AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I couldn’t.
“No.” My fingers plucked a daisy from the grass and swirled it in the air, trying to ignore my heart as it fluttered wildly in my chest. “There’s no one.”
“Oh.”
I couldn’t place the emotion in his reply. I wanted to believe it was relief, but it could have just easily been disappointment.
“Is there someone waiting for you?” I asked, hating how small my voice sounded.
Blake swept a hand through his hair. It had grown after a summer without luxuries, but it looked good on him, along with the scruff covering his jaw.
“It’s complicated,” he said, and my stomach dropped, the way I imagined it felt when you rode the roller coasters at Cedar Point.
Of course, there was someone.
Blake was everything a girl could want in a guy. Funny and easygoing with his just-walked-out-of-GQ magazine look. It didn’t come as a surprise, but my reaction did.
My head immediately went to a time when Blake had been mine.
A time when I couldn’t imagine living without him.
A time when we’d planned our future, away from the Freemans and their special brand of cruelty.
My heart echoed the word.
Mine.
That’s what he’d called me once.
His lucky Penny.
“Oh,” I forced out, confused at the disappointment welling inside me. Frustrated with myself for ever letting myself believe that all this meant something…more.
“Don’t you want to know anything?” he asked.
Staring at the daisy, I shrugged and refused to make eye contact with him. “It’s none of my business.”
“Things are fucked up,” he said, ignoring me. “I’m supposed to be hereworking things out.”
“And how’s that going?” I lifted my head slowly to meet his intense gaze.
Blake expression darkened as he sucked in a sharp breath. “It’s complicated.”
Exhausted by his cryptic responses—and unsure if I was ready to hear the truth—I changed the subject. “Do you speak to anyone else from back then?”
“I found Lucas after I left. Well, more like he found me. We still keep in touch.”
I nodded. If I had bet on one relationship withstanding the test of time, it would have been theirs. Blake looked up to him like a brother, and Lucas always held a soft spot for his younger foster sibling.
“How is he?”
“Good. Life turned out really good for him.” Admiration glittered in his eyes. “He won’t believe this when I tell him.”
Ignoring another cryptic statement, I simply replied, “That’s good.”
Despite the lingering tension, we sat enjoying the peace of our surroundings.
The gentle lap of water onto the shore at one end of the lake soothed me. Everything about this place did. It was healing, and I could see why Troy and Tina picked it to do the work they did.
