Chapter 14
Lara
There is no danger in Novel Haven.
But outside, in the forests and the mines, monsters lurk, waiting to attack you.
Everything inside me is screaming at me to run.
It’s a trap.
The cake is a lie.
Luca’s lying.
He must be lying. Wait for it, here comes the punchline. Wouldn’t be the first time either. It’s like that one time right before I graduated secondary school. My first real date—and my last.
I’d had a crush on Charles for almost a year.
Then he asked me—me—out to the cinema. Some new action film I didn’t give a damn about, but of course I told him yes.
It was Charles, after all. Charles, who sat next to me in physics and who, like me, enjoyed indie rock.
At first, I thought he felt sorry for the girl who didn’t just miss several weeks of lessons because of her hospital stay, but who also had to stay at her aunt’s house with her parents because all her possessions had gone up in smoke.
But I was so happy that I didn’t care. Of course I said yes.
So there I stood at the cinema, Wednesday night, eight p.m. I’d even bought a new dress.
A blue one, because it matched the single blue streak I’d just added to my hair.
Charles and Lara. A date. A piece of normal life. Oh, how excited my mum was.
And then there was the phone camera. The laughing.
Not just Charles, but Miranda, Fatima, Will, and Ivy.
Because it hadn’t been a pity date—quite the opposite.
It was a ploy to make me feel even smaller, to scrape the last, stunted bits of self-worth that the flames hadn’t carried away from my battered body.
And they were successful. They took it from me, and in its place, they left wounds that haven’t closed to this day.
How could they have? People still point their cameras at me, and those TikTok comments showed the same level of vitriol as my classmates’ laughter. I’m still the butt of everyone’s joke.
My palms burn from how hard I’m digging my nails into my skin.
I’m waiting for Luca to explain himself.
For his colleagues, my competitors, to come over, for them to laugh, to record me, to tell me that Bytes I just saw how tense you suddenly were because of your scars, and . . .”
“This was a stupid idea.” I get up so quickly that I bump against the table, sloshing Luca’s untouched drink onto the tabletop.
“Lara, I’m sorry.” Luca gets up too, slowly, like he’s dealing with a wild animal. Maybe I am: a deer in the headlights, frozen, staring down its demise. Just like I did at Crow Manor.
I take off running, elbowing annoyed patrons out of my way in this posh bar where I have no business being. I exhale shakily as the cold outdoor air touches my overheated cheeks and enters my lungs, then lean forward, hands on my knees like I’ve just sprinted. That’s exactly what it feels like.
“Lara?” Luca sounds worried. And I hate it.
I hate that he’s acting worried, or that he is worried—whatever.
I hate that I can’t have a single flipping nice evening.
I hate that I’ve ruined this lovely day, and that Nat and Aria’s efforts only lasted a few hours.
I hate that I’m my own worst enemy, and that I can count on myself even less than Sophia can.
I hate that my voice doesn’t do what I want it to, that my skin isn’t my own, and that my present is overshadowed by my past. I hate that I can’t forget what happened, because it’s written all over my body.
And I hate the fact that I can’t just keep all this anger bottled up inside. Instead, it comes bursting out of me.
“What the hell were you thinking?” I whip around and take a step toward Luca.
We draw wary looks from the four women leaning on the outside wall of the bar, drinking and smoking, but I really don’t care right now.
“Did you have a bet going at your office? Or with the other guys from the competition?”
“What?” Luca frowns and raises his hands. “Lara, I . . .”
“You really thought I’d just fall for that?” My eyes burn, and I blink. There’s no way I’m going to let him see me cry again.
“Fall for what?” he asks, his voice rising too. “Is it so hard to believe that I meant what I said?”
Yes, it is, I think. I don’t say it out loud, but there’s no need, apparently. My facial expression seems to be enough for Luca.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Luca echoes my question, crossing the remaining distance between us.
“Do you think what happened at that competition was nothing to me? Do you think I just fall asleep next to random strangers all the time? That it helps me sleep better than I have in all the months before combined? Do you think I usually lie awake at night, worrying how that dev from London is doing? What she’s up to?
Whether there’s anything I can do to make her life even just a tiny bit easier?
And why she just scarpers after our kiss without a word and doesn’t reply to my messages?
” He huffs. I’m so close to him that our breath mingles in the night air.
His eyes flash, but with frustration, not anger.
There’s a storm whirling in my head. Does he really mean all of that? Luca was lying awake at night? Because of me?
“Why are you so down on yourself?”
He speaks these last few words quietly, and the intensity of his question makes the back of my neck prickle.
I shiver as Luca just stands there, watching me.
No, not just watching—his eyes have softened, bringing the same softness to his features that he’d had in his sleep.
Luca’s looking at me like there’s something about me that’s worth noticing.
He’s looking at me like you see on television, one of those romantic gazes that make women grow taller, almost bloom.
But I wither like a wilted plant instead.
Part of me wants to reach for him, like there’s still hope left, but the other, more pessimistic part gives up.
So I bottle up all my emotions and turn my voice into a harsh whisper.
“How do you think it feels to live with these scars?”
“We all have our scars, Lara. It’s just that some aren’t visible at first glance.”
“Oh yeah? What are yours, then?” I ask defiantly.
He doesn’t hold my gaze; he even turns his head away.
I observe the outline of his face, watch his jaw grind, like he’s trying with all his might to bottle up the answer to my question.
The hardness and all those edges are back in his features now, the softness in his face completely gone.
I experience a flash of guilt, because I worry that I’ve crossed a line, but if Luca wants to ask me questions that cut me to the bone, it’s well within my right to do the same.
He seems to come to the same conclusion, because he finds my gaze again.
His eyes are darker than normal, and I can’t pinpoint the expression in them, but it sends a shiver down my spine.
His breath comes faster, brushing my cheek, and I catch myself relaxing at his scent.
Luca smells warm. Like that night at the estate, like coming home on a winter’s day.
Flipping hell, I shouldn’t be thinking about his scent. And I shouldn’t be relaxing; not now. But my walls start to crumble as Luca nods. “Fine. Can we get out of here? I don’t want to open this can of worms in front of my colleagues. They’ll be coming out for a smoke every few minutes.”
I nod, and together we head down the street, which is darkened now.
The streetlights cast our shadows on the pavement.
Our silhouettes make it look like we’re on a romantic little stroll; I can imagine shadow Lara holding out her hand, just a little bit to the right.
There are so many feelings swirling around inside me that I should be properly coming apart at the seams, but this night walk through Notting Hill feels strangely grounding. Or it does, until Luca starts to speak.
“I sleep badly. I fall asleep, but never through the night. The tiniest noise startles me, and if it’s not a noise, it’s my nightmares waking me.
” He doesn’t slow down; he just keeps on walking, staring straight ahead.
As if it’s not even me he’s telling, like he’s simply speaking to the night air.
“I always get to work before everyone else. Not because I love our office so much, but because I can’t stand the crowds on the tube, and especially the platforms. I always need to be sitting or standing with my back against a wall.
If I don’t at least have the door in my peripheral vision, every single muscle in my body locks up.
I hate big events; I can’t enjoy concerts anymore .
. .” He leaves the sentence floating between us, unfinished, and it plummets to the ground, heavy as lead.
“I was there during the London Bridge knife attack.”