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But Lucian never talked about the future. He never gave me hope that this could be anything more than two years. And as he’d reminded me multiple times, he was a man of his word.
The thought of this disappearing—slipping from my grasp like dust in the wind—was so depressing I couldn’t bear to think about it. Not when we were like this. I needed to hold onto him just a little bit longer. I needed to believe that, for once, something good could really happen in my life.
Lucian threaded his fingers through mine and gave me a soft, leisurely kiss before he rested his head against my chest. His eyes traced over the still fading ink of the bold statement he’d inscribed on my hip with permanent marker, and something dark seemed to shadow his features.
“We should enjoy this,” he said quietly. “When the trial starts, these moments will be few and far between.”
I nodded against him, already mourning the loss of his presence in a way that ached so profoundly, I couldn’t speak.
Enjoy it while it lasts.
I BREEZED OUT THE FRONT doors of the learning center and skipped down the stairs, my backpack swinging loose from one shoulder.
“Gypsy.”
I paused and looked up to find that Luna was waiting for me at the bottom, carrying two coffees in her hands.
“Peace offering?” She gave me a soft smile as she approached, extending one of the cups.
“What’s in it?” I raised an eyebrow. “A little arsenic? Another spiritual experience for me?”
She looked wounded, and I felt like an asshole, so I took the cup.
“I probably deserved that,” she said.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“It’s been a while since I’ve seen you.” She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear in a way that showed her nerves. “I wanted to check in on you. And maybe ply you with coffee and somehow convince you to be my friend again.”
There was that word again. Friend. She wanted me to be her friend. Even though we’d only hung out once and it was a terrible experience, I couldn’t deny that I wondered what it would be like to have an actual friend.
I took the coffee from her and offered a tentative smile. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to try. Although, fair warning, I don’t know if I’ll be any good at it. I tend to be selfish.”
She shook her head, wild curls spilling around her shoulders. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re a product of your environment.”
It irked me that she seemed to know me so well already, but I shrugged it off. “Am I that transparent?”
“Probably not to everybody,” she mused.
We sat down on the stairs, and I took a sip of the iced caramel latte. My favorite. “How did you know?”
“Just a guess, but I like these too.”
“If we’re going to be friends, then you should probably tell me a few things about yourself,” I said.
She giggled, but her amusement slowly drifted away. “Okay. What do you want to know?”
“How did you end up here?”
“Probably the same way you did,” she joked. “I looked at a map and thought Vegas sounded good.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Sounds about right.”
She took a sip of her drink and stared ahead, watching the people as they walked by. “Let’s just say I was a good little gypsy girl. I was raised in a strict community and then sacrificed as a virgin at the altar of proper gypsy man with strong Romani blood in his veins.”
I plucked a piece of grass and rolled it between my fingers. “I’m going to take a wild stab and guess that didn’t work out?”
Disgrace etched its way onto her features. “No, it didn’t. I was young and naïve, and boy, was I proud to land him. All the girls wanted him, and I was the one he chose. I thought I was pretty special, but it turned out I was just pretty dumb.”
“Did he hurt you?” I asked.
It took her a while to answer, but she did. “You could say that.”
We didn’t say anything else after that, but as it turned out, we didn’t need to. And I guess that was what having a friend was all about.
“HOW DID IT GO?” KATE chirped as I walked out of the testing room.
“I don’t know,” I answered irritably.
“It will be fine,” she assured me. “No matter what happens, it will be fine. But regardless, you’ll know in twenty-four hours. They are quick here.”
I wasn’t as confident as she sounded about everything being so fine. I’d been anxious throughout the entire test, so certain that I hadn’t really learned anything at all and wrote complete nonsense on all the questions.
When Kate told me last week that she thought I might be ready to test, I had several minor panic attacks. I didn’t want to go. I wanted to go back to my original plan of pretending I would have failed anyway and just bailing altogether. But I knew Lucian would be disappointed in me if I did that, and I didn’t want to disappoint him. I still hadn’t told him that I took the test. I figured I would wait until I got the results, and if by some miracle I passed, then I would let him know.
