The Banned Daughter

What He Left Behind

“I don’t.”

The words hang between us.

Jace’s hands are still beneath the running water. Mine are curled around the edge of the counter hard enough that my nails bite into the wood. For a moment, neither of us moves.

Then he turns off the faucet.

The sudden quiet is worse.

“You used to know me,” he says.

His voice is so low I almost miss it.

I laugh, but there’s nothing funny in it. “Did I?”

His jaw tightens.

“You did.”

“No.” I shake my head, the anger that has been simmering beneath my skin all night finally finding somewhere to go. “I knew a boy who made me promises under the stars. I knew a boy who told me he loved me. I knew a boy who said he’d call me every day if he ever had to leave.”

Jace’s face goes pale.

I keep going anyway.

“He disappeared the same night he told me forever.”

“Firefly—”

The name catches beneath my ribs.

For one awful second, I am ten years old again, racing barefoot through the yard with a mason jar clutched in both hands while Jace laughs behind me. He had called me Firefly because I always wanted to catch the little lights dancing in the dark, only to let them go again once I had them.

I turn to face him. “No. You don’t get to call me that. You don’t get to stand here and act hurt because I didn’t tell Rowan the whole truth.”

His hands flatten against the edge of the sink.

“I’m not acting.”

“Then what are you doing?”

His eyes finally lift to mine.

I almost wish they hadn’t.

The anger I expected is there. So is guilt. But there is something else beneath both of them, something so raw it makes my breath catch.

“I didn’t know you were here,” he says.

A laugh slips out of me, sharp and humorless. “Neither did I, until two days ago.”

“I mean it. I didn’t know you and Rowan were engaged. I didn’t know you were coming here.”

“And if you had?”

He hesitates.

The pause is answer enough.

I look away before he can see how much that hurts.

“Exactly.”

“Your father told me not to call,” he says quietly.

My head snaps back toward him.

“What?”

Jace’s face closes off almost immediately, as if he has said too much. “There are things you don’t know.”