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But more importantly, he didn’t deserve to be with someone like me. I saw it now. He was meant to be with someone like Amy or Hannah. Someone normal.
Would he be able to have a girlfriend now? Fall in love? Make plans for the future with someone.
The thought of him with another girl turned my stomach upside down. But that was what I was here for. I just didn’t know if I helped or did more damage. I didn’t think the path Elizabeth envisioned in the beginning of my stay included us having sex and professing our feelings to one another.
I got ready for school and got downstairs. Garret was joking around with Lucas who shot me a quick look full of worry. It was like he gulped a part of my anxiety along with my tears last night. Troy was talking to Elizabeth. She was oddly quiet. She looked distant. Something was wrong. And being the person with the secrets around here, I just knew it had everything to do with me.
Maybe she knew we were sneaking around to spend the night together.
I knew I had to face her. She did so much for me. The least I could do for her was to be honest.
I lingered around long enough for everybody else to leave. I noticed Elizabeth had asked Garret to take Troy to school and that she wasn’t ushering me to go. She didn’t care that I was about to be late. Lucas noticed it too. I saw the questioning looks he was shooting me, but he didn’t say a word in front of his mother. I knew he did it because of me. He wanted to give me the space I needed.
The moment the front door closed behind Lucas’s back, we both turned to each other.
“Are you and Lucas together, Clem?” she asked, her voice cold like I never heard it before. “Or you’re just having fun?”
Was that it? She didn’t approve of us being together? I knew she was worried we lived under the same roof, but I never thought she didn’t like the idea of me being with her son.
“We’re together,” I admitted. I had no desire to lie to her. Not her. She was the one that helped me. “I think we are. We hadn’t specified it.”
“Does he know you’re going to London?”
The air inside my lungs left my body. I closed my eyes.
She already knew the answer to that. She knew her son well enough to know that he wouldn’t be so calm and happy if he was aware I was leaving not to college but to another continent. But I owedherevery hope that blossomed into my heart the past few months, so I answered anyway.
“No.”
Elizabeth started pacing back and forth in the kitchen.
“I got suspicious about your applications, and I asked Duncan if you mentioned him something. Can you imagine my surprise when he told me about your arrangement?” she sighed. “Does your father know?” I shook my head. “God, Clem!” Elizabeth raised her voice.
“I’m sorry. It’s not because of you or Duncan, I swear. It was my plan all along. I mean not going to London, but skipping college.”
“Why? Why do you want to do that?”
“I…I wanted to defy my mother. Show her that I’m making my own decisions. I started to put away some cash. I wanted to graduate and leave. That’s what I did with the money from the jewelry. I had a shoe box filled with cash. It burnt in the fire.”
I paused to give her a chance to say something. I hoped she would say she understood. But she just looked at me in total silence.
“After the fire I thought I lost my chance to leave this town and get away from my parents. Then you invited me here and introduced me to Duncan and…At the beginning he didn’t like anything I did, but then I made something different, and he liked it. He started mentoring me. Like really giving me advice and at some point he said I had potential and that if I wanted to, I could go to London. It’s a paid internship, Elizabeth. It’s probably paid because of you. I would have to live under a bridge with the rent there, but it’s London, right?”
I tried to lighten the mood. It didn’t work.
“And where does Lucas fit in all of this?”
“He doesn’t,” I shook my head. It hurt like shit to say it out loud. “I’ll tell him. I just need some time. He’ll understand.” Or at least I hoped he would.
“He’s in love with you.”
“I know.”
“Are you in love with him?”
The questions squeezed my throat, but I managed to answer.
“Yes.”
