He didn't stand up to greet me. He stayed there, sitting at the other end of the backyard, looking undisturbed, completely calm, as if us seeing each other after more than half a year didn't affect him at all.

As I approached him, I saw his playful smile, or perhaps I just imagined it, because the dispersed stars on the polluted London sky were almost the only thing that lit my way towards him. He didn't take his eyes of me, or even move, and my heartbeat quickened. What was he doing there? We hadn't randomly run into each other. He had come over to Africa's house to see me. Or to see her. Either way, he clearly had a goal, a purpose, a complicated but undeniable proposition.

"Tessa. You look just the same. Your treatment surely does work." he said.

I stood in front of him, silently. I figured that I should sit with him on the grass, but I was frozen. My heart wasn't even pumping faster anymore. It was frozen too. He had come out of the dimension of my life were I loved him forever, and had compromised my sanity in doing so. He looked just the same as well. His green eyes were piercing even in the dim light. His soft lips looked like poisoned velvet.

"Do you want one?" he asked, offering me a rolled up cigarette.

I coughed.

"No, thanks. There's already enough drug in the atmosphere inside. I need to take in some fresh air."

The second sentence was true, but the reason why I had to breathe slowly wasn't precisely the intoxicating bubble that Africa's house had turned into. He was more intoxicating than that.

"I heard that tobacco sales have increased crazily since your discovery was made public. People love to be able to fill their body with junk without having to die for it. Smoking isn't irresponsible anymore. However, that makes it less interesting, right?"

I didn't know if he was waiting for and answer, or just trying to make the situation less awkward. I decided it was best to sit by him. It would make me look a little less tense.

"I prefered to smoke when it was irresponsible. Irresponsibility is sexy."

No, please. Don't let him start talking about anything related to sex.

"David is here too, right?" he asked, as if he was reading my mind.

He didn't seem to be willing to cooperate in helping me relax, at all.

"Yes. Why?"

"Because he might come here to kick my ass if Africa tells him I'm out in the dark with you."

He turned towards me and looked into my eyes for the first time. He smiled, and I couldn't help to smile as well. I almost fell into his sapphires. I almost reached for his face and kissed him. We were out in the dark together, indeed. Where nobody could see us. All the possibilities that invaded my mind after thinking that made me want to slap myself.

Who was I? Was I suddenly a year younger, running into him at King's College for the first time?

"Why are you here, Luke?"

He exhaled the smoke and faced me again.

"Camille has set up a company to ruin you."

My jaw fell wide open. I hadn't expected anything related to that. I was half shocked and half disappointed. I had thought he had come to talk to me about us, about how he still had feelings for me. I wouldn't have guessed it had to do with professional issues.

But I suddenly understood what company he was talking about.

"Oh no."

"What?"

"Nora's mum came to the hospital to see me today. She rejected her treatment. She said she has joined some kind of stupid suicide cult in which everyone thinks that my treatment makes living completely pointless. I guess that's the company you are talking about."

He laughed, and I looked at him, astonished.

"What exactly is it that you find so amusing about this?"

"You called it stupid suicide cult. I should have suggested that name to Camille."

"What? Are you involved in this as well?"

"No, of course I am not! How could I be, after everything I've shared with you?"

Those words made my whole body tingle. I remembered how his mouth between my legs made me tingle similarly to that, but much more intensely. I blushed. I was thankful that the dispersed, blurred out stars kept my secret. The reminiscences that followed the sizzling ones weren't so enchanting. I could still feel the desperation and the fear that I had felt when I had found his notebook in Camille's bedroom, and had realized that they had perhaps both cooperated to steal my investigation.

It had all turned out to be Abbey's fault, but I still didn't have answers to many of the strange things in which Luke had showed that, after all, he may not have been by my side through all those things he claimed to have shared with me.

"I talk to her, sometimes. We keep in touch. And I warned her that doing this wouldn't benefit her at all."

"I just don't understand. She helped me many times. She never showed that she didn't like the change that my discovery would bring to the world. That night..."

"What night?"

I wanted to tell him about the notebook, but something stopped me. I didn't want him to know that I had been at his place looking for him, like a desperate girl unable to hold herself together.

"It doesn't matter." I said, and I wished he wouldn't ask me further.

"Well, I am glad she founded that company at least for one reason. It brought us back together."

My heart skipped a beat.

"I've missed you, Tessa."

He looked at me, and I turned my head down. I didn't want to face him, because I knew he was going to kiss me if I did. His scent filled the air and made me dizzy, and I didn't know what I was doing there, or who I was, or what time it was.

Why was I sitting on a garden with Luke at two in the morning? What year was it? Why did it feel like I was miles away from London, hidden between the trees at Central Park? Why did it feel like I was miles away from myself?

"I mean... I've missed talking to you... Having you in my life." he said, willing to correct himself.

I looked up.

"I should have been someone else." I said, and smiled.

He lifted his brows, quizzically.

"I should have been someone else's friend, someone they introduced you to at a random party, someone you ended up hooking up with at the outside of a club. And you should have been more careless, and not intelligent enough to get drenched in my craziness, just skilled enough to get into my pants. We should have been other people. That way, we would have run into each other at another random party, we would have exchanged numbers and kept hooking up once in a while, and we would have ended up falling for each other. We should have been other people, and, that way, we would still have each other in our lives."

He was the one to look down then. He nodded.

"Camille was that girl, right? The one you hooked up with at a random party and ended up falling in love with. And, see? You still talk to her."

He looked up, and his sapphires made the night much brighter than the dispersed stars.

"You are right."

I smiled.

"How can you always be so right, Tessa?"

"Don't compliment me that much. Just tell me, do you think I might be right in thinking that Camille might have visited Abbey?"

"What? Why would you think that?"

"I went to see him yesterday."

"Okay, you are always right, and you are always crazy, too."

"He told me that a woman had visited him and told him I would go to him as well, once I found out that not everyone was happy with my revolution."

"And he didn't tell you who that person was?"

"No, I tried to get him to spill it. I even hit him."

"You did what? Gosh, Tessa. I'm taking back what I said, you aren't always right. There's nothing right in hitting someone in a prison!"

He laughed, and I shook my head.

"It doesn't matter now. What I need to know is if you think Camille might have been that woman. We could take her company down if we find out that she's been allied with Abbey in founding it."

"I... I don't know. But we need to go to the prison. He'll listen to me, and he'll answer."

"Why are you so sure?"

"Because he knows that I was the one who put him in prison. He's scared of me."

"Okay." I said, before I could even think straight. "We should go now."

"Now? It's the middle of the night!"

"It doesn't matter. We can make up a reason why we need to see him, but I urgently need to get some answers."

He nodded, stood up, and started to walk towards the house. I stood up quickly and held his arm.

"Stop! What are you doing? We can't go back into the house. We have to get out through the backyard."

"What is it? Are you scared that your boyfriend will catch us fleeing together?"

I sighed, and he smiled.

"Just shut up and follow me."

Just when we were difficultly crossing the fir trees that lined up Africa's backyard, I heard David's voice.

"Tessa? Are you here?"

I covered Luke's mouth before he could do anything stupid, and he kissed my fingers, making me ardently wish, once again, that we were other people.

What did you think of this chapter? Do you think Luke knows more about Camille's intentions than he is letting out? Do you think Camille was the woman who visited Abbey? And do you think she was honest with Tessa the night she found the notebook? 

Let me know in the comments!

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