Page 30 of One Breath After Another

He found Penny in the entry hall sitting on the stairs. With her back to the white railing, she wasn’t even pretending to be busy while she picked at her fingernails and avoided his stare as he leaned against the wall. That was fine—he didn’t mind that she wanted to ignore him. It wouldn’t stop him from saying what he was there to say.

“They care, you know?” Luca shrugged when Penny dared to glance upward at him. “That’s why my mom tries to start a conversation with you or why my dad forces himself to talk even though he’s not the type. They’ve already let you in—in the family sense. You wouldn’t be here otherwise. But now they’re trying to get you in, too.”

Penny didn’t reply.

Luca continued, anyway. “I think you’ve been around long enough now to know that we’re not the type of people who allow outsiders in. We just ... can’t afford to, Penny. But they do with you because again, they care.”

“Well, they shouldn’t.”

Finally, a response.

Not that it was one he liked.

Beggars can’t be choosers.

“I’m not worth that,” Penny muttered after a moment. “I’m not worth very much at all.”

Shit.

Luca knew that feeling all too well. He was still trying to deal with it, but that didn’t change the fact that feeling worthless wasn’t the same as actually being worthless to the people who loved him. Maybe that was the biggest difference between him and Penny. His self-doubt was created in his own mind while hers had been taught. He didn’t think they could unlearn it in the same ways, either.

“Not that you need me to say it, because I’m sure everybody else points it out more than enough,” Luca said, folding his arms over his chest while he eyed the family portrait hanging opposite to the stairwell, “but you know that isn’t true.”

“Feels like it.”

“Rough week?”

Penny scoffed.

Hard.

“Rough life,” she mumbled.

Yeah, he bet.

Penny went back to fidgeting with her fingernails and then the sleeves of her sweater. She made a great effort to keep every inch of her skin covered, but she tugged at the wrist band of the sleeve just enough for him to notice the patchwork of scars that started there and seemed to keep going beneath the gray fabric where he couldn’t see.

Luca should look away.

He didn’t.

Naz mentioned she was a cutter but hadn’t gone into details. The respect of the matter, really, and Luca understood. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder how far those scars went ... how many did she have? Had she stopped cutting yet?

Eventually, she noticed his staring.

“Stop it,” Penny told him.

Luca raised a brow. “Why? I’m just looking.”

Penny quickly fixed the sleeve of her sweater, hiding the scars in a flash. “Don’t pity me.”

“I don’t.” Then just as fast, he corrected himself with, “I don’t anymore. I did at first. And it’s not that I think you don’t deserve my pity, but more that I don’t think you want it. Why pity someone who doesn’t want it when that won’t help, right?”

She met his stare.

Luca only smiled back.

What else could he do?