Page 53 of Always: A Legacy Novel

“Well, it’s not mine, and I won’t be able to give it back after today, right? We won’t see each other very much at all once we’re back at the Academy. You’ll be in the upper Academy. I’ll still be in the lower. Kind of stupid to be with someone when you can’t really be with them, isn’t it?”

No.

“We’ll figure it out,” Cross said.

He planned to, anyway.

“No need,” Catherine replied with a shrug. “It’s better we figure it out now, not then. I think we both know how that’ll end.”

“I think I know how this is going to end.”

He didn’t like it at all.

“I’m sorry, Cross,” she said in a whisper.

She still wouldn’t look at him.

“Is this actually because of school, or something else?”

Catherine finally met his gaze. “What?”

“So you got in trouble for something you did because of me.”

“I never said it was because of you.”

“To them?” he asked.

Catherine glanced away. “I just—”

“So is it about school, and all that, or because your parents are pissed and you want to make them happy again?”

She didn’t answer him.

He didn’t need her to.

“You should take your jacket,” Catherine said, holding the item out again.

She still wore that leather wrap bracelet with the conch shell on her wrist.

It was still there.

She never took it off.

“Keep it—I don’t want it.”

“But …”

“Looks better on you,” he said.

Behind him, the SUV waiting on Catherine honked their horn. Her gaze darted over his shoulder, and then back to him just as fast.

“I am sorry, Cross,” she said.

He didn’t want to hear that again.

“Don’t keep your cousin waiting, Catherine. You should go.”

“But—”