Just a Little Sequel

by Tracie Puckett

  Back by the giant oak tree and just in front of the fence at the far end, my parents’ grave rested, shaded and decorated by the natural colors of the fallen leaves.

  I’d been there a lot over the last year, and I’d managed to come each time without shedding a tear. I’d always found something to talk about: Matt, Charlie, Luke, Derek, school, work, the everyday things. And by keeping my mind focused on what I had as opposed to what I’d lost, most of my trips to the cemetery were successful ones.

  But I knew today would be different.

  Today I just needed to cry.

  I nestled myself into the familiar spot in front of their headstone, and I let my body fall forward until my head rested on the smooth granite.

  “Charlie hates me.” The words barely had time to fall off my lips before tears rushed to the rims of my eyes. “I don’t know what else to do, guys. I tried to apologize.”

  A gentle breeze tossed my hair, and I closed my eyes to savor the moment. Call me crazy, but I always felt like they could hear me. I always sensed that they were close by. And then I thought, well, maybe that cool rush of wind wasn’t really nature at all; maybe it was Mom and Dad’s way of letting me know they were there.

  “I’ve thought of leaving so many times. Derek has told me time and time again how much it helped him, just getting up and going. He says that one of the best ways to start over is to say goodbye. And sometimes I wonder if that’s really the answer. Would I be better off without it all?” A single tear finally slid down my cheek. “I don’t know who these people are anymore. I never thought I’d see the day when Charlie would completely shut me out. And Matt, he’s so lost. I want to help him, but I don’t even know how. And I’m not sure I ever really knew Derek, but the Derek I did know has… he’s changed. It’s not that I want him to need me, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t need me. And I’m just so afraid I’m going to lose him now.” The leaves rustled and crunched as the wind picked up yet again.

  I let the breeze overtake me, wildly tossing my hair as it ripped through the trees and taunted the leaves on the ground. I had no doubt that I was no longer alone; I sensed it. I knew when I was in the company of a loved one, dead or alive. My heart was so warm and so full… I just knew someone was there with me.

  “I don’t want to lose Luke, but I can’t spend the rest of my life wondering if Charlie’s going to die hating me,” I said, and my tears were no longer within my control. They fell to the ground, creating a puddle just at my feet. “I feel so torn, so stuck in the middle. On one hand, I know Luke is the love of my life, but Charlie is… Charlie. I can’t lose him. And if I can’t have them both… I’m not sure… I don’t think I can choose.”

  I wiped my nose on the back of my sleeve as I sat up a little straighter.

  “And I know, okay? I moved out, and that made a pretty loud statement to Charlie and Matt. I chose Luke. And yes, I may be sleeping miles down the road in someone else’s house, but my heart never left home. I’m still holding on to Charlie, praying that he’ll finally see how much I need him to understand. I accused Luke of being starved for Charlie’s approval and I asked him to just give it up, but I’m such a hypocrite. It means just as much to me as it does to him, and I… I don’t think he’s ever going to… he’s going to shut me out until I choose one way or another… and he knows…” I dropped my head and cried harder. “Charlie knows that my family will always come first. He knows he’ll get his way.”

  I don’t know how many long minutes passed before my headache dulled, and I rested my head on the tombstone again. I sat among the dead, feeling just as lifeless as the other bodies I’d surrounded myself with.

  The sky turned darker over the next hour, and I still hadn’t moved. No one had tried to call or text, so I imagined my presence hadn’t been missed too much back at the house. I wondered if Luke was still there, arguing and trying to reason with my uncle. But I stopped wondering the moment a warm body slid in next to mine on the cold ground, and Luke’s strong arm fell gently across my back. I hadn’t heard him pull up, get out of his car, or even approach. But he hadn’t scared me; part of me wondered if he’d been there for a while, wondering exactly how to approach me.

  I laid my head onto his shoulder and closed my eyes, and he only tightened his grip around me. I thought we’d sit there for a while without saying a word, just listening to the sounds of the leaves as they rustled all around us, but Luke didn’t take long to break the silence. I could tell from his tone that he’d never—not once since I’d met him—been as serious as he was in that moment.

  “Julie,” my breathing paused at the seriousness in his voice.

  I lifted my head to meet his gaze, and I could tell that the last couple of hours hadn’t been easy on Luke. Like I’d observed on my uncle earlier, Luke’s eyes were red and sunken, bloodshot, and tired. The lines around his lips were deep and pronounced, and that only happened after Luke had spent quite a while not talking. I called them his thinking lines; I could always tell, based on the deep lines around his lips, when Luke had been in serious thought.

  “Last week back at the house, you said it was time for us to sit down and have a talk about what we really wanted,” he said, “and I think it’s time we finally did that.”

  Eleven

  Luke didn’t come by honesty very easily. For a long time, especially in the beginning, he spent more time running away from me than actually confronting his feelings and admitting his truths. But the longer I’d known Luke, the easier it’d become for him to open up, to really let me in.

  And I knew this was about to be one of those times.

  “I guess there’s no better way than to just come right out and say this,” he said and sat a little straighter. I don’t know when it had happened, but I suddenly realized we were no longer touching. He’d removed his arm from my back, we’d grown a little further apart, and I hadn’t even noticed it until that very moment. “I’m sorry that it’s taken me so long to reach this moment. I have nearly killed myself over the last year trying to get your uncle’s approval, and I never imagined it would be this hard. I knew it would be a challenge, sure, but I never thought it would be damn-near impossible.”

  Because I immediately recognized Luke’s tone, I felt my eyes filling with tears. . I’d heard it once before a long, long time ago—right around the time that he’d drunkenly professed his love for me, and he still wouldn’t admit it. He sat on my uncle’s front porch and told me that he didn’t have feelings for me, and the rejection in his tone was the hardest part of the whole conversation. The words didn’t sting near as much as the feeling. And I was feeling it all over again.

  Luke was going to break up with me…

  “Luke, before you—”

  “I need you to let me talk, Julie,” he said, turning a little so that he was no longer just talking to the side of my face. I moved, also, to get a better look at him, but I still had trouble meeting his gaze. “I know you love me, kid, and if there’s one thing you need to know… God, I hope you know how much I’ve always loved you.”

  I closed my eyes and dropped my head, and then the wind picked up again.

  “It’s been one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to realize,” he started, “but it’s finally become very clear to me that I can’t always sit in the driver’s seat, Julie. I can’t control every tiny aspect of my life. Hell, I can’t even make one of the most important decisions of my life because someone else holds so much weight in that decision.”

  “Luke—”

  “I don’t give a damn, Julie,” he said. “Charlie can hate me, he can hate us. We can move to another state and never see the man again, and it won’t break my heart for a minute. I have been beating myself over the head trying to get that man to listen to reason, and there’s nothing I can ever say that will be good enough for him. I know you think I’m starved for his approval, and I’m sorry you feel that way, but you’re wrong. My interest is only in one person—you. Your approval is the only thing I
need.” He shook his head. “Julie, I only asked him the first time because it’s what you wanted. And I only asked him the next six times because I knew you’d never say yes without his blessing. Maybe, in some weird, weird way, I was doing it for me, but only because there was nothing in the world I wanted more than to hear you say yes. Your opinion is the only one that has mattered to me all along, and I’m not so dumb that I haven’t figured it out. If Charlie keeps saying no, you’re eventually going to listen. I know I’ll lose you.”

  I dropped my head and breathed slowly. I tried to count each breath slowly, in and out, back and forth. But each rise of my chest pinched my heart a little harder, and the pain was almost too unbearable.

  “So,” I managed to say through tears, “you’re going to end it now, before you think I’ll end it.”

  Luke stared at the same familiar spot on the ground, the one I’d been staring at for the past two hours. I hated that he wasn’t saying anything. I hated that five minutes ago I couldn’t shut him up, and now all of a sudden he wasn’t saying a damn word.

  “No,” he finally said under his breath, “no, that’s not what I’m doing at all.” I looked up from the ground at the same time he did, and our eyes met for the first time since he’d sat down next to me. His brown eyes were moist, but he hadn’t shed a single tear. “I only came because I need to hear you tell me that I’m wrong. It’s the one time I’m really going to be okay hearing those words, but I need to know that—”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Before you found out that Charlie said no, you were all in, kid,” he said. “You were open to the idea of getting married any day. You wore a wedding dress to the costume party, for God’s sake, Jules,” he tried not to smile, but he failed miserably. “And then you found out that he hadn’t approved, and you pulled back.”

  “I never pulled back.”

  “You pulled back, Jules,” he said. “I just want to know if this is the way it’s going to be. Are you going to keep pulling away until you get his approval?”

  “I… I don’t know—”

  “Or if I proposed to you right now,” he said, “both of us knowing that it would kill him, would you say yes? Would you agree to marry me, knowing that your uncle would never approve?”

  “I don’t… Luke, I don’t know.”

  “Then let’s find out,” he leaned over slightly to retrieve a little black box from his side pocket. I felt my heart sink to my stomach, my mouth suddenly go dry, and then the wind picked up once again.

  “Luke,” I looked over my shoulder, “you can’t do this here.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s getting dark. We’re in a cemetery,” I said, shaking my head. “We’re sitting on my parents’ grave—”

  “Then at least we’re in good company,” he said, and he didn’t waste a moment opening the small box.

  “Do you not realize how morbid this is?”

  “Julie, just focus—”

  “But we’re sitting in the middle of a cemetery,” I said. “I look like hell, Luke. I have mascara running down my face, my hair is ratted in knots, and there are dozens of dead bodies all around us. This isn’t how this is supposed to happen. Don’t you think you could’ve found a better time to—”

  “Will you marry me?”

  I felt my jaw hang a little lower, and suddenly I forgot how to breathe.

  There it was. The big question. He’d asked it, and despite the surroundings and the context, his question required a definite answer. Yes or no? That’s all he really wanted to know.

  It was one of those moments in life that people say should require zero thought. You either know it’s a yes, or you know it’s a no. There’s nothing to think about, and if you must take time to think about it, it’s obvious to everyone that the answer is and always was no.

  Just like Luke, I’d had my doubts. I’d been having those very doubts just before he showed up at the cemetery. If I had to choose was there any way I could choose Luke over my family? I didn’t think there was. But hearing him ask, hearing those four beautiful words fall off of his lips, I found my hand gradually rising to my neck. I grasped his mother’s key between my fingers and held it tight. I don’t know how long I held it like that until I reached up, undid the clasp, and removed the necklace. It rested against my palm for a few long seconds, and then I closed my fingers and held it even tighter.

  Holding something so special to Luke, I closed my eyes, and I remembered every moment that I’d spent with and without Lucas Reibeck in my life.

  I remembered the frustrations I’d felt when we first met.

  I remembered the confusion... did I like him or did I hate him?

  I thought back to the moment he’d first said he loved me, the moment he took a bullet to save my life, and the moment that his lips first brushed across mine. I savored the memory of the way my body responded to his when he first eased in and whispered in my ear; I remembered the way it broke my heart when he ran from me. I chased him, for so long I chased him.

  And then I was haunted by the memory of Luke’s lies. I experienced each bold strike once again—the way he’d lied about Derek’s disappearance, the way he’d been responsible for all of my heartache, and how he’d called me toxic. I remembered the hurt I’d felt when he repeatedly made it known that he didn’t trust me.

  But then I remembered Piqua, and I remembered every word that he had said to me inside that cabin. I cherished his honesty, his compassion. I remembered the way it shook me to hear him tell me that he’d never give up on me again. The way he apologized… the way he changed. Every step along the way, after everything we’d been through, Luke did the one thing I’d asked him to do. He stopped talking, and he started proving. His actions finally began to speak louder than his words. We came home, and he carried me through the darkest time of my life. No, he wasn’t the man who’d put a bullet into Conan Milton, but he was the man who’d saved my life. He was the man who’d nursed my broken heart and made all of the horrific nightmares go away. He was the one who’d loved me and refused to leave me when I needed him the most. He never ran… not when it truly mattered.

  He was the man I loved, and I didn’t care… I realized right in that moment that I felt the same as Luke—I didn’t give a damn. Luke was my future with or without Charlie’s blessing.

  I loosened my grip on the necklace and looked back to Luke. I met his brown eyes with the softest smile, and I leaned forward just a few inches.

  “Luke,” I spoke softly, but loud enough that he could hear me over the whistling wind, “I love you. And I will marry you today, tomorrow, or fifty years from now as long I know it means that I will always have you in my life.” Luke closed his eyes, and I kept waiting for some kind of expression. I waited on a smile, a grin, something, but he just kept his eyes closed. “I love you. I mean, I don’t know how else I can possibly—”

  “Julie,” he said, and his eyes finally snapped open, “you have got to learn when it’s time to stop talking.”

  He dropped the ring and both of his hands found my face. He crushed our lips together in the most fantastic, most explosive kiss we’d ever shared. I loved that he had zero reservations about his taking what he wanted. I loved that he grabbed me the way he did, kissed me with such uncompromising passion, and opened his heart to being so vulnerable.

  Somewhere between bated breaths and sweet, warm kisses, Luke pulled away and rested his forehead against mine.

  “Damn,” he whispered, and his eyes closed again. “Jules, I’m so sorry. That was… awful.”

  “Wait,” I pulled back to look at him, “awful?”

  “No, no,” he pulled me closer and pressed another quick kiss to my lips, “I mean…” he looked around as the cemetery grew darker. “I can’t believe I proposed to you in a cemetery.”

  “For what it’s worth, I tried to stop you.”

  “Oh, man,” he buried his face in his hands. “God, I’m so—”

  “Don’t y
ou dare say you’re sorry,” I managed a faint smile. “I thought it was perfect. A little unorthodox, sure. But… perfect.”

  He half-laughed and looked down at the ring.

  “Now,” he picked it up, “I don’t want you to think that I keep pawning all of my mother’s old crap off on you,” he said. “But this was the ring that my Dad gave my Mom the night he proposed, and it really means a lot to him that you wear the same ring she wore. And, well, it would mean a lot to me, too. So, this ring is yours, if you want it. It’s your call. If you don’t, it’s seriously okay. We’ll just add engagement ring to the shopping list right along with couch, chair, and flat screen.”

  “Do we really need a flat screen?” I joked, and I took the jewelry box from his hand. I pulled the diamond ring from the velvet interior and started to put it on my finger.

  “No, no, no,” he took it from me. He held it up a little higher and studied it closely. “Julie,” he looked away from the ring and met my wide-eyed stare, “will you marry me?”

  This time I didn’t waste a breath before I said, “Only if you’ll marry me.”

  Luke slipped the ring on my finger, and wouldn’t you know… it fit like it had been designed for no one else but me.

  Twelve

  Luke and I pulled up to our shared home on Silhouette Drive, the very last home on the street. He parked the car in the driveway, mumbling something about needing to give the garage a good cleaning before he’d ever park his car inside. Yep. That was Luke—just got engaged and all he could think about was tackling his next project.

  True to his nature, Luke didn’t let me open the car door for myself. He jogged around the front of the car and opened it for me. Then he offered a hand to help me out.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to go to dinner?” he asked for the hundredth time since we’d left the cemetery. Luke felt like the occasion called for some huge celebration, but I just wanted to spend a few minutes alone with the man I loved. I didn’t need the distraction of the townspeople ogling my ring. I didn’t need a five-course meal from the bistro, and I most certainly didn’t need to make small talk with Luke over a candlelit dinner.