by Hattie Lou
It’s hard to figure out what’s going on in his mind. Luke doesn’t seem like the same person when he is with Erika. He’s more isolated. When he is with me, we can talk about anything. I feel like he tells me the truth. He told me how fake Hollywood is. How he loves fame and will do anything to stay relevant.
With Erika, he is a guy who is faking happiness and love. Luke seems to be living two lives. Luke should only be living a life that makes him happy.
Luke opens the front door and sees me sitting on the couch. “Come with me.” He says.
“What? Where’s Katherine?” I suddenly start to worry. It’s getting late. He was supposed to pick her up from Ben’s an hour ago.
“She’s with Ben. I want some alone time with you.” He tilts his head to outside where I follow him. He walks to his car and gets in. I follow his lead and do the same thing as I slide into the passenger seat.
The ride is quiet. Neither of us speak. He doesn’t turn on the radio. We sit in silence during the drive. There’s not much to say. He’s taking me somewhere but doesn’t say where. We haven’t spoken much since Erika arrived. I’m not sure where we stand right now.
This afternoon, I heard him and Erika talking in the bedroom before she left. She was telling him how she couldn’t wait for him to come back to LA. Apparently, he has a movie coming out in a few months that he never told me about. I guess he didn’t because we aren’t a couple, but yet, Erika knows everything about his schedule. They talk a lot for not being a real couple. Luke doesn’t talk much about Hollywood when he’s with me.
“Hold on tight.” He warns me as he makes a sudden turn up a dirt road that’s hidden somewhere in a wooded area. He stops the car and puts it in park.
“Where are we?” I ask as he opens his door.
“My grandparents used to bring me up here when I was little. It has an amazing sunset view.”
I step out of his vehicle and look around. The place has a peaceful feeling to it. We are surrounded by trees and dirt. I take in the smell of nature as I step onto the gravel. The smell of the trees reminds me of the times when Ethan took me camping. I used to have the smell in my nose for days. There’s something about being out in the woods that makes me feel alive. It can also be scary when you think about wild animals watching you.
“Come.” He says, holding his hand out to me and I take it without hesitating.
We walk for several minutes until we are all the way on top. I can see a cliff from a distance. He continues to hold my hand as we walk closer towards it.
I catch a glance of the city below us and close my eyes. “You know how I feel about heights.” I cringe, hiding behind his shoulder, trying my best not to look. I don’t want to see how close we are to falling.
He chuckles. “Do you trust me?” He asks.
“I do,” I say without thinking. I trust Luke with my life. He would protect me if I needed him to.
“Then you have nothing to be afraid of. I got you.” We take a seat on the edge of the cliff. The city looks so small all the way up here.
I try not to show Luke that I’m scared about how close we are to falling over. I move closer to him as he places his arm around me, letting me rest my head on his chest. It feels good to be close to him again.
We watch as the sun slowly begins to go down. The streetlights in a distance begin to come on as do the headlights from cars coming from every direction.
“I’m not the guy for you, Olivia. I can’t give you what you truly deserve.” Luke says, referring to what I said the other day when I told him that I felt something for him. I have felt it for some time but I don’t know why I told him. I should have kept my mouth shut.
I don’t look at him. I keep my eyes on the view of the city below us. I blink my eyes trying to stop them from getting watery. “I know,” I say.
“You probably don’t feel anything for me. Maybe you are confused since I’m the first guy you have been with since your husband passed away.”
I don’t say anything. I disagree with him. What I feel for him is real. I’m not confused.
“Look at me.” He says, touching my chin to turn my head to face him. “I told you from the start that there was no commitment here.”
“I know,” I whisper, ashamed that I didn’t keep my promise.
“You should be with a guy who puts you and Savannah first. Someone who loves you and not his career.”
I hate Luke for being right. I need someone who will always be there when I need him. Someone who isn’t afraid of commitment and wants to be my only one and not shared with some other women.
He leans close to me and runs his thumb on my cheek. “I am not sure how long I’m here for, but If you want us to continue what we have been doing then it’s fine with me. I’ll understand if it’s too much for you. I don’t want you to think I’m pressuring you. I just don’t want to hurt you in the end.” He says, honestly.
I look him in the eyes as I think. There is a part of me that wishes he would just leave and go back to LA so I can learn to live without him. On the other hand, I want him to stay. I like having him here. “I would like to continue whatever you call this until you leave.”
“Good.” He says, as he turns his attention towards the sun as it’s making its way down. We don’t speak as we sit and watch the view.
Chapter Twenty-three
Luke
I’m in the middle of writing my story when I hear heavy footsteps running down the hallway.
“Come in the kitchen!” Olivia says, standing in the doorway. She quickly runs back into the kitchen without telling me what’s going on.
I walk into the room to see Mom and her sitting at the table. Mom is facing the deck and doesn’t see me. I don’t understand what’s going on. Everything looks the same to me like it does every morning.
“Katherine, you have a visitor,” Olivia says before looking up at me.
She turns around and sees me. “Luke?” She says with a big smile on her face.
I blink for a second trying to figure out how she knows who I am all of a sudden. This must be what Olivia was talking about when she said Mom has good days and remembers more than usual.
I walk over to her and kneel next to where she’s sitting. “Hey, Mom.”
She wraps her arms around me, bringing me back to when I was little. She gave the best hugs. No matter how old I got over the years, I always remembered how good her hugs were. Now I realize just how much I have been missing them. “What are you doing here, honey?”
“I had some time off. I came to see you.”
Her eyes start to tear up at the same time as Olivia’s does. “Oh, honey. I need to introduce you to my friend Olivia. She has been staying with me.”
“Hi,” Olivia says with a friendly wave as we pretend we never met before.
“Hi, Olivia,” I say, making her smile.
“Sit down and have breakfast. I want to hear what you have been up to these past few years.” She says, excited.
I can’t believe she remembers who I am. I have been waiting for a good day like this since I came here and it’s finally here! I pull out a chair and catch her up with everything while Olivia pretends to be doing the dishes. I think she is afraid to leave me with her because Mom may get confused at any moment.
“No girlfriend?” She asks, disappointed at me for not bringing anyone to meet her.
“Nope.” I don’t mention Erika. Mom wouldn’t like her. She’s the opposite of what Mom would expect me to date. Mom has stated in the past that she wanted me to only date classy women who have the potential to be my wife.
“How’s a handsome man like you still single?” Mom ask and I tell her I still haven’t found any wife material.
“I have never been one to care about relationships.” It’s true. I was the one in high school who had a new girlfriend every week.
Mom leans in to whisper. “Just so you know, Olivia is single. She’s a sweetheart. Would make a perfect wife.” She says, giving me a win
k.
I laugh to myself thinking if Mom only knew what Olivia was doing while she was sleeping. She wouldn’t be calling her a sweetheart, not that I’m complaining. “Are you trying to tell me that I should ask her out?”
“Yeah, I bet my grandbaby would look so cute. You two would make a beautiful couple. Her daughter, Savannah, is the sweetest little thing you will ever meet. I wish she was here for you to meet.”
Olivia is so shocked by Mom’s words that she coughs on her drink.
I laugh as I watch Olivia. “Mom, why don’t we go out?”
“Sure. I could use some fresh air. We might have to stop by the nursing home.”
“You want to visit someone?”
“No! I just want to show off my Hollywood son. Some of my friends thought I was lying when I told them about you. They wanted to know why you never showed up during my birthday or on Mother’s Day.” She gets up to grab her jacket from her room.
I walk over to Olivia and put my arms around her as she is still standing in front of the sink. “Where do you think we should take her?”
“You got your mom back for the day. Think of something while you are driving her to the nursing home. I’m going to stay here.”
I spin her around to face me. “What happens if she has an episode while we are out?”
She puts her hand on the side of my face. “Luke, you got this. I have seen you with her these past few days. You’re doing a good job. You’ll know what to do.” She tells me as she stands on her toes and kisses the side of my face. “Have fun and don’t do anything that will make her too tired. Enjoy this day.”
Olivia
With Katherine spending the day with Luke, I had the whole day to myself. I was at the cemetery most of the afternoon planting flowers in front of Ethan’s tombstone and ripping the weeds out. It was my first time at the cemetery since I ran out of the house when Luke started to question me about Ethan. I used to come often, but lately I don’t make many visits which makes me feel guilty.
Today I find myself thinking about Ethan a lot. It was on this day he proposed to me during our trip to the Grand Canyon. I stare down at the photo he took just a few seconds after I said yes. It was the best day of my life until I had Savannah. We were so happy. He just got accepted into the military. Our life together was going good. We were in love and happy. Nothing else mattered. Who would have thought that his life would be cut so short?
I wonder what our lives would have turned out to be like if he didn’t die. What kind of father would he have been to Savannah? I bet he would have spoiled her like crazy. We used to talk about the future and he told me several times how he wanted us to have three kids. We were going to live somewhere in the south on a farm where we would raise animals and teach our kids all about the cows and horses. I’ll never get a farm or have two more children with Ethan. All the dreams that we had died the day that he died. I will never have a future with Ethan.
An envelope falls out and onto the bed. Ethan used to write to me all the time. It’s the last letter he ever wrote me. I have only read it two times because reading it makes me sad.
In the letter he talked about how he had been in Iraq for two weeks. He was happy to be back with the guys, but he didn’t like that he was away from me. There were nights where he couldn’t sleep so he would stare at my photo for hours. He promised me that when he got home we would take a trip somewhere far away. Away from the battlefield and all the chaos he had been dealing with.
I didn’t receive the letter until a week after I found out he died. Him and his guys were ambushed by a civilian that the guys were protecting. They were betrayed and it costed them their lives.
Luke and Katherine aren’t home yet. I don’t want to call and check in on them. I want Luke to really enjoy this day with her. She may not have another good day while Luke is here. I hope he takes advantage of this precious time he has with her today.
The mattress dips down, waking me up. “Hi.” He whispers into my ear.
“Did you just get in?” I ask, looking up at the clock. It’s a little after ten. I have been sleeping for nearly two hours.
“Yeah.” He kisses my shoulder.
I’m about to get up to go over Katherine’s routine with her for the night when Luke stops me. “She’s sleeping. I helped her to bed, locked all the doors, and set the alarm.”
I smile at him for remembering. I turn to face him when I see the photo album is still in my arms. I must have fallen asleep holding it.
Luke looks down and stares at the picture on the page that I left open, the one from the Grand Canyon. “You look very happy in that photo.”
“I was. He proposed to me that day.”
He raises his brows. “At the Grand Canyon?”
“Yeah, we used to go hiking a lot. We were an outdoor couple. He loved nature and everything it had to offer.” During the summer months, we used to go camping. I wasn’t too big on it. I prefer sleeping in a nice cozy bed rather in a tent over rocks that would dig into my back when I was sleeping. As much as it bothers me, I never complained to Ethan. Camping made him happy which made me happy.
Luke takes his shirt off and tosses it onto the bedroom floor before lying down. He closes the book and pulls me to his chest. “Tell me about Ethan.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Anything. How you met or how you ended up in this town.”
“We met at a young age in school. He was the new boy in town. I was a teenager but I already knew I was going to marry him someday. My friends said I was crazy for thinking about marriage at that age. I wasn’t. Everything about him felt so right. Ethan knew he wanted to be in the Army since he was fourteen. He got recruited in high school. We moved here to be close to his base. I had everything on our wedding day except my parents’ permission to marry him which is the main reason why we eloped.”
“They didn’t like him?” He asks, rubbing my arm.
“It wasn’t him. They weren’t happy that I didn’t stay in my hometown to go to college after graduation. They had different plans for me. They wanted me to go to college and have a career.” I say, running my finger up his chest.
“Do your parents know about Savannah?”
I shake my head. “Not too many people know about Savannah. The town we grew up in is pretty small. I’m sure they know that Ethan died, but still, they didn’t bother to reach out to me. That’s fine. I survived this long without them.”
“What was your plan? What did you want to do with your life after high school?” He asks, staring at me curiously.
I take my time as I think about the question. I never made any plans for myself. I knew I wanted to be with Ethan. My life was Ethan. There wasn’t a career I was seeking. Nothing ever excited me. College never entered my mind because I knew that would take our time away. “I wasn’t big on planning for the future. I’m more of a day to day person. After he died, I found out that I was pregnant with Savannah. He didn’t know that he was going to be a dad. I met Katherine shortly after and started working here.”
He kisses my forehead. “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine how painful that was for you to lose him.”
“It was tough but I got through the ordeal.”
“I didn’t come here to visit Mom for years because I knew that Dad wasn’t here, so I avoided coming back. I’m used to seeing them always together. I know that losing him had to be tough for her and there was nothing that I could do to make her pain go away, so I stayed away.” He says as he runs his hand down my back.
I place my chin up to his chest and look up at him. “I understand what you are saying, but that isn’t how life works. You can’t avoid situations like that. Running from your problems won’t solve anything. It won’t give you closure. You will only regret the decisions in the end.”
“I know. Now I have to deal with the consequences of my actions. I wasted my time with Mom because I wanted to avoid my Dad’s death and the grief that came with it. I could’ve been here with he
r instead of avoiding her.”
“It’s not too late. She’s still here.” I remind him.
Chapter Twenty-four
Olivia
I wake up to the best way possible, Luke’s hands making their way all over my naked body. I pretend to be asleep. I don’t want him to stop touching me. I love the way he touches my skin like it’s fragile. He takes his time like I could break if he gets rough.
He blows on my neck causing me to giggle. “I was waiting for you to open your eyes. I saw your eyes twitching a few minutes ago so I knew you were faking it.” He says, burying his mouth into the crook of my neck.
“What can I say? I was enjoying your mouth on me.” I say, giggling.
“I heard today’s your birthday.” He whispers into my ear before biting on my ear lobe.
“How?” I ask, Katherine barely remembers what today's date is. There’s no way she remembered that today is my birthday.
He pulls back and looks down at me. “Ben told me.”
I raise my brow. “Ben talks to you?” I can’t recall Luke and Ben talking whenever Ben stops by the house.
He chuckles. “Not exactly.” He reaches for my phone on the nightstand. “He texted you happy birthday an hour ago.” He rolls over to his side of the bed and places one hand behind his head. “So, how old are you today, birthday girl?”
I grab his bedsheet and wrap myself in it. I love the way it smells like him. The smell of the cologne always drives me crazy. It’s so powerful and sexy that I can’t help but to smile when I get a riff of it. “Some women don’t reveal their real age.” I tease, sticking out my tongue.
“You aren’t going to tell me? I will just text Ben and ask. I’m sure he knows.” He says smirking.
“I’m not telling. How old are you?”
“I’m surprised you didn’t look it up on the internet.”
I have actually thought about doing that, but I felt like it’s invading his privacy. I don’t feel like spying on him. If he wants me to know things about his personal life then I’m sure he’ll tell me himself.
“I’m twenty-eight.”