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“Sometimes I find it so hard to believe,” I say.
“What?”
“The fact that you…”
“That I love you?” Lucas asks.
“Yeah. And that you have since we were little.”
He smiles, then suddenly widens his eyes. “Do you want proof?”
“What?”
“Do you want proof that I’ve been in love with you since we were kids? I wasn’t exaggerating when I said that, by the way. Oh. You might think it’s creepy, though.”
I stare at him, needing time to process everything he’s saying. “Lucas,” I eventually say, “I’ve already seen all sides of you. I promise I won’t think you’re creepy.”
“Right. Yeah. You already know how obsessed and psycho I am.” He says it self-deprecatingly, and I lean forward to kiss it away.
“I love you the way you are,” I murmur against his lips.
He leans back, eyes big, mouth parted. How can he be surprised? It’s true. I love him.
“Show me,” I whisper.
Lucas props himself up and reaches over to open his bedside table drawer. I can’t see what’s happening on the other side of his back, but a moment later, he turns and places a book on the bed sheet between us.
Correction: not a book. It’s the book safe. The title, Pride and Prejudice, shimmers.
I pick up the book and flip open the front cover. “The first time I saw this…” I trail off, realising what I’ve admitted.
Lucas chuckles. “I know you know it exists. You were holding it that afternoon, remember?”
The afternoon I came back from Maryford, blind with emotions. I focus on the book before me and fiddle with the lock, absentmindedly sliding the numbers. “I knew this existed before. I accidentally found it when I was going through your drawers.”
“I know you did.”
I look up at Lucas. “How?”
“I always position the book in a specific way so that I know when it’s been meddled with. It’s a habit I’ve had since I was in high school and my mum started looking through my things. No doubt she was trying to find beer or cigarettes.”
“Do you do that with everything?” I ask.
“No. Only the important things. The things I want to keep secret.”
I nod, fingers still fiddling with the lock.
“Are you going to try to guess the password?” Lucas asks.
“I already tried,” I admit.
“Oh? What numbers did you try?”
I list off everything. First, the obvious ones, 123, 111, etc. That makes Lucas smile. “I’m more creative than that,” he says.
Next, I tell him the numbers I came up that had to do with Lucas. Various combinations of his birthday. His soccer team number. The numbers of his favourite athletes.
“I can’t believe you remembered those things about me,” he says.
