Who started it. He told Lucas that it was him. And he did it to protect me. To keep me safe. To somehow make Lucas and I reach a reconciliation.
And I never would’ve known.
If Lucas hadn’t blurted it out last night.
I never would’ve known that he protected me even then.
But then am I really surprised?
He’s always protected me. He’s always watched out for me, even when I thought he was the worst thing in my life.
He wasn’t. He never was.
He was the best thing to ever happen to me. The most magical, transcendent thing.
My Bandit.
Which makes what I did last night even worse.
While he protected me since day one, I let my anger and pettiness get the best of me.
And that’s why he’s in jail, isn’t he?
Or rather, that’s why he had to spend the night in a holding cell.
Because in my vindictive fury, I told Lucas the truth. And that asshole took it out on his best friend. Thatassholethat I thought I loved. That I wanted to get back together with. Not to mention, he’s the asshole that I still felt guilty for.
Despite knowing that coming clean with Lucas at the funeral was the right decision, I still felt that my utter blindness and lack of self-awareness had hurt him in the worst way. Like, all of this pain could’ve been avoided if I’d only known who and what I wanted.
While that’s still true, fuck him.
Fuck him and hisfuckingpain.
Fuck him for taking it out on the guy who always,alwayssupported him. Stood by him and loved him like his own brother.
He accusedthatguy of the worst crime that you could think of.
The absoluteworst.
And I had a hand in that.Me.
If I hadn’t let the truth about the kiss slip out, Lucas would never have done what he did.
Plus I left the door unlocked, didn’t I?
“Hey.”
I blink my eyes at the voice — Jupiter’s — and focus. I guess I’ve been staring at the window of my bedroom for a while now and have started to worry my friends: Jupiter, Poe, Callie and Wyn.
They’re all here today; they came over first thing in the morning when I called Jupiter to tell her everything that had happened last night. The fact that they all abandoned everything going on in their life — Poe and Wyn are moving to New York soon with their boyfriends, Callie has a newborn daughter, Jupiter abandoned her little sister, Snow, after already regretting the fact that she’s been away from Snow for two years; Jupiter loves her sister to pieces — and came to my rescue is enough to make me break down and cry, and thank my lucky stars that I somehow met them.
“Hey,” I say.
She smiles sadly. “Anything?”
My fingers tighten around the phone in my lap. “No.”
“Well, maybe he’s just,” Callie shrugs, sitting in bed in front of me, propped up against the bedpost, “busy.”