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The garage door of Lyric’s house is open when I round the fence Light andht of Lyric slao overwhelms me

I almost spin around and run, but Lyric spots me and waves

"Hey," she says in astonishe Her hair is braided, and she’s wearing a leather jacket, holey pants, and black lace-up boots Her cheeks are flushed, and her lips are tinted blue from the chilly breeze

"Hey," is all I can think of to say back, because I can still feel it That stupid flutter in my heart, the one that showed up after we kissed And the emotions associated to the last ti and aze drops to the plate iner than necessary, only ripping aze ahen she looks up at me "Oh, yeah, Lila sent the coyer than norers fumble as I lift the plastic off the plate

She selects one of the snowood" She dunks her fingertip in the frosting and licks it off, causing a rush of adrenaline to pulsate through et out of here

"Is your dad around?" I frantically scan the garage "I was supposed to give the plate to him"

She bites off the head of the snowet a part for my car," she replies with her mouth full "Hey, do you want to see my car? I know you’ve been … busy, and haven’t had a chance to see it yet"

"I really need to get back to the house" I set the plate of cookies on the trunk of the car, ready to bail

"Ayden, please don’t leave," she begs, nearly splittinglance over my shoulder and see the tears in her eyes, I whirl around "Lyric, I don’t …" I trail off,hat to say to her When I co, I cautiously inch toward her "I’ sorry"

She sucks back the tears as she stares at the star dusted sky "I just don’t understand," she says, dabbing her fingertips under her eyes, wiping away soain "You just stopped talking to me for almost a month, with no explanation And I don’t kno to fix it--fix us"

"It’s not your fault," I proers together, even though her touch makes me ache all the way down to ive her a vague answer, she cutsto say before I spoke it "You know you can tell ot your back, dude, remember?"