“Nervous,” she admitted and cleared her throat. “Terrified.”
“Probably because of the experience you had after the shooting at Alexander Twilight High School. You were named a person of interest after Reid’s identity was known. Police cleared you, but you suffered some fallout. What happened after the shooting?”
Before Lucy had even finished her question, she’d begun to shake her head. “What happened to me was nothing like what other people had to deal with.” Losing a loved one… she’d had years of not being close to Reid and she’d still mourned him. Mourned the boy he was. The brother he’d been. But it was nothing like what had happened to the parents, siblings, teachers, children of the people who were killed that day last fall.
Leaning forward, Lucy pinned her with a kind but intense stare. “Nora. You lost your home. Your jobs. You had no money and nowhere to go.”
“It all worked out.” She couldn’t help smiling as two of the five men she loved faced her. They’d been her port in a storm. “I wasn’t alone.”
Chapter 2
Seok
Seok Jheon stared out the window. He held his kerchief, wrapping it around and around his hand distractedly.
Outside, his best friend, Apollo Morris, and his girlfriend, Nora Leslie, walked up and down the sidewalk.
Their lips moved as they spoke, but he couldn’t hear them. Next door, one of the apartments had their music blaring. It was March and a sunny day, the kind of day that came after months of snow and rain and grayness.
It was the kind of day people turned up the music and rolled down their windows, just so they could breathe. The traffic was constant.
Nora laughed at something Apollo said. She stopped, head thrown back, gripping his arm for balance. Apollo smiled, and though he couldn’t see his eyes, Seok would bet they were trained on their girl.
Just like his were.
Things had changed the past few months—some things were obvious—like Ryan’s graduation from Brownington College and Cai’s new job as a youth counseling supervisor.
Other things were subtler—Nora’s slight limp, her short hair that covered her scars like the fine dark brown line that wove through one eyebrow. The way her pinky was permanently bent now. The accident that had wounded her was a memory, but for Seok and his best friends, it still felt like yesterday.
A car went by, someone yelled out the window, and Apollo whipped his head toward it. Seok stilled, waiting, but Nora only waved her hand, like there was no reason for anyone to pay attention to whatever the driver had said.
“Hovering?” Matisse leaned against the windowsill, gripping the edges with long fingers. His hair had gotten so long it touched his shoulders.
“Yes.” Seok didn’t even try to deny it.
They’d gone to Mississippi over Thanksgiving break, and Nora and Matisse had been in an accident, hit by a drunk driver while riding Matisse’s motorcycle. Matisse ended up with some broken bones and road rash, but Nora, who’d been in back, had borne the brunt of the force. She’d been placed in a medically induced coma when her brain had swelled, but she’d come through it all.
Physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy. It had taken over their lives for a while, but now things were back to normal. Or as normal as they could be.
Nora glanced toward the house, caught him staring, and waved. Matisse waved back and Seok lifted a hand.
“Let’s go out there.” Matisse was already headed for the door. He opened it, waiting for him, but Seok shook his head.
“I have some things to do.”
“It’s too nice to stay inside.” His friend waited, hand on the door, and glared. “Go for a walk. Hold Nora’s hand.”
From the corner of his eye, he saw her wave again. Then came Apollo’s voice, loud, demanding. “Get out here, Seok!”
Despite the worries causing his shoulders to slump and the responsibilities piling up in his inbox, he smiled.
Matisse grinned in response and held the door open wider. “Come on.”
He hurried down the front steps after his friend, careful because the winter had pushed and heaved chunks of the pavement.
Glancing up, he met Nora’s gaze. No one looked at him the way she did. Her lips were already turned up in a smile, the corners of her eyes creased with happiness. She held out her hand. “I’m so glad you’re outside. We all need some sunshine.”
Wasn’t that the truth? He didn’t want to admit it, but he’d been hiding lately. Physically and… mentally. He supposed it was his turn to have a bit of a crisis. Since Nora had come into their lives, it seemed each one of them had a mini-breakdown.
Apollo, whose crisis had made him break up with Nora, was in a better place that he’d ever been before. At least since Seok had known him.
But all of them were relatively independent. They didn’t have the anchor Seok did. They didn’t have expectations and responsibilities to anyone other than themselves.
Not fair. Seok recognized that he wasn’t giving his friends credit. Each one of them had a past that had an impact on the paths they’d chosen for themselves.
But that was the thing. They’d had choices.
Apollo had chosen to share Nora—accepting that while he wasn’t going to be the only love in her life, what he could offer her was utterly unique.
Ryan had chosen to become a lawyer. He’d worked tirelessly, starting volunteer programs and support groups in an effort to make amends for sending his best friend to jail. But he’d had the luxury of making that choice.
Choices. Choices.
Everyone had choices.
It was part of the culture here in the States. There was this vein of self-determination. In Nora’s interview today, she’d spoken about what Dr. Murray had asked her when she first started the study.
“Do you believe in destiny or can you make your own path?”
He wondered how she answered.
If he’d been asked, he would have said, “The path you take is determined from the moment you’re born.”
He’d been foolish to think he’d be able to choose his destiny. After Nora’s accident, his destiny had begun to gently, but relentlessly, prod him.
“Where are you?” Nora’s voice was quiet, running like a brook beneath a bridge compared to Matisse and Apollo’s roaring white-water voices. She reached for him, accepting his arm when he hooked it around hers.
He couldn’t lie to her. “A thousand miles away.”
She nodded, gaze going to the sidewalk. He walked slowly next to her. Her stride wasn’t even, and with each step she leaned into him. He loved the way she relied on him—not just now when he kept her from tripping as she tired—but for support. She confided in him. Trusted him.
And he was keeping things from her.
He wanted to tell her everything, but he couldn’t. Not until he made up his mind.
“Want to talk about it?”
She was too perfect. Seok waited for the time she’d just give up, tell him he wasn’t worth the times he ran hot and cold, but she didn’t. “Not yet. I want to. But not yet.”
He stared at their feet. She wore a pair of sneakers, ones Matisse had gotten her with help from Apollo. They weren’t her style. He never knew her to wear running sneakers but Apollo wanted her to have the best, and so now she walked in these fancy, gel-padded, bright pink and gray monstrosities.