I stared at his handsome profile, fascinated by the story. “What did you do?”
He took a deep breath and let it go, darting me a sidelong glance. “I was having some… health issues at that point and all that was making it worse. So I left, didn’t tell anyone where I was going, just vanished, as far as they were concerned.”
Okay so that sounded incredibly familiar. Because I’d done nearly an identical thing. For a completely different reason, but still. It was almost eerie how much our lives had paralleled each other. We, nearly the exact same age, born in different countries and vastly different social classes. Yet, our lives had spiraled and turned as parallel lines, never intersecting in that same plane. Until the one fateful point in which they did. Like serendipity and geometry combining to form this weird thing that was Lucas and me. This ephemeral, temporary connection we’d created.
Only soon to spiral back away from each other once again. Perhaps we’d return to the parallel, never to intersect anymore.
My chest suddenly felt heavy.
“What’s wrong? You look pale. You hated my story that much?”
I smiled faintly to reassure him but chose to deflect instead of share what was really on my mind. “So when you left your family and disappeared, is that when you changed your name to Walker?”
He glanced away, almost as if he knew that I was evading. “Walker was always my name. My middle name. I just dropped the last name.”
“You mean all the last names. Those are a lot of names.” I cleared my throat, deepening my voice to imitate the monologue at the beginning of every episode of Arrow. “My name is Lucas Walker. And I went to Lian-Yu because I had to become someone else. Become something else.”
He cracked a smile to match mine but otherwise did not respond.
“So basically you’re a secret identity for a superhero.”
“Hmm. I guess that’s a step up from Jedi Boy. I’ll take it.”
We rode in silence for a stretch of five or ten minutes. Our bodies swayed in unison with the twists and turns of the road and the land, the slopes and the dips. We were going through some hills now and the road was getting twistier. Since it was late summer, what should have been green and grassy hills were dried and yellowed landscape against a pale blue sky. Like all the colors had been washed out.
I needed a little air, so I cracked my window a smidge. The ends of my hair started dancing around my shoulders like copper-colored snakes and I couldn’t help but laugh.
He laughed with me.
I darted a furtive glance at him. “So… I lied to you just now when I said I was wondering about your name change.”
He raised his brows but showed no other surprise. “Oh?”
“Yeah… I was being shy. Because I was thinking deep thoughts about how similar we are. I did the same thing you did, left my family’s place and just disappeared as far as they were concerned. I did come to California because Mia was sick, but I was going to leave, anyway. Circumstance only gave me the answer to where I should go. But I knew I had to go. Even if just because of my cowardice.”
He didn’t even blink, still staring at the road. “I don’t think you have a cowardly bone in your body, Katya Ellis.”
“I do when it comes to my family. Leaving was easier than saying no.”
“What did you say ‘no’ to?”
My stomach dipped. Oh, God. Would he judge me? Would he think I was as terrible a person as my family—and some of my friends—did? Sometimes I thought myself a terrible person, too. It wouldn’t take much effort on my part to prevent Derek from unpleasant consequences. Even if he did deserve them.
“My brother got into trouble and my family is upset with me because I refused to help him when they insist that I could. Instead of sticking up for myself, I left home.” My heart hammered. Wow. I’d never talked about this to anyone in my “new” life. Why was I volunteering this information now?
Maybe because he’d poured out his soul to me? For some reason I kept feeling it was incredibly important to square with him on everything. And not just the sexual stuff. Although staying equal on the sexual stuff was a lot more fun.