Defy the Stars Read Online Free PDF

was out of breath, panting, as if he’d been running. He saw me and his whole face relaxed with relief.
    We stared at each other for a few seconds.
    ‘Do you know that young man, River?’ Mrs Anderson asked suspiciously.
    ‘Er, yes.’ My cheeks burned as I scuttled across the café, past all the watching customers. I reached Flynn, still standing in the doorway. A breeze was whipping inside,
fluttering the cloth on the nearest table.
    ‘Are you coming in or going out?’ snapped the elderly lady at the table.
    Flynn ignored her. Actually I’m not sure he even heard her. He was still staring at me, his eyes – the green speckled with gold – shining with happiness.
    ‘Thank God I found you,’ he said. ‘I’ve been looking everywhere. You said a Saturday job in a café in Norton; I’ve been to every single one.’ He
paused. ‘I would have come to the commune, but I thought your dad might shoot me, so . . .’
    ‘Come on.’ I grabbed his arm and walked him out on to the pavement. The sky was filling with scurrying clouds and there was a chilly breeze in the air. Saturday afternoon traffic
zoomed up and down the road. My insides were somersaulting. What was Flynn doing here? Why had he tracked me down like this?
    I let go of Flynn’s arm and walked along the pavement. Flynn strode beside me. He was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved top. The clothes were far less formal than the suit he’d been
in last week, but still looked insanely expensive.
    ‘Why did you run off?’ he asked, his voice low and intense. ‘You said you’d stay. You said we could talk. I . . . I . . .’
    Fury rose up inside me. This was so typical of Flynn, full of big expansive gestures. Arriving like a storm, leaving destruction in his wake.
    I stopped walking and turned on him.
    ‘I left because it was too hard to see you,’ I said. ‘You might be all “Let’s be friends, River, yeah? Going out was so last year, let’s have a chat and catch
up, blah blah blah,” but I can’t do that, okay? I
can’t
be friends with you.’
    Tears rose in my eyes. I turned away. This was awful. Humiliating. I should never have gone to that wedding. I’d been trying so hard to put Flynn in the past and here he was, larger than
life, bruising back into my world again.
    Bringing with him nothing but pain.
    ‘River?’ Flynn’s voice sounded broken.
    I turned. To my surprise tears were welling up in his eyes. I’d never seen him cry before. Well, I had. Twice. But both times before he had fought back the tears, wiping them angrily away.
Now his eyes glistened and a single tear leaked on to his cheek as he spoke.
    ‘I’m so sorry, Riv,’ he said, his voice cracking. ‘I just . . . it was . . . seeing you. Something . . . I can’t . . . explain. I’ve tried to remember what
you said, when I saw you last Christmas, how you’re all convinced I don’t love you . . . and I know that I shouldn’t bother you any more . . . that you’re probably with
someone else. And even if you aren’t, you probably don’t think about me any more . . . I threw all that away . . . I hurt you. I was such an idiot.’ He balled his hands into fists
at his sides.
    ‘Why are you here?’ My own voice was shaking now. It wasn’t fair Flynn doing this, pouring this avalanche of emotion all over me.
    ‘I need to make you understand why I left, Riv,’ he said, the tear he’d shed now dry on his cheek. ‘Back last year I had to get away, sort out my head, away from college
and the commune. I never stopped thinking about you or caring about you,’ he pleaded. ‘I
told
you. See, I still wear it, Riv.’ He tugged at his top, pulling out a tiny
blue R on a worn leather string. ‘R for River.’
    I stared at the little R, remembering the day he had put it on and how happy we had been. “‘R for River”. That’s what that friend of yours, Cody, said at the
wedding.’ I took a step away.
    Flynn scowled. ‘Yeah, Cody guessed it was