“It makes complete sense,” Violet countered in an annoyingly sensible voice. Now was not the time to be sensible. Now was the time to feed me chocolate and pat my head, damnit.
“Does not,” I argued.
“Are we doing this?” Visibly exasperated, she sighed. “All the reasons why he was on our shit lists are invalidated. Explanations have been given. All the explanations are reasonable and have been accepted. Anger is no longer warranted even though he hasn’t talked to you yet”—she pointed at me—“and you know it’s true. Therefore, feelings that were buried beneath years of anger and hurt have resurfaced to mess with your head. Plus, he is absolutely smoking hot now. I mean, he was cute before, but damn, that man is sex on a stick now. That hair, those huge arms, those shoulders, that fine ass, not to mention those tattoos...” Her eyes glazed over, then her head jerked, and she refocused on me. “I could go on, but I see that you get me, so I’ll go ahead and stop.”
“Maybe I’ll go back out there. I did say I would talk with him today. He wants to give me all the validated reasonshimself.” I stood up and took a deep, steadying breath before heading to the kitchen door. Fearless.Right?
“Good idea. Acting like a grown-up is always the way to go.” I stuck my tongue out at her in response.
As I got ready to open the door, I felt the same tingly jolts throughout my body that I used to get whenever I was near Luke. After all these years, that boy still made me tingle, and it pissed me right off. I didn’t have time for tingles, shivers, or swoony behavior of any kind. I quietly slunk back to the cash register that was now manned by Finn. Nick was busy helping Rose make the coffee.
“Hey, Aunt Lily. We got it. Take a break and finish your coffee.” He handed me a bag full of scones and shooed me away. I loved this kid. Our mutual love of Violet’s scones was only one of the reasons why.
I needed to fuel up my fearless mojo. I tried to think of all the girl power songs I had on my playlist. Help me, Pink! Help me, Katy Perry! But all I could hear was “Photograph,” the Nickelback song we’d danced to at prom.
My feet were walking toward Luke’s table, but my mind was taking a walk back through years of memories—the fond ones this time, not the bad ones. Luke noticed me heading his way and stood up to pull out the chair across from him for me. We both sat, then just stared at each other. I could tell our thoughts were similar. He had a wistful, sad expression on his face as he gazed at me.
“I don’t know where to start,” he finally said.
Feeling nervous, I blurted, “You don’t have to get into anything heavy right now if you don’t want to, Luke. I pretty much know what happened.” I didn’t want to push him into telling me anything that would cause him pain. The last thing I wanted was for him to bare his soul to me out of a sense of obligation. We could work up to it, if he was able. I had already accepted that he hadn’t tried to hurt me by leaving, even though it was the most excruciating thing I had ever experiencedin my life, at least up until Will died. I don’t think you ever fully recover from your first heartbreak. You will never have the same open ability to trust again.
“You do?” He looked at me doubtfully.
“You have PTSD. That’s the nutshell version, right? I know there’s more and I want to talk about it with you, but I don’t want you to open wounds right now if it’s going to hurt your progress. I want you to get better and feel good about talking with me. When we’re both ready we can discuss everything.”
He took a sip of his coffee with a thoughtful expression. “It is the nutshell version. I feel like I have more to tell you though. The main thing is, if I had known you were pregnant, I never would have stayed away. I hope you know that.”
Wow, that hurt.I unconsciously rubbed my chest, over my heart. I alone hadn’t been enough to make him stay?
I leaned back in my chair and looked out the window. Violet was lucky. Her shop was at the end of a cute little strip mall designed to look like a bunch of log cabins strung together. She had windows on the front and along one side. Our table faced one of the side windows that overlooked the park across the street. We’d taken our prom pictures in the white, flower-draped gazebo sitting in the center of the park. Similar baskets of flowers were hanging from the hooks that lined the outside of the gazebo, and the rose bushes were in bloom, just like on that day. Prom was this time of year. Maybe that was why I kept thinking about it. Or, you know, the fact that my date from back then was sitting right across from me. We’d taken the pictures, and then later when we were alone, Luke had proposed to me. He had said he would love me forever, and back then I had no doubt that he would.
I struggled with what I should even say to him. What would possibly make him understand how much his leaving hurt me?
“I tried to let you know about Dylan, so many times, Luke.I wrote letters—dozens of letters—and you sent them all back. I still have them somewhere at home in a box. I kept writing to you for a while after he was born, and you sent those back too. They’re in the same box.” I was beginning to realize that I had put a lot of things in a box. Memories, hurt feelings, fears, grief, sorrow—I had stuffed it all inside a box and shoved it into the recesses of my heart. It was about to burst open, and I didn’t want it to happen right now, or maybe not ever, so I stopped trying to explain.
“Can I read them?” he asked tentatively. His crossed arms rested on top of the table. I could see pine trees, a whole forest full of them, tattooed on his arm. It reminded me of his backyard, like it was a piece of home inked on his arm.
My eyes drifted up to find him leaning toward me, studying my reactions. “Maybe someday,” I finally answered. I wasn’t ready for him to read the feelings of pain and love and hope I’d poured into those letters, and I might not ever be. But I couldn’t hold in the burning question any longer. “You would have come back for Dylan because I was pregnant. Why wasn’t I enough, Luke?” I had to know.
He shook his head with a determined expression on his face. “That’s not what I meant. You were pregnant. You needed me. You didn’t need some crazy asshole who almost killed you, but you did need the father of your baby to stand by your side. Maybe that would have sunk in and pulled me through faster.”
I looked away from him, back out the window.
“Look at me,” he demanded. My eyes hit his, surprised at his assertive tone. “I won’t leave again. I want to be a part of Dylan’s life. I want to be a part of yours too,” he said with a look almost defiant in its intensity. “I have learned why I behaved the way I did. Why I left and stayed gone. I got help. I’m still getting help. I won’t ever hurt Dylan like I hurt you, and I won’t ever hurt you again. I’m sorry, Lily, so sorry.”
“I’m not the same girl you used to know, Luke. I’vechanged. I was a wife. I’m a mother. I’m a widow too, for goodness’ sake. I grew up. When we were together, I was just a girl in love with a boy.” I smiled sadly. “You were my whole life. I thought we were part of each other, like soul mates or some such nonsense. I couldn’t believe how lucky we were to have found our other half the second we reached this earth...” I looked out the window again.
“We could be that lucky again, Lily. I believe it. I want to know you again.” He grabbed my hand and held it in both of his.
I glanced back at him, then quickly away. To look into his eyes would be too risky. I could drown in them if I let myself. “I let all of that go. I don’t want to feel that way ever again. It hurts too much when it goes away. There is no going back.”
“I don’t want to go back. I want to go forward. With you. I want a chance, to be your friend again, maybe more someday.” His eyes held such longing. All the feelings we used to share shimmered in his gaze as if time had not left us behind.
He reached out to touch my cheek but pulled his hand back at the last second. I felt the warmth of that almost touch and regretted not leaning into it.
Gently, he tugged on my hand, forcing my eyes to drift back to his face. “Lily, I don’t know how to be around you anymore but I want to. I remember when we used to walk down that path right over there.” He pointed to the path that led past the gazebo where we used to make out after school let out. “God, Lily, I rememberyou. Everything we did and all that we meant to each other. Sitting with you now makes me wish we’d never left. We had everything, and we didn’t even know it.”
“I don’t want to hurt you, but I’m not ready to walk down memory lane with you,” I whispered. “It hurts too much.”
