“Do you think I don’t remember? My best friend was stuck in the hospital with terrible burns. I was worried sick about you and came to see you in the hospital every day. Remember? I didn’t know what was going to happen with your burns, and no one was telling me anything because I was just a kid. And then when my mom and I left town, it was late at night, and I couldn’t reach you. Then you didn’t answer the next day, or the next—and I thought, okay, maybe he can’t reply because he’s having surgery or something. Maybe he’ll respond when he gets home. So I kept trying to contact you—for weeks. Weeks! But you never replied, Lucky. You just … vanished.”

“No, Josie. You vanished. I was still here. You left.”

“My mom left town and took me with her,” I repeat. “I wrote you to explain. You didn’t write back.”

My chest aches, thinking about it again, and I’m surprised how much it still hurts.

“Look, I don’t want to dig up the past,” he says, suddenly agitated and intense. “The department store window is about now. It’s about the present. It’s about pride.”

How did this get so serious, so fast? He’s mad now. Really mad.

He throws up a hand. “And you don’t get to just flounce in here and decide that you’re feeling generous today, shutterbug.”

“You don’t get to call me that,” I whisper. “You don’t know me anymore.”

“Then don’t treat me like I’m trash. Don’t demean what I did. It wasn’t disposable. I didn’t do it so you could bide your time and swoop back in to take your licks.”

Okay, now I’m upset. Angry. Scared. And something else … I don’t even know what. All I know is that if I want to fight with someone, I can do that with my mom. I don’t need Lucky 2.0, aka a complete stranger, to make me feel like I’ll never be good enough.

Every molecule of my being is vibrating with energy. “Then why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you do it?”

He blinks at me, black lashes fluttering. He’s so close, I can see the pale network of burn scars on one side of his face. The apostrophe of his marred eyebrow. The deep hollows of his cheeks. The way his sharp eyes are scanning my face … and the hesitation behind them.

He’s hiding something; I just don’t know what.

“Got to get back to work,” he says, jaw tightening. “Juggling two jobs now, so time is a little tight.”

“Lucky,” I plead.

“Don’t want your pity, Saint-Martin. Keep it. I’m fine.”