Starcrossed (Starcrossed 1)

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easier for either of them, though it wasn?t like anyone had ever

asked them what they wanted.

?What does it matter how any of us feel?? he muttered. ?If I take

Helen, the war starts all over again. No amount of wishing will

make it different.?

?I don?t know that,? Cassandra replied with more than a little

/> self-doubt. ?I?m not strong enough yet.?

?But you?re pretty sure it is,? he said, sitting down on the end of

his bed, suddenly feeling as if he had taken on two planets? worth

of gravity. ?And don?t pretend you?re not, because not even you can

lie to me.?

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Chapter Eight

Helen spent the next few hours alternately listening to

the details of her father?s trip and insisting that Lucas

was not her boyfriend. She figured out pretty fast that

the only way to get Jerry to stop asking questions about

Lucas was to ask him questions about Kate instead.

And besides, she genuinely wanted to know what was going on

between the two of them. Jerry kept insisting that they had never

been anything more than friends. Disappointed that her dad was

obviously still lugging around a big bag of hurt for her mother, all

Helen wanted was to escape upstairs to her room to think, but she

had to wait until they finished dinner first. By the time she and her

father were done eating, arguing over how much salt he was allowed

to put on his dinner, and talking about the store, Helen was