Page 50 of Looking for Love in All the Haunted Places
He asked, “If you could really give it up, right now, right this second, would you?”
“It was just a joke, Maverick.”
“I know that. But why did you make it? It came so quick, like it was nothing. Rolled right off the tongue. Why? I don’t think it was to make me laugh.”
Because when she pretended it was a burden people felt sorry for her and stayed a little bit longer. Pretending to hate parts of herself made her relatable. But she said to him, “I don’t know.”
“You do know.”
“I don’t—I don’t know. I was just being stupid.”
“No, you weren’t.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I think it does,” he said. “Maybe you feel like no one sees you because you don’t let them. I ask you a personal question, you almost always try to dismiss it at your expense. You think it’s stupid. You don’t know why you said it. You ask me to forget what you said. It’s like you want to erase any traces of you genuinely being yourself. Why?”
Because sometimes you make me forget how to think.
Because you make me let go of who I trained myself to be.
Because I’m trying so hard to be normal. Because I’m better in small doses.
Because no one wants the real me.
For the first time in a long time, Lucky couldn’t figure out the perfect lie to answer his question. Her brilliant mind had finally failed her, a moment she never thought would happen. It’d goneblank—every word and quip and pun and turn of phrase wiped clean. Nothing remained except her feelings.
The raw burning of unshed tears. The lump in her throat. The persistent, phantom ache in her chest that grew stronger every time she looked at him. The bottomless pit of inevitability in her stomach ready to consume any hope she dared to have.
She was so close to falling apart and he just sat there next to her. Patiently waiting and refusing to let her fake her way through an answer.
A loudbangechoed from downstairs. Maverick and Lucky shot to their feet, fully alert. His hand found hers as if it were always meant to.
He asked, “Just checking: You heard that, right?”
Heart hammering in her chest, she glanced at their joined hands and then his face. “I did.”
“We stay together.” A statement not up for negotiation.
Wind howled downstairs, whistling and demanding attention as an endless cascade of purple flowers flowed into the house like an evening tide. They hit the front door, curling up and around and out, swirling with every gust.
Lucky smiled as if it were the most magical thing she’d ever seen, but said, “I hope that’s an illusion because I’m not cleaning that up.”
“It isn’t.” Xander stood behind them, wearing his pajamas as promised. Maverick gently pulled Lucky toward him and out of the way as he wordlessly squeezed by them, down the stairs, and toward the kitchen.
“Come on!”
“Lucky, wait—”
But she wouldn’t hear him. Possessed by the spirit of Rebelherself, she pulled him after her. If he didn’t move, he would’ve fallen. “We can’t let him go alone.”
“We can actually. Wait, wait.” Maverick gently gripped her other arm—she allowed it, holding momentarily still in the hallway. “He told me this might happen. He doesn’t want us to follow him.”
Dutch door wide open, flowers continued to spill inside seemingly from nowhere. She barely caught sight of Xander’s back as he disappeared into the orchard.
“Why?”
“You’ll have to ask him. I’m sorry.”
