She couldn't answer his question.

"Admit it." His grip on her wrist softened slightly. "You don't know."

She tried to keep her gaze steady. He tucked a hand under her chin, and she backed away.

"You're afraid of me," he said, looking searchingly into her watery, blue eyes. "I don't know why, because we've been friends for years. I've never given you any reason to hate me."

"And I don't hate you," she said.

"But you are afraid," he said.

She breathed in carefully.

His gaze didn't break. "Are you afraid because I love you?" he asked.

Maya's lips parted. "You love me?" she breathed out.

He frowned at her disbelievingly. "Please stop that. Don't flatter me by acting like you didn't know."

Of course she had known. But knowing in her head and knowing in her heart were two very different things.

"Answer my question," he said firmly. "Are you afraid of me because I love you?"

No. I'm afraid of the fact that I love you.

"Because you're just going to have to get over that," he continued, taking a small step forward. "It's irrelevant, really. You don't have to worry that I'm ruining my life pining over you, or that I'm holding onto some hopeless hope that you and I will somehow end up together. You're under no obligation to feel as though you're using me. Frankly, it doesn't matter that you don't love me. I wouldn't care if you did hate me. I love you, and I choose to love you, and I will keep choosing to love you until you die or I die or you marry someone else who chooses to love you as completely as I do."

She couldn't take it anymore. She covered her ears. "Stop, please," she whispered through tears.

This wasn't only about her getting hurt now. This wasn't only about Lucas ruining her life and leaving her looking for escape in a pill or a bottle. Now, it struck her for the first time that she was ruining him. He wanted something from her that she couldn't give him. She couldn't fall into her mother's mistakes. She couldn't…

She…

She wanted to tell him that she loved him so badly, she felt like the inside of her mouth was on fire. But that would be the most selfish thing in the world, wouldn't it? She dropped her hands.

"I'm sorry," he said, looking slightly ashamed of having expressed himself so vehemently.

No. "I'm sorry," she said. "About everything."

Lucas shook his head. "What…what's everything? What have you done?"

She shook her head back at him, backing away. Then everything hit her at once. Lucas. Katy. Lucas. Katy. Tonight she was leaving. She sunk to the floor, shaking convulsively like someone was rattling her bones from within. She was alone, inside herself.

Lucas dropped to his knees and pulled her into his arms, cradling her head against his chest. She cried until her tears soaked through his shirt to his skin. He held her until her body stilled and the sun had set.

She stared out into the room, eyes wide open.

She felt so safe with him.

But how long was that supposed to last? Until for some reason, he'd leave and she'd realize that she hadn't set up a net to catch her when he wouldn't anymore. If she could survive now without him, then she could survive anything.

It was so easy, though, to let him help her.

She twisted her head up, and he looked down. Why had God let someone so good into her life? Maybe she wasn't meant to be happy, and that was okay. Not everyone could be. Her mother hadn't been. The odds weren't looking so great for Maya. But why him, too? If anyone deserved to be happy, it was Lucas. Lucas and Riley. They had been sort of a thing for a while, and they had been disgustingly happy, as they should have been.

So this now. Lucas and Maya. It was all wrong.

Lucas was reading her eyes as she thought all of this. "You don't believe me," he said.

Maya didn't answer.

"Alright. Let's try something else then," he said. He lifted her head so that they were inches apart. His hand slid from the back of her neck down the side of her face. His eyes were strong and earnest and unashamed. He didn't say that he loved her. He had already said that.

"Do you understand?" he asked.

And then Maya was so, so selfish.

She kissed him.