Chapter Twenty-six
______________________________________
Luc
The weird thing about life is that you can be a different person to different people.
To my mother, I’m a good, sweet boy. To Benjamin Gates, I’m his third-grade nemesis because I was young and cotton-headed, and while aiming to impress the “cool” fourth-grade boys, I gave Ben a wedgie where everyone could see. (I’m still ashamed about that.) And to Cash, I’m his unpaid labor and his pain-in-the-ass conscience.
He tried to convince me to talk Maggie out of coming today. Tried telling me his medical issues are no one’s business but his own.
I toldhimthat she deserves to hear from the horse’s mouth what she’s in for. I told him that letting her in on what’s happening with his head is the right thing to do. And I might have mentioned that he didn’t really have a choice in the matter, because if he didn’t let her come, then I’d stop helping him with his house.
George Sullivan isn’t the only one in town who knows how to strong-arm folks.
Now I’m sitting in a plastic chair in the hallway outside Cash’s doctor’s office. Maggie is beside me, fidgeting with the frayed edges of the hole in the knee of her jeans.
Cash promised we could come in once he and the doctor finished going over the details of his latest set of scans. But he’s been in there for over an hour, and I’m beginning to get nervous. I wouldn’t put it past him to pull a fast one, or—
“Luc.” Maggie’s voice is low, hesitant. “If I ask you a question, will you promise to tell me the truth?”
I stare at her. “I always aim to tell you the truth, Maggie May.”
She blushes and looks away.
Right. My Halloween ball and bachelor auction confession. Things are shaky between us, but I reckon that’ll pass soon enough. And even if it doesn’t, it’s a small price to pay.
Ever since that night, a weight has lifted and I feel freer than I have in years.
It’s like I’ve kept my pain in a hermetically sealed package, which protected me from the scale of the hurt, but it also kept the wound fresh, never allowing it to heal. Now it’s been exposed to the air. It’s drying out and scabbing over. And for the first time in a long time, I dream of a future for myself. I dream of happiness, of…possibilities.
“What happened to make Cash leave?” she asks.
I sigh. That’s the one thing I can’t answer, so I pose a question of my own. “Have you asked him? Point-blank justaskedhim?”
“No.” She shakes her head. “When y’all first came back, that’s all I wanted to know. But as the weeks have dragged on, I… I’ve turned chickenhearted.”
“Why?”
“I’m afraid what his answer will be. I’m afraid he’ll say it’s because of me. Because he didn’t want to…” She trails off and yanks a string off her jeans, absently rolling it into a ball between her fingers. Her throat makes a dry, clicking noise when she swallows. “We were supposed to make love for the first time that night. Did you know that?”
I ignore the odd feeling swirling in my stomach. “No.”
“I’ve always wondered if he ran off because he didn’t want to go through with it. Because he didn’t want me, or because he thought if we had sex, then it would tie him to me, or because—”
“It was none of that, Maggie May,” I interrupt her.
“Then whatwasit?” Her eyes are so startlingly blue.
My motto when it comes to Cash and Maggie has always been:Never get their shit on my shoes. I’ve done my best to let them work things out on their own. Tried never to play the middleman even when one of them (or both of them) attempted to put me in that role. But I can’t resist those eyes.
“The only thing I’ll say is that he told you the truth when he said he left because of his dad.”
A line forms between her eyebrows. “But there’s more to the story, isn’t there?”
All I can do is stare at her.
She blows out a breath. “Why does everything have to be so darned complicated?”
