Catching Fireflies(93)

“No. I was raised in Charleston.”

She struggled to put the pieces together from the tidbits he was revealing. “Are you not close to your mom because she left your family?”

“That’s part of it, I suppose. I saw what her leaving that last time did to my dad. It broke his spirit. The going and coming home had been terrible enough, but knowing it was final, that she was never coming back?” He shook his head. “He was never the same after that.”

“Which makes you stronger than your father,” Laura said. “Losing your wife didn’t break you.”

“No, it just left me bitter and determined to avoid all future entanglements,” he said wryly, then glanced at her. “Until you. Somehow I couldn’t resist you. I’m still trying to figure that out. How’d you sneak past all those well-honed defenses of mine?”

“Maybe the why and how don’t matter,” Laura said. “Sometimes fate just steps in.”

“Maybe, but fate has a way of being unreliable. It can take things away just as quickly as it brings them into your life,” he said, an edge of cynicism in his voice that suggested he still didn’t entirely trust what was going on between them.

“Do you still think I’m going to abandon you?” she asked.

He shrugged. “It’s always a possibility.”

Laura felt the pain behind that admission. She wondered how much time it would take before he believed in her, in them. Or, because of his mother’s treatment of his father, would he always have this nagging doubt that would hang over their relationship and keep it from flourishing?



Misty stared at the words she’d written earlier and wondered what on earth she’d been thinking when she’d agreed to speak at tomorrow’s rally. How was she supposed to stand in front of all those people and reveal the shame she’d felt at the terrible things Annabelle had posted online about her? Getting through it had been hard enough. Reliving it in public might be more than she could do.

Her mom, Ms. Reed and even her dad had agreed, though, that talking about it might give her some kind of catharsis or something. As much as she trusted all of them, she thought they were being a little optimistic. Nothing was going to make her life better, not until she could go away to college and forget all about Serenity and Annabelle and stupid Greg Bennett.

She hadn’t told a single soul—not even Katie—that Greg had been more and more persistent now that Annabelle wasn’t in school to catch him trying to hook up with Misty. He’d cornered her in the hallway half a dozen times during the week, making her squirm with his disgusting suggestions about what he’d like to do to her. Thankfully all the teachers seemed to be hanging out in the halls between classes and after school. Whenever one of them had moved close, Greg had taken off, his smirk firmly in place. He was such a jerk! She still couldn’t believe this whole mess had happened because Annabelle, who was otherwise pretty smart, hadn’t recognized that.

Once more she looked at her notes for tomorrow, then crumpled up the paper and threw it in the trash. It landed right there with her first dozen attempts. When her cell phone rang, she grabbed it, relieved to have an excuse to take a break. She saw Katie’s name and smiled as she answered.

“Boy, am I glad you called,” she told her friend. “I’ve been trying and trying to write something for tomorrow, but everything I put on paper seems stilted and stupid. I’m thinking it’s a bad idea for me to try to do this.”

“No, it’s not,” Katie said. “If anything, it’s more important than ever.”

Something in Katie’s voice alarmed Misty. “What do you mean?”

“There’s something online. I’m not sure who posted it, but it was somebody from school. I spotted it on my page and when I looked around, it was all over.”

Misty felt her heart actually sink in her chest. “How bad is it?” she asked.

“Pretty bad,” Katie said.

“More pictures?” she asked, a catch in her voice. Those had been the worst, most degrading of everything Annabelle had done.

“Uh-huh, and not like last time,” Katie said, her voice filled with sympathy. “These are worse, like they came from some porno site or something. There’s no way anyone could believe they’re you, but that’s what it says.”

Tears leaked out of Misty’s eyes as she managed to whisper, “Where?”

“Go to my page. I wanted you to see them before I printed them out for Helen and Ms. Reed. Then I’ll get Kyle to take them down. I called him to come home from school as soon as I saw this. He’ll be here any minute and he knows how to pull stuff like this down. I’ve already posted a message about how phony they are and how disgusting the person is who put them up.”