French teacher,” my mother says from behind me, and I whirl around. I nod at her, feeling another wave of relief that she didn’t go home to Wyoming.

“I have to make a call,” I mutter, pulling out my phone. My mother nods and then leaves me alone, heading back down the hall.

I dial Lydia’s number with fumbling fingers, but as I expected, it just goes to voicemail. So I try a different number instead.

“Lydia is gone,” I say to Luc as soon as he answers.

There’s silence for a second, during which time I assume Luc is catching up to my words. Then he says, “Gone? What do you mean?”

“I mean she’s gone! She left. Her room is cleared out, none of her stuff is here—”

“Noel, you idiot,” Luc says, cutting me off. “What did you do? I talked to her last night. She was fine then. Happy, actually.”

“You talked to her? What did she say?” The pit of my stomach is churning, writhing with the suspicion that Lydia’s departure is my fault.

“She told me about her nasty guy—”

“Marcus,” I growl.

“Yeah, him,” Luc says. “She said she reported him—”

“She did?” I say, stunned. A smile begins to pull at my lips. “She reported him?”

“Yeah, that’s what she said,” Luc says. “She didn’t tell you?”

“No,” I say, swallowing as a stab of foreboding hits me.

“Noel,” Luc says, sounding really annoyed now. “She was going to tell you—she wanted to tell you. What did you do to her?”

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