“No.” One word. It falls from his lips, but I’ll be damned if I know what it means. He smells like candy, and for the first time in what seems like forever, I’m not filled with panic and dread, and he’s so very close.…

“Hmm?” I murmur.

“I said no.”

“No?” Snap out of it, Saint-Martin! “So … you’re telling me I can’t go to the police.”

“Bingo.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because I didn’t put my family through all this expense and trouble for nothing. Do you know what this did to my mom? She’s stressed out. My grandparents? They’ve got to defend my honor at church this weekend when everyone will be talking shit about me again. ‘That Lucky, nothing but trouble. Just look at him. He used to be such a sweet little boy. What a shame.’ ”

He’s talking about the fire—the one that gave him all the scars on the side of his face. I see the shadow of that pain lingering behind his eyes.

“I said I was sorry for what you went through,” I remind him.

“Yeah, I remember you saying you were sorry back then, too, right before you split town. While I was stuck in the hospital, about to get skin grafts so that I looked a little less like a monster.”

This makes something in my chest contract and ache.

“Like I had a choice about leaving?” I argue. “Even though you were still in the hospital, I know you heard what happened—surely everyone in town heard about the domestic disturbance at the Nook. The big Saint-Martin mother-daughter fight … ring any bells? I literally was in my pajamas when we left town. It was the middle of the night. I was given no warning. It was well past visiting hours, so I couldn’t drop by to tell you goodbye. And besides that, I thought my mom was going to be arrested. Or my grandma. It was a nightmare. So, you know, I’m sorry that my family is screwed up, but I was twelve, and I had no control over that, and I cried all the way out of town.”

I texted Lucky from my mom’s phone—I remember Mom allowing me to do that—because unlike him, I didn’t get my own phone until I turned thirteen. I also tried calling the hospital the next day, but the phone in his room just rang. “And once we got to Boston, I emailed you, but you never replied. Not once.”

“Pardon me for being in agony and covered in bandages.”