Just One Second Chance by Deborah Cooke

Author:Deborah Cooke
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-988479-37-8
Publisher: Deborah A. Cooke

* * *

Theo saw the difference in Lyssa immediately.

He couldn’t have missed it.

She came into the class after the holiday break with her hair brushed into a sleek ponytail that hung over her shoulder. Her overalls had been replaced with jeans that looked new and a fluffy pink sweater that he would never have imagined her wearing. He was pretty sure she had a manicure and was startled to see that she was wearing make-up. Of course, she was gorgeous, but he’d known that before.

Now she was polished.

What had changed?

She arrived late so that there was no time to talk before the class began. Was that her plan? Theo was bursting with questions but had to sit in silence through a lecture on Keats that he didn’t really hear. Lyssa held herself stiffly and a little bit apart from him, avoiding his gaze, and the combination gave him a really bad feeling.

At the end of the class, she leaned toward him. “Coffee?” she asked, much to his relief.

He nodded and followed her out of the lecture hall. They walked in silence to the same dumpy student coffee bar and claimed their usual table. It was all wrong, though. Lyssa didn’t sit cross-legged on the bench and when he turned to bring the coffees, he was startled again by the change in her appearance.

He felt as if he was sitting with a stranger, and their conversation sure sounded like it. They talked about their respective holidays and visits home politely, as if they were meeting for the first time, then Theo couldn’t stand it any longer.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

Lyssa’s gaze flicked to his and away. She licked her lips and, for the first time ever, Theo thought she might evade a question or lie to him. Then she frowned and leaned closer. “I have to make some changes. Not easy changes.”

“What kind of changes?” Theo was pretty sure he knew what one of them would be.

She was going to dump him.

The possibility made him feel a bit sick.

“I have to make money,” she said, to his surprise. “And I have to do it now.” Her determination was familiar but not her desire. “I’ve done some thinking. I don’t actually want to starve in a garret for the sake of my creative vision, which means I need to make some compromises and changes.”

Theo wondered what had been discussed at her family home at Christmas. “Like what?”

Lyssa winced. “I’m going to quit school.”

“What?”

“It’s an indulgence I can’t afford. Maybe once I find a financial footing, I’ll be able to think about coming back. Right now, it’s about cold, hard cash.”

“I like the watercolors you’ve been doing, though. They seem more expressive.”

“It doesn’t matter. I need to make a change now.”

Something must have happened with her parents, but she was so stubborn and hostile that Theo knew she wouldn’t tell him. “Lyssa! You can’t be planning to abandon your art. It’s what you do. It’s who you are.”

“Well, maybe that was a bad plan.

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