Popping up, I slid in between the two of them. “I’m leaving. You can have my seat if you want.” I didn’t look him in the eyes. I didn’t want a reminder of what I was turning my back on.

Without another word, I stepped away, exiting the cafeteria one beat shy of a jog.

I wasn’t sure what was required for home schooling, but I’d take ten hours a day, seven days a week, with no bathroom or lunch breaks if it meant never returning to this cesspool of suck again.

Dodging around students, I didn’t stop until I found an empty hall. Ducking into the closest locker alcove, I slid into a corner, curling my head into my legs. I wanted to cry so badly right then, I wanted to let every tear I’d held back for years have their moment, but something wouldn’t let them form. Some mental block inside me would not allow the release I needed so badly.

“Dammit,” I muttered, slamming my fist into a locker.

“Luce?”

So not what I needed right now. So just what I needed right now.

Why did he have to be everything I did and everything I didn’t need at any given moment?

“How did you find me?” I said, keeping my head ducked.

“It was easy,” he said, taking a seat beside me. “All I did was follow the cursing.”

I laughed. Hard. I was always emotionally unstable in these kinds of moments when I needed to cry and couldn’t.

I was an emotional wreck next to a man that defined wreck and who, if I let into my life, would turn me into the same. He scooted close against me, hitching his arm around my neck, and pulled me into him. I should have resisted, at least put up some fight given I still knew nothing of Jude’s past, present, and future, but I didn’t.

“So?” he said, his voice muffled by what was left of my hair.

“So,” I said, as a herd of boys shuffled by us. They didn’t say anything while they were in view of Jude, but they were elbowing each other so hard down the hall I could hear it. Sitting here alone, snuggled up to Jude, was likely to do wonders on my pristine reputation.

“Explanation time,” he said, like there wasn’t a choice.

“Explanation time.” Now was better than later, although sooner would have been better than now. Oh well, I’d take what I could get when it came to Jude.

“Ready when you are,” he said.

Then, finding myself swimming in carte blanche in Q and A with Jude, my mind went blank. Like no question or answer would change anything I felt for him. This was an insane thing for a girl to conclude when it came to someone like Jude.

If it wasn’t already confirmed, I had a screw loose.

“Come on.” He nudged me. “You can ask me anything and either I’ll answer it or I won’t.”

“How very forthcoming of you,” I said, smiling into his shirt.

“We’ve only got a few minutes before the bell rings, so you better get started. I’m not the kind of student that cares about being tardy, but I’m guessing you’re the kind that does.”

In fact, I’d had my fair share of tardies. At my straight-laced, blue blooded private school, I’d been something of a rebel because I wasn’t afraid to wear a mini skirt, or slick on an extra layer of lipstick, or skip class every now and again. However here, at Heathen High, my once rebel ways were going to qualify me for sainthood.

Oh wait, I forgot I’d already been labeled a slut by the student population.

Jude nudged me again, so I tore into it, not easing into the questioning.

“You’ve been to jail before.” It wasn’t a question, I already knew, but I guess I needed him to confirm it.

“Yep,” was his clipped response.

“How many times?”

“Eleven or twelve. I lost count.”

I knew Jude was well known in the police circuit, but I’d underestimated just how well.

“What for?” I asked, working to keep my voice even.

My head lifted as Jude shrugged. “Mostly for getting into fights, and one time for having drugs on me.”

Holy crap. “What kind of drugs?”

He didn’t pause giving his answer. “Meth.”

Holy shit. “Were you using it?” Was it wrong to pray he was giving it to someone else?

“Nah,” he said. “I was trying to sell it. I was a dumb and greedy son of a bitch at thirteen. Didn’t work out well for me, so I quit. I haven’t sold drugs in four years.”

“And you know those three boys because you all live at the same boys’ home?” Other than that first morning after that night of chaos, I hadn’t spoken of them. I’d tried not to even think of them, but I was willing to bust open that locked door to unveil who the real Jude was.

For the first time during our question and answer session, he stiffened. “Yep,” he said, shifting his beanie down lower.

“And Uncle Joe works there?”

Jude laughed one low note. “If you call lounging his fat ass on a couch while a few dozen kids go ape shit, then yeah, he works there.”

“How long have you lived there?” Sitting upright, I looked over at him and he was someplace else. Somewhere dark.

Like a switch had been turned on, he flinched. Giving his head a swift shake, he cleared his throat. “The cops didn’t give you all this information?” he said, working his jaw. “They’re usually chomping at the bit to divulge what a screw up I am.”

This was land mine territory I was tip-toeing through, and I wasn’t sure how much farther I’d get before it’d all blow up. “I kept hoping I’d hear it from you. But someone seemed to have forgotten my telephone number. And my address.” I smiled over at him, and finally, he softened.

“Five years,” he said.

“Do you like it?” I asked.

“It’s all right.” Another clipped, nothing-to-write-home about answer, which meant, I guessed, there were a million dark secrets hiding beneath that rock.

“Why did you wind up there?” For as desperate as I’d been to ask him all these questions if I ever got the chance, each one was making me squirm in my seat.

“My mom left. My dad went to jail.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. God I felt like the worst kind of person for thinking bad things about him. “Is your dad getting out anytime soon?”

“Nope.” I was waiting for the wall across from us to burst into flames from the way he was looking at it.

“What did he go to jail for?”

“For the kind of crime that jails were invented for.”

A cold chill tickled up my spine. “And your mom? Why did she leave?”

“Because she hated being a wife and hated being a mom even worse,” he said, the corners of his eyes creasing. “Because she was selfish and wanted her freedom and didn’t have any sense of loyalty.”

I lifted my hand and weaved my fingers through his. “Do you think she’ll ever come back?”

Jude snorted. “Nope. Mom’s long gone,” he said. “Although I’ve got this lovely parting gift she left for me I carry around in my pocket,” he said, sliding a piece of wrinkled old paper from his back pocket. “Well, this, and the ratty old hat on my head she knit or crocheted or some shit for me.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to read it, in fact I was sure I didn’t, but I couldn’t say no when Jude handed it to me. I couldn’t say no when a person was handing me the only thing they had left someone they’d loved. I took in a breath and unfolded it. “These are the lyrics to Hey, Jude,” I said, puzzled.

“Right you are,” he said, his voice tight.

“This is what your mom gave you before she left?”

“Well, she didn’t give it to me, she left it on my nightstand before bolting off in the middle of the night, but yeah, she was thoughtful enough to write down the lyrics to some crummy song. Not even, an I love you or a Yours Truly, Mom. Nice, right?”

Folding it back up, I handed it to him. “Why do you carry it around with you?”

The tension in his jaw went up a notch. “To remind myself what can happen when you let yourself love someone.” Stuffing the paper back in his pocket, he slammed the back of his head into the locker behind us.