“Why?”
“Been busy. A lot of work. Gotta earn that raise,” I lied through my teeth, pouring myself another glass. I suddenly felt weird around Norah, which never happened. She was usually the one I felt closest to. After a pause, her tone changed.
“Oh, man, you’re such a mess.”
I glanced at her, surprised.
“Don’t look at me like that. We all know. We all saw how you looked at her. It’s not rocket science, honey.”
I was stunned and relieved at the same time. My chest tightened at the rush of feelings spreading through me.
“I don’t know what to do, Norah,” I said, my voice breaking as something inside me finally gave way. The dam cracked, and the truth started pouring out. “I’m going crazy.”
“Was she just a good time for you?” she asked gently, like she already knew the answer but needed me to say it anyway.
“How can she be just a good time for me? You met her.” I stood up and walked to the window, then made a sharp turn.
“Like when she walks into a room, trying not to bother anyone, but suddenly you can breathe better when she’s around,” I laughed bitterly, the burn of alcohol scraping my throat. I ran a hand through my hair, frustration growing with every step.
“And she cares. God, she cares more than most people know how to, Norah. More than anyone has any right to. About everything. She notices things most people don’t.” My words spilled faster now, as if I had to get them out before they swallowed me whole.
“It’s ridiculous,” I snapped, voice sharper, pacing faster now, the floor a rhythm to my growing agitation. “How someone so soft and gentle can be like a sharp knife through my insides?” I chuckled, imagining Hazel loving the sight of my guts.
“She’s there in the back of my mind when I don’t want her to be, in the spaces between everything else. What the hell does she see in me that I can’t see in myself?”
I threw my head back for a moment, staring at the ceiling as if it might offer answers. Then, facing Norah, I tightened my grip on the glass, knuckles whitening.
“And you know the worst thing she did? After I lied to her, slept with her, and then pushed her away?” My voice faltered, raw with disbelief. “She still wished the best for me.”
I looked down, swallowing hard, letting the next part land somewhere deep in me, my voice dropping as the ache inside swelled.
“How can someone like that be calledjust a good time?”
Norah watched me in silence for a beat, completely stunned by my angry rant.
“Oh, man, you’re truly in trouble.”
No shit, female Sherlock.
She tilted her head and asked, almost in a whisper, “Do you love her?”
How beautiful and cruel of her to ask. The hardest question with the simplest answer. My face gave it away before I could even form a thought. A flicker of pain, of fear, of longing. Of love. She saw it instantly. I didn’t have to say it.
“I’m scared, Norah,” I said quietly in my glass.
“I know,” she replied. “But fear’s a shitty argument.”
That it was.
“I don’t think I can give her what she wants, what she deserves. I don’t think I have it in me. I wasn’t raised like you guys. The love I saw was bitter, complicated, always conditional. Always ugly in the end. I don’t want that. What if I bring that into her life?” I was violently tearing apart my heart.
“Luke, that’s ridiculous. You’ve got so much love in you, whether you see it or not. Look at what you’ve done for me, for Alex and Ava. You have so much to give. And yeah, that means you’ve got something to lose. But it also means you’ve got something real to fight for. And I know you love a good fight.”
Her words swirled around in my head like the whiskey in my glass as I contemplated my past choices.
“I always went for girls I couldn’t mess up. I warned them, kept it casual. You’ve known me for years, Norah. It’s the way I am. How I’ve always been.” I sighed, defeated. By love. How cliché.
We’re all a compilation of our memories, shaped by what’s happened to us.
