With so much on my mind, I’m almost insulated from the stares I seem to get, wherever I go in school. Even without seeing any expressions, I’m sure everyone is blaming me for Luke’s injury and his related absence. I’ve proved them right—proved that I am bad for him, a problem, something to be avoided. My fault still floats inside my head, a thick and viscous thought, so it’s not like I can disagree.
Maybe Marissa was right, too. Maybe Luke would never have looked at me or spoken to me again, if not for our time being lost together. Maybe the old closeness we shared should have stayed buried, always. It’s something I’d wish for, if it would make Luke better, and if I had the heart for it.
The days go on like this for one week, and then another, and another. I don’t see Luke, don’t hear from him, except to receive a single, brief and only partially satisfying text two days after seeing him in the hospital: I’m home, doing OK.
Luke, that’s so good to hear. Thanks for letting me know.
My fingers tremble as I try to think of how to say everything I can while there’s a chance he might listen.
Bill was suspended. They said he’d be expelled if he had any more contact with you. Just thought you should know.
And, Luke, I’m so sorry.
He doesn’t reply, and even though he never leaves my thoughts, I think he’s left my life.
Twenty-Nine
One of Those Girls
With Nina and Josie’s help, which consists of equal parts support and distraction, I’ve been holding things together, at least in public. When I’m alone, though, most of my energy has gone to trying to rebuild the wall I’d used to fortify my feelings in the past. So far, none of those efforts have worked. The wall and I keep crumbling.
My mom walks in on me at one such moment. I’ve been working on an essay, and trying hard to block all thoughts of Luke, only to be bombarded by them. My mom arrives at the door, sees something wrong in my face and asks if I’m all right. I haven’t even finished nodding, when tears fill my eyes and spill over.
“I’m so sorry you’re hurting, honey,” she says, seating herself beside me on my bed, giving my back a reassuring rub.
I wipe my cheeks over and over again, trying to summon the ability to speak, and she waits.
“God, I’m so pitiful,” I say at last, turning away so her face can’t look too closely into mine.
“You’re not. No one can be strong all the time.”
“Well, I don’t feel strong at all lately. I feel weak and hopeless and like…like one of those girls who pins all her happiness on a guy. Pitiful.”
“Are you?”
“Pitiful? Didn’t you just tell me I wasn’t?”
“I don’t mean ‘pitiful.’ I mean: are you one of those girls?”
Luke’s face, now and in childhood, flickers through my mind; I see my dad’s face, too. When I try to answer, the thickness in my throat narrows my voice. “I think I might be.”
“Is this all about Luke, then?”
I want to crumple into a ball at the sound of his name. I don’t. That’s a bridge I’m not yet ready to cross.
“It’s about him.”
“Okay. Would you like to share more?” The phantom of a cringe floats behind her sympathetic expression. There are things she doesn’t want to know, and I don’t blame her. There are things I don’t want to say. Not now, maybe not ever.
“He doesn’t want to see me.”
“You two broke up?”
“I guess so. I don’t know if we were ever officially going out.”
“From what you told me, I would hope that you were.” It’s a sex-related comment, and again, I don’t blame her. She’s not wrong.
“Okay, but even if we were going out before, I don’t know what we are now. He won’t talk to me.”
“Do you think it’s because of his injury? That maybe he just needs time to feel better?” Her hand stretches out to touch mine. She pats the tips of my fingers a couple of times, and then her hand rests on the bed. Separate from mine, but close.
“No, it’s more than that. Besides, he talked to me when he was hurt in the mountains, and he talked to me when he was hurt when we were kids.”
My mom stiffens. Her fingers curl under to hide against her palm. The past is a difficult place for both of us to go, and a lot of that is my fault.
The guilt inside me awakens. It closes like a flash flood over my head even before I see it rising, and my cheeks get a fresh coating of tears. This time they’re not over Luke, but they do make me think of something he said. You’re not the only one who got hurt all those years ago.
“It’ll be okay.” My mom’s fingers reappear, and wrap around mine. “I know it doesn’t feel like that right now, but you will get past this pain.”
She’s speaking from experience, from the very pain Luke was referencing. I’ve been so wrapped up in my own guilt over what I’ve done to everyone, that I’ve forgotten about each of them individually, along with their feelings. I’ve used my guilt to protect myself, and used it as an excuse to hold my secret close, too.
I look up at my mom, force myself to meet her gaze. “I never apologized to you, all those years ago. I never even explained.”
“What? I don’t know what you’re talking about, Layla,” she says, sitting up straighter, eyeing me warily. Maybe she doesn’t want to revisit her old pain. I understand that, but I also know this apology is long overdue, and she deserves to hear it.
“Mom, I knew the truth about Dad. I saw it for myself, and…I know you must have, too.” I don’t go further than this, because I can only imagine the details are no easier for her to hear than they are for me to say. “I don’t know if you can ever forgive me, but I’m sorry.”
She draws back further, the tables turned: she’s become the one with the raw emotions. She falters for a moment, glances at the door like she might run, turns back instead and wraps her arms around me. “No,” she says, “there’s nothing to forgive. What happened back then revolved around the choices of two adults. Not a child.”
“But, if it wasn’t for me, Luke’s mom might have stayed, and maybe Dad—”
“Is that what you would’ve wanted? For everyone to carry on blindly, never knowing the truth?”
“No, it’s just…” I hesitate. What is it I’ve been wishing for all this time?
“The truth is better,” my mom says, and I understand the effort it must have taken for her to arrive at that point of view. “I think it’s time you recognized that, yourself.”
Thirty
Something Meaningful,
Something Real
On Valentine’s Day, just over three weeks after his fight with Bill, Luke is back at school. I don’t know this until I’m at my locker before first period, trying to slide my English Lit text from beneath an unstable stack of books, and there’s movement in my peripheral vision. I turn and Luke is there, standing beside me. His face is set, and he doesn’t say anything at first, but he’s there and he’s real, right in the jumbled mess of everyone.
“I lied,” he says. “Sort of.”
He holds out a CD, and I recognize it as the mix from our ride to the mountains, the one that made me think he was heartbroken over Marissa.
“I told you I didn’t make this for anyone, and that’s true, but you were on my mind whenever I added a song. I promised myself I’d give it to you one day, so…you should have it.”
People are staring, and part of me wants to remind Luke of who he is, how much he’s seen by the kids in this school. Another part of me wants to ask how he has the CD, when it should still be in his upside-down truck. Still another part wants to grab onto him and never let go, because this CD could mean a few different things, and one of them is goodbye.
I hold out my hand, because accepting—regardless of what it might signify—seems like a thing I need to do.
Luke sets the CD in my palm and nods like he’s completed a task, checked something off a list. He tells me he has to go,
and he leaves. I hardly notice how many eyes are on me after he’s gone, because my gaze is locked on Luke’s back, on how he’s moving further and further into the distance.
♦ ♦ ♦
The CD sits on top of my notebook all through English class, flipped over, so I can read and reread the song titles, written in the scrabbly handwriting familiar from my childhood, become only a little neater over time. So much on this playlist. Lust, devotion, heartache, more.
Too many things to process, but they all tell me that whatever this has been between Luke and me, it wasn’t about the physical—although that was part of it. It wasn’t about a rebound from Marissa, either, and it wasn’t about bonding over our survival in the mountains. It’s bigger and older than any of those things.
I believe this because the last song on the CD is “This Twilight Garden,” the song from our first dance, our first kiss.
But that’s not all. I believe this because I know Luke. Whatever he’s been feeling has been something real for him, and even if things have ended between us, he deserves something real from me in return.
I don’t see him in Spanish, and I worry that he’s gone home for the day—that maybe he’s only returned on a part-time basis. Later, though, he’s there in the lunchroom.
I’ve put away the CD by then, but I retrieve it from my bag, and before I can wimp out, I rise from my seat at the table I’m sharing with a few people from my group, and Nina and Josie nudge me forward. “Go,” they say, and I start walking.
Luke has his back to me, but some of his friends don’t, and a few of them watch my approach. They aren’t the only ones. As I continue forward, stares catch hold of me on all sides, sticking like burrs.
My palms are sweating by the time I reach Luke, and I’m kind of breathless. The journey wasn’t long, but it was hard, and it’s not over.
“Luke,” I say. This is the important part. If he doesn’t turn around, if the CD really did mean goodbye, if he’s decided he no longer cares—
He turns to me, his gaze even. Maybe he’s surprised that I’m talking to him in the cafeteria, the school’s most public venue, but he doesn’t show it. He doesn’t show anything. He watches me, his face wiped clean of emotion, and waits. I hold out the CD.
“You’re returning it?” His eyes narrow ever so slightly.
“No. Not unless you want it back.”
He gives an almost imperceptible shake of his head, and I hesitate, before speaking in a rush. “Luke, I get it. That’s what I came over here to say.”
“Good,” he tells me. I shift my weight from one leg to another. People continue to stare, and it feels heavy. “Anything else?” he asks.
“Yes. Um, can I talk to you?” My gaze skims the area around us. “Maybe outside?”
He nods, rises from the cafeteria bench, and I back up to give him space. “Lead the way,” he tells me when he stands.
I half expect him not to follow. But he does, and he even steps around me to open the door.
It’s chilly outside, but not cold. Not like the day when Nina and I got locked out in the courtyard, and Luke had to come to our rescue. Will anyone open the door for us this time, or am I robbing Luke of his power?
The moment I stop walking, I turn to face him, drawing in a deep breath. Nothing is released. I’ve waited all this time, just to chicken out.
The crinkle shows up in Luke’s forehead. He doesn’t frown, like I expect he might, but speaks, instead. “I’m finished with football.”
The breath goes out of me. “Luke, I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks, but it was my decision. Mine and the doctor’s.”
“Oh? How did your parents take it?”
“My mom agreed with me. She’s been pretty okay through this, actually. My dad didn’t take it well, but I told him my mind was made up, so there isn’t a whole lot he can do about it. Anyway, I think it’ll be all right. The doctor talked to me about the risks of having multiple concussions, and what another might do to me, long-term, and none of it seemed worth it. I’m not sure what life without football will mean for college, since I’ll lose my scholarship…but, I can’t help feeling kind of optimistic about the whole thing. It’s like I’m free, for the first time since I can remember.”
I watch his face, wonder what that kind of freedom must feel like.
He becomes quiet, watching me back. It’s my turn to speak.
“Luke, I’m really sorry for not telling you about being late. I just didn’t think I could be…” I drop my sentence, again at a loss.
“Pregnant,” he says for me.
“Yes. I didn’t think I was, but it would’ve been both of ours, and you had a right to know. I should’ve talked to you about it. I guess I didn’t feel ready to face the possibility, especially when things seemed to be going wrong between us again.”
“Do you understand how hard that is, knowing that when life gets tough, you head the other way?”
“You’re right, and that’s not what I want. I know that now.”
“What do you want?”
You. I want you. That’s what I wish I could say, but it might not be something he’s interested in hearing. “I want to be honest with you.”
“I want that, too, and I want you to trust me enough to know you can be. The thing is, you must’ve been scared, right? When you were late? So why didn’t you think you could come to me with that?”
I glance over at the cafeteria windows, at all the craning necks, the faces turned our way. I shake my head, unable to answer.
“That’s what bothers me the most,” Luke says, stepping into my line of sight, frowning.
“Well, what about you? You’ve pushed me away, too.” I hesitate, but something inside me feels like it’s waited long enough. “Luke, haven’t you wondered how I knew to call your mom?”
His frown deepens. “She’s still my mom, even if she was gone, so…”
“Yes, but was she really gone?”
“Before you called her to come to the hospital, the last visit we’d had together was when I was thirteen. You know that.”
“She’d been in contact, though. She’d called you pretty recently?”
He nods. “A few times.”
“So, aren’t you wondering how I knew?”
“I guess I told you in the mountains, maybe after the accident.”
“You didn’t tell me, Luke.”
“Okay. Then…?”
“Marissa told me the day you and I met at the auditorium.”
“Oh.”
“Oh?”
“Well, that explains some things, but I don’t really know what to say. I’m sorry you found out through Marissa. That must’ve hurt.”
“It did. It hurt a lot to know you’d shared this thing with her, this really big, important thing, and never said a word about it to me.”
Luke listens, his face closed off, unreadable. “It wasn’t like that. Marissa only knew because she kept calling and texting one night, back before we broke up for the last time. I was on the phone with my mom, and I had to say something so Marissa would leave me alone, but I never got into any of the details with her.”
Some of the righteousness deflates from my side of the discussion, but I’m still on the defense. “Even so, you never mentioned anything about it to me, but you say I’m the one pushing you away.”
“I wasn’t trying to keep anything from you, Layla. I didn’t want to talk about it until I figured out how I felt, and since you hate my mom, I doubt you would’ve encouraged a relationship.”
“That’s not fair, not at all. I don’t hate your mom. I feel a lot of things, but it’s not fair of you to put that on me.”
“Fine. Sorry.” He turns his head, focuses somewhere in the distance before coming back to me. “Still, I don’t think you should keep talking about being fair.”
“Why?” My heart speeds up. Guilt is such a chronic reaction for me that I can’t help but be wary, especially as I watch the hardness spread through his ey
es.
“Because I know how it feels,” he says, slowly, “to have someone you care about keep something meaningful from you. Something you have a right to know.”
His words could apply to more than the pregnancy test, but he can’t realize this, and I’m too afraid to tell him. We’re both quiet, waiting, caught in some kind of limbo.
“Luke, if you’re talking about the pregnancy test, I honestly am sorry.”
“Okay, and if I’m not?”
If not? He couldn’t know about me and what I did those years ago. But maybe it’s time for that to change.
The truth is better. My mom’s words come back to haunt me, like Luke’s did when I was speaking with her about the past, and it’s because Luke ought to know what really happened, and he should get the apology from me he deserves.
My heartbeat rises into my throat; it might pound through my words if I speak. I have to speak. “Luke, there’s something I need to tell you, something big. Something you might not be able to forgive.”
His gaze falters, but to his credit, it doesn’t break. He stays silent, which means I have to keep going.
“When we were kids, when our parents had the…”
“Affair.”
“Yes, affair. And your mom left.”
“Yes?”
“There was a reason she left. A reason she had to leave.”
Luke’s eyes look glossy, locked on mine like the rest of the world has disappeared for him.
“Luke, the reason they were discovered…it was my fault.” I start to cry, honest to God, right in front of all those windows. I swallow maybe five times before I can speak again. “I—oh, God Luke, I can’t do this here. I have to tell you, but not here.”
His gaze drops away from me.
“Tonight? Can I come to your house?” I ask, trying to meet his eyes, because I want him to know I’m not going to desert him again.
“Okay,” he says, his voice so quiet I can barely hear the words. “But can you come here, first?”
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