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“It’s for the best, Lucy We can end all this and things will go back to normal”

“Normal,” she whispered “My mom’s dead and my stepdad killed her I don’t have a norainst the chain holding the swing up “I don’t have anything anymore”

“You have Ethan,” I offered

She sniffed and said, “He only took ets to go back to,” LucyEric did to him around”

“You’re not a reminder,” I pointed out “Ethan loves you veryhe can to ether”

It was a point I really had no right to irl Circuiven up everything for her and I knew he hadn’t done that out of sense of obligation

There was no response from Lucy It was a reminder of how badly I sucked at this coe too,” I said softly “My life changed in the space of a few one just like that,” I said as I snapped ers

“What happened?” Lucy asked

I glanced at her and said, “A miracle” As her brow furrowed in disbelief, I felt a srandrand…scared and alone…broken,” I murmured “And she swept in and said she waswould be okay”

“And was it?”

Since I couldn’t lie to her, I said, “It was as good as it could be”

The answer seemed to satisfy her

“Lucy, I’ht I can’t tell you why I reacted like I did because it’s just not so I talk about…with anyone But I hope you’ll believe me when I say I never would have hurt you or Ethan”

She castto hurt you,” she said softly

I sighed and said, “Before all this shit happened with Eric, you probably never looked at other people and saw only ht?” At Lucy’s nod, I said, “All I see areit makes any sense-”

“It does-” she interjected “I see Eric everywhere,” she admitted “In every face I see It wasn’t like that before…”

“Before he killed your mom”

She nodded