Chapter 2

I checked out that same night.

I took the train home by myself.

My mom took my bag and leaned in with gossip in her voice.

"Hannah, what's the name of Chloe's boyfriend? Where is he from?"

I frowned, a bit confused.

"Since when does Chloe have a boyfriend?"

"The one she put on Instagram. He looks like a nice, polite young man," she said.

A ringing started in my ears, and I stopped hearing anything else.

There was a photo on my phone screen.

Chloe was smiling at the camera with a hand on Lucas' sleeve.

Lucas had turned his head toward her.

The caption was one word.

Chloe: [Happy.]

I felt like I had dropped into ice water, and the hand at my side wouldn't stop shaking.

That photo should have had all three of us in it, and I was the only one cropped out.

"Hannah? What's wrong? Did you hear me?" my mom asked.

I came back to myself and wiped my eyes fast.

My mom was making up my bed, and she kept talking.

"Chloe is around you every day. I didn't think she'd start dating so soon. Be careful not to get in the way of the two of them.

"Hannah, weren't you going to announce something after this trip?"

My parents were strict, so I had kept Lucas a secret from them.

I had planned to bring him home after graduation, once the two of us were steady.

But not anymore.

"It's nothing. My advisor brought up a program overseas a while back, and I couldn't decide," I said.

I pushed the crack out of my voice.

"I've decided now. I'm going."

The next morning, a wall of phone calls woke me up.

Half asleep, I heard Lucas' voice, low and hard.

"I'm downstairs at your place," he said.

I came all the way awake, rolled out of bed, and went to the window.

Lucas looked up at me with bloodshot eyes and a suitcase at his feet.

"Lucas, what are you doing here?"

He cut me off before I got any further.

"Why did you leave without telling anyone?"

I had never seen him like that, and my tongue tripped over itself.

"I..."

"Do you have any idea that Chloe cried the entire night over you?"

His shouting left me blank.

And then the knot in my chest came loose.

What mattered to him wasn't that I had left. It was that Chloe had cried.

I said, and my voice came out flat, "What does that have to do with me?

"Did it make any difference whether I was on that trip at all?"

"Hannah, you're being childish."

The disappointment in his eyes went through me like a splinter.

"Chloe thinks she did something wrong. She's too scared to come see you."

So he had come straight over to put me on trial and stand behind her.

"You put this trip together and then you walked out on us. Do you think that was right?"

It had been the trip I was looking forward to, and the two of them had spent it toying with me, and somehow that was fine.

I could hear my own voice screaming inside my head until it went raw.

"Come on. You're going to apologize to Chloe."

Lucas caught my arm and started for the door.

But my feet had grown roots.

After a moment, I pulled my arm out of his hand.

"Lucas, let's break up," I said.

Lucas stared at me like he hadn't heard right. "What did you say?