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That’s not true, she almost said, but she pushed the thought away.

“It’s … hard to love them,” she said, unsure why she was sharing this with him but feeling compelled to all the same. “They’re disappointed in me, which makes me afraid. What if this is just my life?”

She was stunned by her own words; she’d never spoken the fear aloud. She looked at the fire, felt the flames warm her cheeks as she hugged her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs tightly.

“Would it be a bad thing if it was?” Grayson asked. “From where I’m standing, you have a good life. One to be envious of.” She looked at him, and he glanced away, clenching his jaw.

“But is this … it?” she whispered. “In books the main character is always heading toward something, some big change or realization, a destination, and I wonder if I’m not heading anywhere at all. If I’m just here.”

He scrunched his brows together, looking at her. “But those are stories,” he said. “And it isn’t as if the characters’ lives are over once the book is; they live on to face other problems, to head to other destinations.”

“I guess you’re right,” she said. “I love reading books with those big chaotic families, or just those stories where you can see how much the characters love one another. I mean, I love reading anything, really.”

“Anything?” he asked, skeptical.

“Except for thrillers, they stress me out—but every other genre is fair game.”

“Even horror?”

“Even horror.”

He was surprised at that but amended his expression. “Makes sense,” he said, nodding to himself. “They must be like self-help books for you.”

She tried not to laugh. “Ha ha. They’re never as scary as real life … the monster or creepy forests or deep, deep sea—they aren’t as frightening as real things, like being alone, or having no one to call your own.”

That struck a chord with him; she could see it plain on his face.

“I don’t like horrors, sorry,” he said. “But the classics and historicals are always wonderful—the time travel of the stories, being transported somewhere else completely, to an entirely different world.”

“Mm, yeah, those are good,” she agreed.

“Infinitely better than realistic fiction. Those are so depressing and often mainly about the ways people hurt each other, and I never feel like I can connect. I don’t really have anyone, so it’s hard to imagine being hurt or hurting them.”

“That’s not true,” she said, glancing at the fire. “You’ve hurt Charles by being away so long.”

“I doubt he really noticed or cared,” he replied, voice tight.

Lucy turned to him, seeing the hard line of his mouth. She was surprised to hear that he was still angry, even if she didn’t know what he was angry about. Whatever it was, hadn’t he talked to Charles about it? Grayson had been here for almost two months already.

He hadn’t had one real conversation?

But Lucy thought about how she couldn’t talk to her parents, and the harsh judgment in her mind went silent.

“Trust me,” she said. “You really have hurt him.”

“He’s hurt me, too,” Grayson whispered, closing his eyes.

He didn’t say anything else, and she didn’t want to push or fight, so she stayed quiet. They were stuck here together, and besides, they were in a truce.

“I think with family, it’s easy to underestimate your importance,” she finally said. “Or the importance of your presence, but it matters—to other people, it matters.”

He looked at her then, blue eyes analyzing her closely from behind his glasses.

“You wish your parents cared more?” he asked.

Of course she did. “I’m not trying to complain. My parents are … good people. I just wish they were more.”

“My parents were like that,” he said, voice quiet.