I know you’re never going to understand, but I have no choice. My mum needs money, and if I don’t do this, Billy will leave school and do it instead, and I can’t let that happen. He’s wild...you know he is. If he gets out there too young, he’ll never come back.
And it’s notjust that—it’s me too. I love you, Mia, but I see my dad around every corner and it’s suffocating me. I can’t spend the rest of my life climbing his ladders, using his tools, wearing his fucking boots... I just can’t do it. The Navy ain’t what I want either, but it’s a way out, and I need that... I wish I could explain how much. It’s different for you. You speak a whole other language—there’s anotherside to your life you can escape to whoever you want.
It’s not like that for me. Rushmere is all I have and it’s killing me.
I don’t want to leave you. I loveyou, but I don’t know what else to do.
I’m sorry. Please don’t hate me forever, you’re worth so much more than that...you’re worth so much more than me.
I love you,
Luke xx
The paper crumpled in my fist, but I didn’trealise it was damp until a tear trickled onto the back of my hand. I stared at it, my heart swelling and deflating with every second that passed. He’d never told me he loved me—never said the words aloud—but in the weeks leading up to his father’s death, part of me had believed it, had bought into the emotion lacing every kiss and touch, to the intensity in his gaze as he’d moved inside me. WhenI’d woken that morning to find he’d left me, I’d cursed my stupidity, my naivety, and cynicism had grown inside me like a cancer. The notion that I’d been right the first time round left me dizzy.
He loved me.
God. I wished he hadn’t. All these years it had been so easy to hate him.
I pried the letter from my clenched fist, rolled over, and spread it out on my pillow, tracing the wordswith my fingertip. Luke had never been much of a writer. For years, we’d swapped homework; he’d done my maths while I’d fudged his English enough to make it look like his own work. Who’d have thought I’d be pushing twenty-seven and weeping over his scrawled words?
Scrawled. Ha. He wrote like he did everything else, meticulous and proper. He didn’t do anything by halves, even breaking my heartall over again.
I glanced at my phone. The urge to text him was strong, but my internal pessimism was in overdrive. So he’d loved me ten years ago. Didn’t mean he loved me now, and if he did, what difference did it make?Ididn’t lovehim.
I just wanted him so bad I could hardly think straight.
And that wasn’t even the point. The letter wasn’t about me. His admission was a sideshowto the real issue, a truth that exposed me as the selfish brat I’d always been. Luke had left Rushmere—and me by default—because he’d been drowning, and I’d done absolutely nothing to save him.
The rumble of a diesel engine sounded outside. I jumped and scrambled off my bed, darting to the window. Luke’s van was pulling onto the driveway. Despite me telling him not three days ago to stay away,my heart leapt, and I was in motion before I truly knew what I was doing.
I dashed downstairs and threw open the front door just as a tall figure slid out of the van. In the darkness, I couldn’t make out his face, and I ran forward...straight into the strong broad chest of my brother.
“Ow!” He pushed me away and rubbed where my shoulder had collided with him. “Why are you running aroundthe driveway in your nightie?”
“It’s not a nightie, you goon. It’s your fucking T-shirt.” The words came out far sharper than the situation deserved, if Gus’s twitching eyebrows were anything to go by.
“Are you okay?”
“Of course I’m okay,” I snapped. “I just didn’t know who was parking on your drive at this time of night.”
“It’s eight-thirty, and if it had been someone else, whatthe fuck were you going to do with no clothes on?”
I flipped him off and flounced back into the house, resisting the unfair compulsion to slam the door in his face. Was it his fault it hadn’t occurred to me for a single second that he’d be driving Luke’s van?
Come to think of it, I’d never seen him driving Luke’s van.
I rounded on him as he followed me into the kitchen. “What are youdoing anyway? Why have you got Luke’s van?”
Gus moved past me to the kettle and filled it at the sink, apparently finding the cold tap the most interesting thing in the world. “I work for him, Mia. I do whatever he asks me to.”
“Why would he ask you to drive his van? Is it so he doesn’t have to pick you up from here?”
It was Gus’s turn to round on me. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Make everything about you.”
