Again for the First Time

by Raven St. Pierre

  “Are you seriously filming her right now?” Luke’s voice cut into the scene, but his face wasn’t visible. Immediately after, Matt let the lens of the camera drop toward the grass while he explained, and lied, to Luke that he was just panning the crowd. I paused again, laughing at Matt’s clumsy save, one I was sure Luke had seen through that day just like I did sitting here watching it now.

  I went back to the thumbnails and scrolled through them, staring at the familiar faces that would color this documentary when and if it became as big as Matt thought it would. These faces, these people, would always be a part of me and Luke’s legacy. That’s what this documentary was to me. Our legacy.

  My finger wandered across the cool, smooth surface of the touchpad again and I came to a row of images that made me question my vision.

  But that looks like…

  I leaned in closer, only to have my chest tighten when I realized my eyes hadn’t played tricks on me. The person in the still, the one smiling and laughing with a drink in her hand… was Catarina.

  What the hell was she doing in these shots? I scrolled and clicked like a madwoman, trying to pin down a location or something that would tell me when and where this footage was shot. Was it from Nick’s wedding? No, she was dressed too casually in these pictures for that to have been the case. Besides I’d never forget what she wore to the wedding; that was the first time I’d laid eyes on her in decades.

  I scrolled.

  I clicked.

  And then I found it, the piece of the puzzle that made bile rise to the back of my throat. It was Luke, wearing the black dress shirt and slacks he’d left wearing last night.

  My head spun. As far as I knew, Cat had come and gone, only stopping through to spark me and Luke’s first disagreement. However, based on what I was seeing, she was still here in Lindmore.

  My body slammed against the back of the chair when my strength suddenly left. Why wouldn’t he tell me she was still here? Why was he out with her last night? He lied. He’d said it would only be him and his brothers, but clearly that wasn’t true. Both Cat and Melinda were there last night.

  Everyone but me.

  A familiar feeling, that of being an outsider, crept up my spine and my jaw tensed at the arrival of it. Tears stung the corners of my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. I wouldn’t. Too many tears had been shed over this girl already. I wouldn’t let myself cry because of her again.

  I don’t know if it was curiosity or just intuition, but I moved the cursor back to one of the still image of Catarina near the end and hit play. The screen came to life and my heart took another blow as I let the sight before me sink in. It was Luke and Catarina sitting at a bar. The picture was a bit grainy as it was shot from the far side of the room where Nick and Mel laughed over a game of pool, beer bottles in hand. The lens aimed down to the table when Matt took his turn. Both his hands were in the frame, leaving me to wonder how he was filming and playing at the same time, but my question was answered when he caught sight of himself in a nearby mirror, adjusting a pair of glasses on his face that seemed to move in synch with the camera’s shifting. He was actually wearing the camera. I turned the volume up completely and kept watching.

  Several times Matt looked away, trying to focus on Mel and Nick only, but every now and again, he’d glance back toward Luke and Catarina to see what they were doing, perhaps out of concern. When he looked away the last time, I got frustrated, leaning toward the screen again.

  “Come on, Matt. Go back. Look back over there,” I said as if he could hear me, as if what I was watching was live and hadn’t been filmed the night before. However, the screen shifted that way when I begged hard enough and I thanked him silently.

  Luke and Catarina were standing now; he’d taken his wallet from his pocket and removed a bill from it. He slid it across the bar to the bartender and then stepped back from Catarina about a foot.

  Good. That was a good sign.

  Several moments passed while they stood there and talked. She moved her fingers through her hair casually; he nodded and looked around the room as if trying to avoid eye contact with her. Their interaction was mostly innocent, but the questions still remained: Why didn’t he tell me she was still here? And why were they together last night?

  I took a deep breath and was inching my finger toward the touchpad to skip ahead, but then Catarina moved in closer, placing a hand on Luke’s forearm… just before landing a kiss on his face. She kissed my husband.

  My stomach turned when I hit pause, staring at that single image of her with her lips on him, his cheek. Without thinking, I shoved the laptop across the table, nearly knocking it to the floor, but it came to a stop right at the edge. I was livid. He’d lied. All these weeks he kept this from me. Why would he do that, though? Had he been seeing her behind my back? Clearly this footage had just hinted toward that.

  I paced in the dining room before the tears that’d been threatening finally fell. I felt like I’d been deceive, deceived into thinking things were over with him and Catarina, deceived into thinking I was enough. I should’ve known better.

  I should’ve known.

  In a blur of hurt and anger, I packed all of my things that would fit in my bag, deciding I could do without the rest of it. My only shoes were the heels I’d just worn over, so I snatched them up and shoved them in my purse instead of trying to fit into them with socks on my feet. I had to go, had to get out of there. It felt like Luke had made a fool of me, and once again, Catarina had, too.

  I sniffed back tears as I let his apartment door slam behind me, giving little care for whether it was actually latched or not. All I knew was that I wanted to get as far away from there as I could before Luke came back.

  My things scattered across the backseat when I tossed the bag inside. It was hard to keep my hands from shaking as I put the key in the ignition. I wanted to go home. I wanted to be alone. How could he do this to me?

  I gasped and my eyes darted toward the window when a light tap at it caught my attention. Luke stood there, absolutely confused and clueless as to why I was such a frantic mess.

  “Lissette… open up,” he said, concern and confusion mounting in his tone. “Is everything ok? What happened?” he asked through the closed window as tears wet my cheeks.

  I knew I should hold my tongue. Knew I should just drive off and leave him standing there dumbfounded, but my heart was broken. Maybe on some level, I responded with hopes that there’d be an explanation given. “Catarina happened,” I yelled back, brushing tears away from my face.

  And then it happened; there was a look. It spread across his face slowly as he finally understood. He may not have known the details, may not have known what exactly I’d seen or heard, but he knew I’d figured out that he was hiding something. His eyes slammed shut and he braced his palms against the top of my door.

  “It isn’t what you’re thinking, Lissette. I’d never hurt you,” he insisted. His tone sounded defeated already, like he knew his effort was in vain. It was. I didn’t want to hear it. In fact, I finally stopped shaking long enough to start my engine.

  “Lissette, please. Don’t leave. Just let me explain,” he urged. “There are things you don’t know, things I couldn’t talk about before.”

  I shook my head and shifted into reverse, letting the car ease back before smashing my foot against the gas and forcing him to remove his hands from the door.

  “Wait! Hold on, hold on. Please!” he begged, still sounding muffled through the glass.

  “What?” I hissed. “What could you possibly say that’s gonna fix this, Luke.” I paused and stared, waiting for his reaction when I added, “I saw it all. I saw you with her last night.”

  “Lissette, come on. You know me,” he insisted, but I didn’t feel like I did. Finding out this one thing, seeing him with her, made him feel like such a stranger. “Cat and Mel weren’t supposed to be there last night. I didn’t invite them. That was all Nick.”

  That sounded like a cop out, but
my head spun. I hated not knowing if he was telling me the truth or not. Not knowing if I was just making my heart believe lies because I wanted to believe them, needed to believe them.

  “Why do you think I came home so early last night?” he asked.

  I’d noticed that, but this fact changed very little. “So you mean you didn’t know she was still here until last night?” I asked, silently hoping he’d say yes.

  “No…” he admitted after hesitating a moment, his eyes shifting toward the ground as guilt washed out whatever expression had resided on his face before. “I knew she was still in town,” came out quietly. “I didn’t have anything to do with her showing up last night, though.”

  At the sound of his words, the small ray of hope that maybe I had been mistaken went up in flames. He’d just made it clear that he knew Catarina was still here and just hadn’t said anything, leading me to believe my suspicions about him having contact with her all this time were spot on. I pressed my foot to the gas again, bringing Luke’s eyes back to mine.

  “Please… can you just… can you just park and talk to me?” he asked, the air of desperation in his tone not being lost on me.

  When I blinked, tears squeezed from my eyes. As determined as I was to leave, as angry as I was, my hand went to the gearshift, wordlessly giving in to Luke’s request. Doing so made me feel weak, parking there like he’d asked so he could give me his side of the story. I hadn’t decided if he deserved it yet, but the love I had for him made that irrelevant.

  He breathed a heavy sigh of relief as his gaze momentarily lowered toward the ground. “Thank you,” he said, shaking his head. “Thank you.”

  He rounded my car, passing in front of the headlights. The door handle released when he tugged it before his weight made my car bounce a bit as he sat. I couldn’t even look at him. His nervous energy was stifling, making my pulse race like I imagined his must’ve been. This was bad. I could feel it. I didn’t even have all the details yet, but I knew there was something going on with Catarina behind my back. If there wasn’t, he would’ve told me she was in town, would’ve told me she showed up at his birthday celebration.

  But he didn’t.

  He’d hurt me. Bad. But it was my fault too, for thinking this was all over after the reception. I should’ve known better, should’ve known they wouldn’t be able to let go after all that time together. We had, what… two months under our belt? Nothing compared to the years they had invested. This was my fault. I’d set myself up for failure.

  “Nothing happened,” was where he began. I wanted to believe that, but I’d just seen Catarina make physical contact. Although it was just a kiss to the cheek, it was less about the act and more about the chemistry and body language I’d watched between them in the film clip. She looked at him the way I look at him. It wasn’t just her, though. He, too, stared her way with what I interpreted to be longing behind his eyes. I just couldn’t shake the feeling that they still were, and always would be, connected. Not knowing what it was about her, not knowing what had them bound, I realized I couldn’t compete with that.

  “Why didn’t you tell me she was here? That she showed up last night?” I asked, hating myself for sounding so weak, so needy. But I was. I’m woman enough to admit that, yes, I needed him.

  Luke pushed his long fingers through his hair when he breathed deep, keeping his eyes trained on the dashboard. “There are a lot of reasons,” he answered, reminding me that he’d just made a statement a moment ago about there being things he needed to tell me, things he couldn’t say before. I braced myself as I thought of what those things might be, but I held my breath when he continued. “The main reason I didn’t say anything is because of how seeing her affected you at the reception.” Silence filled the car while it looked like he was revisiting that night in his imagination. “I never wanted to have you feel like that again, like Cat was going to cause you hurt again. I need you to know I didn’t let that happen,” he said, shifting to me. “She hasn’t come between us like you’re thinking.”

  God help me, but I believed him. Maybe it was just that I needed to believe him, but I did.

  “What were your other reasons?” I asked, not wanting him to know just yet that a soft spot still existed in my heart for him.

  He looked through the windshield when he answered, the words leaving his mouth softly and well thought out. “She’s still here because her mother’s health is failing,” he explained as I gave him my full attention. “You wouldn’t have any way of knowing this, but she’s lost a lot. She’s lost a lot of people who were important to her. And…” he shrugged a bit as he zoned out. “I guess on some level, I’m just used to that mattering. Her hurting, that is.”

  That stung, hearing him say that her feelings mattered so much to him. However, I didn’t shut down like I wanted to, mostly because I was glad he was being honest with me.

  “This may be a moot point now, but back when we were all kids, she lost her dad.” I watched him twist his wedding band on his finger while he weighed his words carefully. “It was right before she started targeting you, bullying you,” he added, bringing his gaze toward mine. I listened to see where he was going with this. “That was why she chose you. Your close relationship with your dad was what brought on her rage, because she’d lost hers.”

  I turned away and thought back, wondering how a girl who didn’t know me from a stranger on the street at the time knew how close I was to my father. But then I recalled our first run in, the incident in the bathroom where she flushed my necklace down the toilet. The charm said Daddy’s Girl. I looked at Luke and blinked away another tear, but said nothing.

  “It’s no excuse for what she’s done to you, Lissette. Don’t think for a minute I’m making excuses for her or taking her side, because I’d never do that. These are just things I think you should know. I’m trying to lay it all out on the table,” he insisted, and again, I believed every word he spoke. His head lowered. “But aside from her father, there’ve been greater losses. One greater loss. I…” His words cut off and my eyes went to him, searching for a cause. It shocked me when I found a fresh dousing of pain in his expression.

  The sight of what I assumed to be him hurting for Cat, for what she’d been through, felt like a knife turning in my gut. I hated feeling like I was coming in second place to this girl. I had to speak up.

  “Luke… I’m human, so I can understand how the stuff with my dad made Catarina lash out, but… I have to be honest; I don’t get why you care so much. I don’t get why what she’s going through with her mother is affecting you to the point that you’re hiding things from me.” I held his gaze after explaining my take on the situation. “She’s not your wife, Luke. I am. And while it’s okay to have sympathy for what she’s going through, it’s not okay to run to her aid like some knight in shining armor every time this girl has a bad day!” That last part didn’t come out as poised as I’d hoped, but I made no apologies for being emotional. It needed to be said. If he thought Catarina’s past and her losses excused his behavior, he was wrong.

  Luke shook his head, causing my brow to tense as I wondered what the gesture meant. “Lissette, it isn’t about her mother,” he finally said.

  Then what? If it wasn’t just that he felt bad for her having to deal with her mother’s health failing after already having lost her father, what the hell was he not saying?

  The pained look worsened and I stared on as the whites of Luke’s eyes reddened to the point that tears threatened, but none fell.

  “His name was Marcel.” The words seemed to reverberate off my car’s interior. The name rung a bell, but it took a moment to make the connection.

  Marcel… Luke’s middle name.

  “He was only two when he passed, but… I’ve never been more broken, never seen her more broken,” he added, causing confusion to spike within me.

  I didn’t move a muscle. All my energy had gone into connecting the pieces of the puzzle, but there were still too many gaps, too many thing
s missing. I pushed a hand through my hair and held it there, watching Luke, waiting for further explanation. His head fell back against the headrest as he blew all the air from his lungs.

  “I wanted to tell you. It almost slipped out the day you told me about your condition. That felt like the perfect time to open up about what happened because you were sharing something so personal with me, but… I just… I just couldn’t say the words. I convinced myself that I didn’t want to bring it up because that was supposed to be your moment, but the truth was I just wasn’t ready to talk about it.”

  The pieces were beginning to fall into place, but Luke didn’t leave me in limbo for long. The next moment he revealed it all, shedding some light on what had him so entangled with Catarina, her emotions; what made him more sensitive to her pain than I once thought made sense.

  “We had a son together,” he finally confessed, and my head whirled. I breathed out and didn’t inhale again for a long time. A son.

  “That little boy’s existence righted all my wrongs, Lissette. It was like everything Cat and I had been through was for the purpose of him coming into the world.”

  I was absolutely speechless and so was Luke after that. Silence pressed down upon us both as his confession seemed to suck every single ounce of oxygen out of the car.

  He had a son with Catarina.

  Had.

  I didn’t dare ask what that meant.

  Luke ran his hand across the back of his neck and left it there. I continued to wait in silence.

  “He had leukemia. We lost him a couple months after his second birthday—a year and a half ago.” He took his time explaining the rest and I didn’t press him. “Losing him was my reason for encouraging Cat to get out of here, to leave the country. She needed that, to get out of the town that held so many painful memories for her.”

  My heart ached at the words he’d just spoken. I couldn’t imagine being in his shoes or hers. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered, hesitating only a moment before sliding my hand across the console to hold his. He squeezed my fingers when I did, bringing the back of my hand to his lips to place a single kiss there.