Page 2 of The Other Side of Green

I laughed, studying my shoes, her stare a little too direct.

“Do you like your reading material glossy and dressed in thongs, Jack?” Lyra’s pale-blue eyes steadied on my face and I rubbed at the back of my neck, heat prickling.

“Never you mind what I like to read.” I had her talking now and I didn’t want it to end. I’d talk about anything: school, homework, violin, fucking meatloaf. I didn’t really care. “How was school?” Okay, Jack… try slightly harder than that.

“Do you care?” Lyra folded her arms, making my gaze drop, half unwillingly, to the edge of her vest.

“Yes.”

“It sucked.”

“Why?” I leaned into her space, keeping one ear out for the heavy-footed tread of Luca Lennox. Talking was still considered innocent, I think… Standing in his sister’s shadow while inhaling the floral scent of her skin wasn’t. And I could do without an early afternoon fist fight to be honest.

“Usual. Math is stupid. The library was shut at lunch which meant I had to eat in the cafeteria.” She curled her top lip into a snarl. “And Raven Smoake was telling everyone you finger fucked her Saturday night.”

I nearly choked on my own saliva. “Excuse me?” Raven Smoake was the year above Lyra, and nothing about her development was slow. Nothing at all.

“Raven. Smoake. Was. Telling—”

“I get it!” I cut her off, my neck blazing and not from the late afternoon sun.

The fact Lyra knew those words, what they meant. Jesus. The world tilted beneath my feet.

“Did you, Jack?” I recoiled from her using my name, grown too familiar with being her Blue.

“No. I didn’t.” I folded my arms, noticing the flash of relief in the depths of her pale eyes. I had to stamp that out. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

“Sure, it’s not.” She shook her head and went to step away.

This was our thing now.

Something between us had broken. We were now suspended between what could be, shouldn’t be, and never would.

That was us.

Lyra and Jack.

Lyra Bird and Blue.

Broken. Twisted.

She went to walk away and for a split moment I nearly let her go. A split moment and not one nanosecond more. I grabbed her elbow and held her in place. “Nothing happened with Raven. She’s a child.”

“She’s the same age as me!” Lyra’s cheeks flooded with pink heat. “Well, nearly.”

I nodded, stomach knotting. “Exactly.”

“You talk crap, Jack. Every word that comes out of your mouth is a twisted lie. You have one foot forward and one holding you back. You always have.”

I rubbed my hand through my hair. “This is the way it has to be, and you know it.”

“So leave me alone. Just go. Leave. Don’t wait for me to come home from school, don’t call my name, don’t ask me to play.”

Her chest heaved and my own mirrored the movement.

She couldn’t end this. Dangerous and stupid as it was. One step too close to immorally wrong. But if it ended, if she took her friendship away, I didn’t know how I’d make it through.

I glanced around us and then pulled her closer, dropping my lips to her ear as her chest pressed into me, skin warm through thin cotton. “You know I can’t,” I whispered.