Determination.

“What does that even mean?”

“He had a strange obsession with Lucien. Everything Lucien did, he wanted to do. Everything Lucien had, he wanted to have. There was one year that he intentionally matched everything Lucien wore. He used to tell everyone that they had the same middle name. He even started talking to another girl in our class named Mia just because that was Lucien’s girlfriend’s name. I never liked him.”

“Lucien never noticed this?”

Mark let out a long, heavy sigh.

“What you need to understand about Lucien, especially at that age, is that he was hungry for validation. Starving for it. If anything, all that strange attention made him feel important. To be perfectly honest, there may even be a good chance he didn’t even notice it. He was so wrapped up in Mia… his world didn’t have capacity for anything else.”

Audrey felt small for a moment.

“He really loved her, didn’t he?”

Mark glanced at her for a moment and noted the sadness in her eyes.

“He thinks he did. That wasn’t love,