God, what a mess.
Anyway,that’swhy Lucas is lashing out.
That’s why he’s doing what he’s doing.
So I need to clean it up, this mess. I need to fix everything.
“No.”
“What?” I frown up at him. “What do you mean, no? What —”
“It means you’re not doing anything.”
“I don’t —”
“You saw what happened, didn’t you?” he cuts me off, almost growling, staring down at me with so much anger that I should feel scared. “You saw what he did. So you’re not going to do anything. What you’re going to do, is stay the fuck away from him. So I’m taking you home and you’re coming with me without running your chirpy mouth a mile per second and giving me the biggest headache in the history of mankind. Do you understand? You. Me. The manor.Right the fucknow.”
By the time he finishes, his voice is pure growl.
And I’m so dazed by it that I don’t even know what I’m saying. But I do make words. “I don’t live at the manor.”
He frowns. “What?”
“What?”
Which makes his frown thicker. He stares at me silently for a couple of seconds and when I don’t say anything — I don’t even know what he wants me to say right now — impatience flickers on his features and he bites out, “Whatdo you mean you don’t live at the manor?”
“It means I don’t live at the manor.” When his impatience increases and an actual growl comes out of his chest, I explain, my own impatience rearing its head now. “Remember how I broke your armoire two years ago? Plus a bunch of other things.”
His eyes narrow, telling me that he doesn’t appreciate my sarcasm.
“And remember how I got arrested for it and then got sent to a reform school?”
His eyes narrow further.
“I live there now. At St. Mary’s School for Troubled Teenagers. Ergo, I do not live at the manor.”
“Yes, you do.”
“What?”
“Because you fucking graduated.”
Oh. Okay.
Right.
He doesn’t know. That I didn’t.
Why would he, he doesn’t live at the manor anymore. There’s no way for him to find out.
And honestly, if I was more in control of my faculties, I probably would never have let it slip in front of him. I don’t want him knowing that I’m still there. That I’m still in high school, areform high school,while the rest of the world has moved on to bigger and better things.
But now that I’ve almost spilled the beans, I may as well go all the way.
Blushing, I shrug. “I didn’t.”
I know that he understands what I’m saying.