"Mom," I said, shoving my foot inside my new Doc Martin's. "I really gotta go." It was already six in the morning, and dawn had barely surfaced in the bleak fall sky. I hated mornings, but what I hated more were the lectures mom gave me whenever the mood struck her.

"It's just that you're spending all of your time with him, Lucy. Does he even notice you? Does he even care? Or will he disappear again like he did after your twenty-first birthday?"

"Mom, would you stop?" Every chance she got she reminded me of the fact. But it wasn't exactly true. It wasn't right after my twenty-first birthday… it was later. After he'd already been in London for a couple months. At first I thought he'd just gotten busy, or that the time change was making things difficult, but after a couple weeks with no returned phone calls-I took the hint. "I'm just helping out a friend, mom. He'd do the same for me if the situation was reversed."

She rolled her eyes, following me into the living room. "Would he?"

"Yes!" I practically yelled, pushing back the curtains to glance over at his house next door. Everything was buttoned up, the Suburban was still parked in front of their garage, but the light was still on in his room. Good. I still had time.

Rushing down the hallway, I yanked my hair-brush off of the counter top, and began yanking it through my tangles while I prepared my toothbrush at the same time. I couldn't shower, but that didn't mean I had to look homeless.

"He's using you, Lucy." Mom said, following after me. "I hate to say it, but it's true." She leaned in the doorway, arms crossed at her chest.

"How is he using me?" I slurred around a mouth full of toothpaste. "Mr. Parker is like a father to me. If I can help him, I will. End of discussion."

Mom's cheeks pinkened as she glanced down to her feet. "I had no control over that. If I could've made him stay, made any of them stay, I would have-."

Spitting my toothpaste to the sink, I briefly closed my eyes, then turned to face my mother. She had red hair, just like mine, but her eyes were blue, where mine took after my father. Brown. Shit brown, just like the deadbeat excuse for a man who left us six months after I was born. I almost considered myself lucky-never having time to get attached like she had. In fact, all he left me with was shit brown eyes, and a name. Lucy. His brilliant contribution which came from his favorite TV show. He said with my red hair I looked just like Lucielle Ball.

Shaking my head to clear it, I cursed my own insensitivity, and set down my brush. I couldn't seem to wrap my mind around the fact that someone so beautiful and smart could still be so fragile when it came to men. It wasn't easy being a single mother, especially with a headstrong daughter such as myself, but she had to know I didn't blame her. That I never blamed her for searching for someone to love. Even when it meant half a dozen men would enter, then exit our lives over the years.

I grabbed her shoulders firmly, forcing her eyes to look into mine. "Mom, I know that. I know it wasn't your fault, I just-" But the doorbell rang in that exact moment.

Christian was here.

Peaking my head out of the bathroom, I glanced down the hallway, where Christian's impressive silhouette could be seen through the acid stained window of the front door. I turned to my mother, giving her a firm peck on the forehead, before grabbing my backpack off the counter. "I love you, you're the most wonderful mother in the universe, but I really gotta go."

"What time will you be home?" She yelled after me as I raced down the hall.

I opened the front door, patted my old dog Lady on her head, then slipped quickly through the opening. "I'll text you!" I slammed the door behind me, then rested my back against the surface, needing to catch my breath.

Chrisian was waiting on the other side, his hair messy, and his face unshaven… he hadn't had time to shower either, and somehow the realization made me smile so big my cheeks hurt.

"Was that your mom?" He asked, his voice low and groggy, but the side of his lip lifted too. Like he was just as amused as I was. What was he smiling about? Why was he so happy?

I turned around, annoyed by how quickly my heart began to flutter. "Yep," I replied, taking the keys out of my backpack and locking the door behind me. His presence, no matter how fiercely I tried to resist, had that undeniable effect on me. He made my heart race and my body calm all at the same time. As easily as slipping on an old t-shirt he made his way back into my life again. I didn't resist, because he was the kind of shirt that molded itself to my body and felt like a second skin. The kind that made me feel at home, no matter where in the world I wore it. The kind that when I found it again after a long absence, was welcomed back without question, but with a somewhat of a guarded heart- because I now knew what it was like to be without him.

"I thought she was working graveyard?" he asked then, slipping my backpack from my arm, then effortlessly looping it over one shoulder, like this was a perfectly normal thing to do-hold the backpack for the girl who lived next door to you. But I guessed it was for him. This was normal-for us.

I turned to face him, pushing aside all the nagging thoughts my mother had placed in my head that morning. "She still is," I stated. "She just got off early." My lips then smirked as I prepared for my next statement. "Something about the full moon, and the alignment of venus." I smiled, raising my brows for the dramatic effect.

"Is that so?" he asked, the edge of his lip almost quivering with the need to laugh. If there was one person on earth who understood the complicatedness of mom and I's relationship it was Christan, and the amusement covering his face wasn't hiding the fact.

"Yep." I shrugged. "Though I swear it was planned. She seemed to thoroughly enjoy her morning off."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah," I sighed. "She gave me one of her epic lectures."

"About?"

"Life. My future. Doesn't matter," I waved my hand in the air, deliberately avoiding the fact that he had been the topic of most of it, and quickly turned toward the steps-but the Suburban in the center of the driveway stopped me in my tracks.

Christain had actually moved the truck. Funny, considering our homes sat literally ten yards apart.

He must have sensed my confusion because he came to stand by my side. "You don't like the cold," he stated, as though I'd actually asked a question. Like his simple answer was enough to explain his thoughtfulness.

Damn it all if my heart didn't skip a beat. It was things like this made me love him so much. Not his eyes that held the perfect mixture of vulnerability, and strength, nor his skin that felt both the perfect balance of soft and hard when he touched me, but the little things... Like remembering my Birthday when he was in London, even when I'd deliberately forgotten to call him on his. Or knowing that I despised the cold, and saving me the twenty steps (literally, I've counted) between his driveway and mine.

"Morning Mr. Parker," I called as I continued down the steps, ignoring the fact that a toad had crawled up into my throat and tried to steal my voice.

Mr. Parker was seated in the back row of the SUV, and nodded in my direction, barely acknowledging me before he turned away to look out the opposite window.

He seemed so uncomfortable back there alone, his cast splayed out in the only way it would fit, his body stiff, legs taking up the entire seat, unable to move even an inch.

"He's in a mood today." Christian said softly beside me. But there was an edge of apology in his voice that caused me to glance up. Like he somehow bore the responsibility for his father's response.

I shrugged. "Today is physical therapy. He hates physical therapy. Of course he's in a bad mood."

I tried to open the passenger door, but Christan hand just above my head kept it shut.

"It's not just that," he stated in a low voice by my ear. His body had moved closer to mine, so close that I felt his heat on my skin, so the smoke of our breaths mingled together.

"He told me to go back to London this morning, Luc. Told me to stop wasting my time here with him."

I couldn't see his face, but his tone alone told me he wasn't smiling any longer. My throat tightened with emotion. Out of pity, yes, but it was more than that. The thought of Christian leaving, especially after mom's words that morning, made my heart jump in my chest. "He doesn't mean it." I said forcefully. "That's his pride talking."

Christian glanced down to the pavement, allowing me to see his face. To see the eyes that were brilliant green, and hooded by the fullest of lashes. Even as a filthy boy, everyone noticed his eyes. Their honesty. Their wisdom.

"They said this would happen, remember?" I pointed out, keeping my voice both firm, yet quiet. "It's normal. It's part of the process," I continued.

Christian looked at me, not hiding his internal struggle. The need to be there for his father, yet the toll it was taking on him at the same time.

"You're the closest person to him, Christian. It's natural for him to take things out on you."

He gripped the bridge of his nose, squeezing. "You're right."

"It's part of your plan." I touched his arm, "Remember?"

Because I never would. The day he came over to tell me of his "plan" would forever be burned into my mind.

It was a week after the accident, and Christian was supposed to return to London in the morning.

"I'm not going." He said to me, seated on the swing of my front porch in the dark. It was still summer, but a chill that had crept in overnight, caused goose bumps to cover my entire body.

"Not going where?" I asked him, trying to warm myself with the throw blanket I'd stolen from the couch. It was nearly one in the morning, and I stood on the open porch in nothing more than my pajamas. Too large of boxers, and a t-shirt that didn't quite reach my navel-The poor excuse for a blanket barely covered my shoulders, but I'd been woken in the dead of night by Christian throwing rocks at my bedroom window, and all of that didn't seem to matter. It wasn't the first time he'd done it, yet standing there that night, I almost thought I was dreaming.

"If I go now, Mom and Dad will fight, and I can't handle being so far away knowing it."

I sat heavily beside him, trying to understand what he was telling me. "What do you mean?"

"Because Dad doesn't want to be a burden, because he doesn't want her taking care of him."

He was speaking of his mother. His sweet mother who had been by his father's side every waking moment since the accident. They had the perfect relationship, Mr. and Mrs. Parker. One I'd idolized my entire life- But at the same time, sitting there beside Christian, I understood what he was trying to tell me. I'd seen it. How Mr. Parker wouldn't let Mrs. Parker help him out of his chair. How only Christian was allowed to assist him in the restroom, even in the hospital when nurses were around to help.

Mr. Parker was strong, and full of pride, yet those traits, combined with Mrs. Parker's stubbornness and tendency to dote, were exactly what Christan was worried about. Usually they complimented each other, but after Mr. Parker's accident, those traits were all a disaster in the making.

"What are you thinking?" My mind raced with the magnitude of what Christan was saying. It wasn't a week, or a month that he was talking about. Mr. Parker's recovery could be a year or longer.

"It's the least I can do for them."

I flexed my jaw, unable to allow the words to penetrate. My heart had said goodbye to him the night before. I cried myself to sleep, yet here he sat, telling me it wasn't true. That he wasn't leaving.

"Christan," I pleaded. "If he'd fight with your mom, he'll fight with you too. He won't want your help either." Was I asking him to go? Or begging him to stay?

He then turned to me, a heaviness in his expression I'd never seen before. "I'd rather be here, fighting with my dad, then thousands of miles away, wishing I was doing just that."

I wanted to remind him of those words as we stood in my driveway. To give him back just an ounce of the devotion that was burning in his veins that night. "Christian, he doesn't mean it," I repeated.

He placed his palm on the other side of my body, moving so close his presence caged me in. I froze, because I wasn't used to this side of Christan. I was used to the Christan who smiled on my front porch. The Christian who laughed so easily it seemed effortless. But something had changed between us in the year he'd been gone. The way that he looked at me changed...and sometimes... the way he touched me.

"What in the world would I do without you?" he asked then.

This was one of those moments. One of those touches that left me so confused, yet our skin hadn't met. He hadn't touched me at all, yet all of my skin pebbled like he had.

I don't know if it was the look in his eyes, or the way he said the words that most shook me. "What in the world would I do without you?" The words played over and over in my head, yet I stood completely motionless.

What do you mean? I wanted to scream. What do you mean you don't know what you'd do without me? You did just fine without me in London, Christian. You do just fine without me for over a year.

But I couldn't speak. On the outside I was frozen, and on the inside I was too prideful to ask the burning question. Why didn't you call me, Christian? Where did you go?

He opened the door to the Suburban then, and I realized I was standing there lifeless.

"Luc?" he asked, concern making his expression harden.

I glanced up, pulling myself together enough to climb into the passenger seat of the SUV. "Yeah?" I responded, my head slightly dizzy.

"You okay?" he asked, his hand brushed mine as he handed me back my backpack.

I took a breath, forced a smile, then stared into the eyes that seemed to search mine with a fiery intensity. "Of course. Why wouldn't I be?"

Okay, so there was my second lie.