Marco sighed, rubbing a hand over his short hair in discomfort. “It’s just dinner. Me and the blonde. She’s Leah’s cousin and she’s staying from out of town. She’s just got out of a bad relationship and Leah wanted to take her mind off it. Nothing was ever going to happen.” He took a step toward me. “But it was a stupid thing to agree to when I’m trying to get us back on track. I’m sorry.”

I continued to remain silent because I was afraid of what I’d say if I opened my mouth. My emotions were sitting on the surface and I was very close to letting it all spew out in one hysterical rant.

Marco didn’t get this, though. I could see he thought I was being obstinate. His eyes hardened in annoyance. “You and Cole?” Okay, more like jealousy than annoyance. “You been lying to me about him all this time?”

I raised an eyebrow at the accusation. “Do you really think if I had something going on with Cole he would have let you haul me away from him like that without putting up a fight?”

“So he was just trying to piss me off?”

“Yes. Not because I asked him to,” I assured him. “But I do think sleeping with you has confused things for me because… admittedly I was pissed off to see you with another woman. Which is ridiculous! Like I said last night… we need to stop.”

In answer Marco turned toward the door and my heart jumped into my throat when I thought he was just going to walk out on me. Instead he locked the door.

Something made my muscles relax and I knew it was relief.

What the fuck?

“I’m a mess.” I threw my hands up, not even caring that I’d said the words out loud.

Marco prowled toward me. A second later I was in his arms, my whole body pressed against his. He stroked my back and murmured somewhat cockily against my mouth, “You want this to stop? Just say no.”

He started kissing me and I could feel myself melting into his embrace.

However, there was this roiling ball of confusion within me and no matter how much I loved Marco’s kisses, I knew I was only going to keep on hurting us both.

I pushed hard against him, breaking the kiss. I panted a little breathlessly from the effort it took to do so and I stared up into his confused eyes. “No.”

His fingers bit into my waist in reflex. “Han —”

“I’ve been giving you amazingly bad mixed signals.” I pushed out of his grip, creating some much-needed distance between us. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. But I have to stop. It’s not fair to either of us. We have to end this.”

“Or you could just admit you’re scared shitless and give me one more chance to prove to you that you don’t have to be scared. That we can work.”

I shook my head, gesturing around me, indicating the situation we found ourselves in. “We’re nothing but drama.”

“Yeah?” he snapped. “So what? Everybody has drama. They deal with it.” He took a step toward me, trying to close the gap, but I only stepped back to widen it again. The anger in his eyes banked at the movement. “You know what? I f**ked up five years ago. Big time. And I probably won’t ever forgive myself for that. But I can’t fight if you’re not willing to fight with me. Do you know what it does to me to leave you every night? It makes me feel like that dick kid that walked out on you five years ago. And I can’t be that kid anymore.” He strode toward me, desperation in his features as he grabbed me by the shoulders. “No more games, Hannah. Please. This is it. You’re either taking that chance with me or you’re not and I’m gone for good.”

His ultimatum paralyzed me.

The fear paralyzed me.

Pain entered Marco’s eyes and he gently let go of me. Frozen, unable to stop him, I watched as he walked toward the door and unlocked it. “You better get back to Cole and I better get back to my date.”

“Marco —” My lips suddenly moved and his name came out, pleading for him to understand. “We just keep hurting each other.”

“No.” He glanced back at me over his shoulder and I flinched at the anguish in his eyes. “I hurt you and I didn’t mean to. Now you’re deliberately hurting us both.” He sighed, seeming unable to let go completely when he said, “Babe, you come to your senses, you know where I am. But I’ll only be waiting there for so long.”

The door closed behind him and I was left standing alone in a stranger’s office, wondering if I was wrong and Marco had been right all along.

CHAPTER 25

“If she upchucks, Dad, you’re cleaning it up,” Liv warned Mick as he lifted a giggling Lily above his head for about the fifteenth time.

“She’s not going to upchuck.” Mick grinned, bringing Lily down into his arms. She was little anyway, but Liv’s dad was a big guy and she looked tiny and adorable clinging to him. “Soul of a pilot, this one.”

It was Sunday lunch, and this time Mick and his wife, Dee, had been able to join us, so it was a full house. It was actually hard to think, what with the children giggling and chasing one another, Bray crying, which was upsetting a usually docile Belle, and the adults trying to be heard over one another. I loved our huge makeshift family, but on a day when I needed them to take my mind off Marco, all they were able to do was make my head pound with their cheerful but disjointed noise.

In order to escape some of the cacophony, I volunteered to do the dishes and shot my arse into the kitchen. It was still noisy, but at least there was distance between me and the worst of it. There I was able to replay the scene with Marco at the restaurant over and over again, as I had been doing for days. I’d been so sure as I stood there and told him we were through that it was the right thing to do, but as soon as that door closed behind him I was seized with instant panic. The truth was, I didn’t know what was right and what was wrong. I wished there was some kind of magic wand I could wave that would give me all the answers. Likely some people would call me foolish – tell me that surely the answer is so obvious. If you love someone, you should be with them.

Was it really that simple, though, when there was so much history and hurt? Could we really work through that? Could I really let myself be vulnerable with him again when there was absolutely no way of knowing what the future held for us?

I was exhausted from going over it all over and over and over again.

I scraped the plates and had started loading them into the dishwasher when I felt another presence in the kitchen. I looked up to see who it was, and my eyes collided with Nate’s as he leaned against the doorjamb.

“You okay?” I asked, my eyebrows drawn together in concern.

“I was actually going to ask you the same thing,” he replied, walking slowly into the kitchen.

I shrugged. Really, what was the point in lying?

Nate sighed. “Thought so.” He leaned back against the kitchen counter, crossing his arms over his chest. “You know that Liv and I were just friends before anything romantic happened between us?”

“Yes.”

“Well, when we did go down that road, we both knew what was between us was special. Except I didn’t want to admit that because I was afraid of losing her in the long run.”

“Because of what happened to Alana?” I asked, tentatively because Nate rarely talked about his ex-girlfriend. She had died when they were only eighteen and Nate had had a really difficult time moving on from her death.

“Aye. I pushed Liv away and I really hurt her, all because I was too afraid to go there with her. I almost lost her for good, Hannah. There was a moment when I thought my stubbornness had destroyed us. It was one of the scariest moments of my life. And sometimes I allow myself to think about what my life might have been like if I hadn’t won her back. It doesn’t even bear thinking about. How does someone live with that kind of regret?” I felt his hand on my shoulder. He gave it a squeeze and said kindly, “You’re a good teacher, Hannah. I just hope a lesson in regret isn’t something you’ll be able to teach well in the future.”

Nate’s words of wisdom stayed with me through the rest of the day and well into the evening. I returned home that evening with a box from my parents’ attic in my arms. I dumped it on the floor of my bedroom. At first I flicked through the pictures of Marco and me from the last few months that I’d taken with my camera phone. From there, I dug through that box and unearthed all my old diaries.

For hours I pored over the documented history of my teen years, filling myself up with all my old feelings for Marco, and hoping they’d collide with the new and somehow breach the blockade of fear.

Because one thing I did know for certain – Nate was right. That kind of regret was a lesson I didn’t want to learn.

CHAPTER 26

I knew there was something wrong as soon as I stepped into the school.

There was a hush in the air.

Walking down the first corridor of the English department, I thought I heard sniffling coming from one of the common rooms. I was about to stop to listen harder when Nish called out to me from the open doorway of the staff room.

As soon as I saw her face I knew my gut had been right. Something was very wrong.

“Can you come here?” she asked softly, looking stricken.

I hurried over to her and she gently guided me into the staff room. Eric, Barbara, and two other members of the staff were in the room. Barbara had tears in her eyes and Eric’s features were strained, his face pale. “What on earth is going on?” I asked. My pulse started to race as nervous butterflies took flight in my stomach.

Nish grabbed hold of my hand. “Hannah… Jarrod Fisher was killed on Saturday night. We just found out this morning.”

I stared at Nish blankly, trying to make sense of her words. “What?” I shook out of her grip, glancing at Eric and Barbara. “Is this a joke?”

“Hannah, I know he was a favorite of yours. I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t understand.” I looked back at Nish incredulously. “I don’t… I don’t… no.” I shook my head.

Her kind eyes grew wet with tears. “He got into a scuffle with an older boy. The wrong boy. He pulled a knife on Jarrod. Jarrod died in surgery.”

A knife? Jarrod?

Smart, charming, funny Jarrod, who I’d told umpteen times that he needed to check that short fuse of his. Jarrod, whose mum and wee brother relied on him. Jarrod. A fifteen-year-old boy who had his whole life in front of him.

Gone.

Just… gone?

No more?

It wasn’t possible.

The sob burst out of me before I could stop it and then I was in Nish’s arms, bawling the burning pain of his sudden loss into her shoulder. As I thought about his mum and his little brother and the grief that would gnaw at them, that would ache in every muscle, and hang in a dismal pall over their lives for the months to come, I only cried harder.

The tears finally had stopped. I attempted to catch my breath as I pulled out of Nish’s arms. “I’m sorry.” I swiped at my cheeks, feeling embarrassed for breaking down in school. One look at my colleagues’ faces, though, and I knew they understood. Jarrod had been that kid for me, the one where I really felt I could make a difference in his life. It was hard in our job to feel that way, to feel like what we did mattered. I’d imagined discussing university choices with Jarrod next year, helping him get funding, feeling proud of him and how far he’d come. I’d felt like I saw him when no one else did and I’d hoped that it mattered to him.

It was like I’d stepped into some horrible, surreal nightmare.

Children didn’t die in knife fights in my world.

Where were we to stop that?

How could it be that he’d been in my classroom just last week, and now I was thinking about him in past tense? How did someone go from being this tangible person to being a ghost, a player in a film reel of memories?

The tears started coming again.

“Hannah.” Nish rubbed my arm in comfort. “You’re going to have to get yourself together, sweetheart. You’ve got classes, and you’ve got… you’ve got your fourth-year today.”

Oh, God.

How was I going to make it through that class when his empty chair would be staring at me the whole time?

I blew out a shaky breath and wiped at my tears. “I know,” I said, my voice trembling, my lips quivering. “Just give me a minute.”

“His funeral is on Thursday,” Eric told me. “Thursday, eleven o’ clock at Dean Cemetery.”

I winced, sucking in my breath to hold back another flood of tears. “Do you think they’ll give me time off to go?”

“Hannah, you were his favorite teacher,” Eric said kindly. “We’ll make sure you get to say good-bye.”

I pinched my lips together, my eyes blurring with fresh tears.

“Get rid of it now,” Nish said softly. “So you can face the kids.”

My first class that morning had not been easy, but it was my first-year class and they were subdued by the news of Jarrod’s death, which had already met their young ears as it passed through the school halls, and they quietly put their heads down and got on with the task I gave them.

It was when my fourth-years walked in that I felt myself waver and I had to turn my back, suck in the emotion, and count to ten before I could face them. When they were all settled in their seats, I looked them over, taking in the tearstained faces of some of the girls and the shocked, pale features of the rest of them. Even Jack looked upset.

I knew some of them had never been touched by death, and most of them had never been touched by the death of a peer – someone so young, so vital. There is a general belief in one’s own immortality when you’re young, that you can see and do anything and you and the world as you know it will still be there in the morning.