Page 7 of Broken Promises

No.This wasn’t how our first conversation after all those years would end. I needed to talk to her a little longer.

“Luce, why did you come back?” I blurted out the first thing I could think of. She turned around in a heartbeat, staring at me with those green eyes that had the power to disassemble every bit of rational thinking in my brain.

God, she’s still so beautiful. How could I have ever let her go?

“I mean, I’m not complaining. I’m glad that you’re back…I’m just curious about what changed your mind after all these years.” The first few years after she left, her mother tried to convince her to come to Port-Cartier over the holidays, but she refused every time. What changed? Was it something in her personal life? Did she come to plan her wedding with her mom?

My heart clenched just at the thought of her with another man. Logically, I knew she must have had a fair share of relationships over the past decade, but it didn’t make the image in my mind any easier to stomach.

“I needed a change for a little while. I wanted to leave Seattle over the summer, and my mom invited me to come over. I figured it was about time I accepted her offer,” she explained. There was still a certain dismissiveness, a certain coldness to her tone. And I deserved every bit of it.

I slung my hands into the pockets of my jeans. “How do you like Seattle? In comparison to Port-Cartier, I mean. I’ve never had a chance to ask you.”

“Seattle is fine. You get used to it after a while. It’s a place like any other.” She didn’t sound like she had made a home out of it. I understood it all too well. I spent my entire life in Port-Cartier, yet after she left, it never felt like home like it used to.

“I can’t imagine myself living in a big city like that. It would probably be a little too busy for my liking,” I said. I had a nagging feeling that she was eager to end this conversation, while I wanted to keep it going for the rest of the night. How did I go for a decade without talking to her? Now that she was back, feelingsflooded me all over again, and all I could think about was how much I missed her all along. “Are you…seeing someone?”

“Excuse me?” She stared at me in disbelief.

“Sorry, I just…I’m just wondering. Are you seeing anyone?” I didn’t have the right to ask the question, but it found its way to my mouth regardless. I needed to know.

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” she said firmly. Her eyes remained locked on mine to the point where I could barely focus on anything else. My heart thudded inside my chest, wanting to fight its way out and head back home to her. “But if you have to know, I just ended things with someone.”

So that was the reason she came back. She was heartbroken. A surge of anger rushed through me—how could anyone have shattered her heart? I wanted to ask more questions…until I remembered that I did the exact same thing once upon a time. The realization shut me up, especially as she pressed her full lips into a thin line.

“If you’ll excuse me, I need to go unpack. It was good seeing you, Luke,” she said, retreating down the hall to the room I recognized as her bedroom from a decade ago. I was sure of three things as she shut the door behind herself, with my flowers still in her hand.

One, Lucy still had the same hold on me as she had ten years ago.

Two, I wanted to help heal her broken heart.

And three, I had a new chance to win her over, and I wasn’t going to mess it up.

lucy

. . .

A knock soundedat my window as I read on my bed. It was a book I needed to read for my English class, but my focus was anywhere but on the letters in front of me. A small smile curved my lips as the sound softly echoed through my room. I knewexactlywho was knocking on my window. Luke was trying not to wake up my mom.

And for a good reason. She would’ve been pissed off at both of us, and I’d be grounded. Slowly sneaking over to my window, I pushed the glass away from the wooden frame, opening it for him.

“What are you doing here?” I asked Luke as I took him in. He was in his usual attire—jeans and a sweatshirt. It was a favorite of mine, one that I had tried to steal many times. So far, my mission had been unsuccessful.

“I wanted to see you. I missed you,” he spoke in a low, hushed tone.

I laughed. “I just saw you an hour ago, Luke. Don’t be dramatic.”

“That’s an hour too long,” he retorted. “Can I come in?”

I bit my lip. Luke had been in my room before, but not after my mom had gone to bed

and certainly not with the door closed. It was one of the rules she had set for her sixteen-year-old daughter, even if I did behave decently. Luke was allowed to come over, but I had to keep the door open.

I considered my options for a moment longer, and then nodded.

“Sure, but you need to keep quiet. If my mom finds out you’re in here, I’m dead.” Well, I’d be grounded, but that was about the same thing if you wanted to survive high school. I stepped aside, watching Luke climb up the massive oak tree by my window before he hopped into my room.

I stood there awkwardly. I didn’t know what to do with him in my room at night, particularly without my mom’s knowledge. Luke hugged me, placing a soft kiss on the top of my head. “God, you smell good, Luce,” he murmured as he inhaled a lung full of my scent.

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