Lucas swung into the seat beside me, like he was still hoping we’d talk, but I folded my arms across my chest and stared at the window. Vic bounced into the seat in front of us and crowed, “Yo, guys, what’s up?” Then he got a look at our faces. “Hey, looks like it might be a good time for me to tell one of my long rambling stories that goes nowhere.”

“Great plan,” Lucas said shortly.

True to his word, Vic went on and on about surfboards and bands and weird dreams he’d had once upon a time, and he didn’t stop talking until we were back at school. That saved me from having to talk to Lucas; and, for his part, Lucas didn’t say anything at all.

Chapter Six

AFTER THE TRIP TO RIVERTON, I FELT LIKE A fool who had thrown Lucas away for nothing.

Those construction workers had been drinking. Plus, there were four of them and only one of him. Maybe Lucas had needed to show them he meant business to avoid getting beaten to a pulp. If he’d done the only thing he could, what right did I have to judge him?

“No way,” Raquel said when I confided in her the next day, walking across the grounds. The leaves had finished changing color, so that the hills in the distance were no longer green but crimson and gold. “If a guy gets violent, you get out. Period. Be thankful you saw his temper in action before you were the one he was angry at.”

Her vehemence startled me. “You sound like you know what you’re talking about.”

“What, you never watched a Lifetime Original Movie?” Raquel didn’t meet my eyes, just fiddled with the braided leather bracelet on her wrist. “Everybody knows that. Men who hit are bad men.”

“I know he overreacted. But there’s no way Lucas could ever hurt me.”

Raquel shrugged and pulled her school blazer more tightly around her, as if she felt a chill, though it wasn’t that cold out. For the first time, I wondered how much of her quiet demeanor and boyish appearance were a means of hiding herself from attention she didn’t want. “Nobody ever thinks that something bad can happen until it happens. Besides, he kept telling you how much everybody here sucked and how you shouldn’t be friends with your roommate or just about anybody else, right?”

“Well…yeah, but—”

“But nothing. Lucas was trying to isolate you from everyone else so he’d have more power over you.” Raquel shook her head. “You’re better off without him.”

I knew she was wrong about Lucas, but I also knew that I hadn’t come close to figuring him out.

Why had Lucas started criticizing my parents? The only time he’d ever seen us all together was at the movie theater, and they’d been friendly and welcoming. He’d claimed that it was about my halfhearted attempt to run away on the first day of school, but I didn’t know if I entirely believed that. If he had a problem with Mom and Dad, he’d obviously dreamed it up for some bizarre paranoid reason that I was better off not having to deal with.

Explanations invented themselves in my head. Perhaps he’d had some girlfriend before me—probably chic and sophisticated, a girl who had traveled all around the world—and her parents had been snobbish and unfair. They’d shut Lucas out, maybe had forbidden him to ever see their daughter again, and so now he was scarred and distrustful.

This imagined story did me absolutely no good whatsoever. First of all, it made me feel sorry for Lucas, like I understood why he’d behaved so strangely, when really I didn’t. Also, I felt insecure compared to this theoretical sophisticated previous girlfriend—and how sad is it if you feel threatened by a person who doesn’t even exist?

I don’t think I’d realized just how important Lucas had become to me until then—until we were separated and I had real reasons for staying away from him. Chemistry class, the only one we shared, was an hour of torture every day; I could almost feel him near me, the way you can feel a fire’s presence in a cold room. Yet I never spoke to him, and he never spoke to me, respecting the silence I had demanded and maintained. I didn’t see how he could be in more pain than I was. Logic said I was better off walking away, but logic didn’t matter to me. I missed Lucas all the time, and it seemed like the more I told myself to leave him alone, the more I longed to be with him.

Did he feel the same way? I couldn’t be sure. All I knew for certain was that he was wrong about my parents.

“How are you feeling, Bianca?” Mom asked softly as we cleared away my dishes from our Sunday dinner.

I hadn’t slept well, hadn’t eaten much, and mostly just wanted to pull a blanket over my head for the next two years or so. But for virtually the first time in my life, I didn’t want to confide in them. They were Lucas’s teachers; it wouldn’t be fair to Lucas to tell them about his suspicions. Besides, talking about the fact that Lucas and I were apparently over before we’d even started would have made the loss more real. “I’m fine.”

Mom and Dad exchanged glances. They could tell I was lying, but they weren’t going to press me. “Tell you what,” Dad said, heading toward the record player. “Don’t go back downstairs just yet.”

“Really?” Normally, the Sunday dinner rules dictated that I return to the dorms for studying not long after dinner had ended.

“It’s a clear night, and I thought you might want to get in some telescope time. Besides, I was about to put Frank Sinatra on. I know how you love Ol’ Blue Eyes.”