His footsteps sounded behind me as he approached. With a gentle hand, he turned me. “What are you afraid of?”
“Pain!” I cried. “I’m afraid of how much it will hurt when I lose you again. I couldn’t take it. I can’t stand the thought of it. My anger is gone, Luke. That anger is what kept the pain of losing you from overwhelming me.” I wanted to look away, but his eyes held mine captive, and I couldn’t.
“If you’re not angry anymore, then talk to me,” he pleaded. We can get through this?—”
I cut him off. I felt like I was losing hold of myself, of the things that kept me safe and secure—and lonely. “God, Luke! What do you want from me?” I shouted.
His face changed from pleading to determined. “I want you to listen to me. I want you to forgive me. Then I want you to love me again. I want to kiss you when I feel like it, to touch you because you’re mine. I want you in my house, in my bed, back in my life the way we always intended. The way we were meant to be.” He paused, and I stared at him transfixed as his voice gentled. “I want you back, and I will do everything you need, anything it takes, to make you believe that I can’t live without you anymore. But first, and foremost, I just want you to be okay.” The look in his eyes changed from frustration to tenderness—and unraveled the fear that held me back. “Don’t shut me out, Lily. Don’t make the mistakes Imade. I promise I won’t push you away ever again, I won’t leave?—”
“Luke, stop.” I covered my ears with my hands and turned back to the window. I couldn’t look at his pleading eyes for one more second, or I would give in. Deep down, I wanted him as much as he wanted me. But I was terrified of going down that path again.
“I won’t stop. I am in love with you. I have loved you since we were kids. I’ve loved you every second of the time I was gone. I was wrong to stay away. Let me spend every day of the rest of our lives making it up to you. Let me love you again.”
I felt him standing behind me, so close. If I turned around, I could have it all back.
“Please, stop pressuring me.”
“I came back once.”
I whirled from the window. “What? When?” I demanded. My fear was immediately replaced by anger as I glared at him.
His eyes burned into mine. “It was a few months after what happened in the hospital. I wasn’t planning to talk to you. I just wanted to check, to see that you were okay.”
“It was right after Christmas, wasn’t it?” I remembered that day. All day long, I’d felt that I would see him, that he was close. I’d anticipated it, waited for it, hoped and prayed for it, but it never happened. I never saw him. It was bitterly disappointing, and I’d cried myself to sleep that night. It was a setback that shook me.
“Yes. You were with Jane, walking up the path to your apartment. Will ran up to you and hugged you. He was in love with you. I always knew that...” He looked past me to the window. “I figured, eventually, you would let him take care of you.”
I felt the pain of losing Luke again. The sorrow I’d felt back then came at me like a slap in the face. It hadn’t needed to be that way. He’d been there.
“Damn it, Luke, you stubborn ass.” His eyes darted tomine. “You should have talked to me. Why didn’t you just come to me? All these years...” Tears filled my eyes again, but this time I didn’t fight them. I couldn’t; there were too many to stop the flow. The drops hit my chest at the vee of my shirt, and I let out a harsh laugh as I brushed them away.
He reached a hand out to me and I stepped away to avoid it. My anger snaked through my body, leaving a cold numbness in its place.
“Let it out, Lily. I ran away from you all those years ago. I thought you would be better without me. I didn’t want to hurt you ever again.”
“I was not better without you!” I shouted, my voice harsh and broken. “And if you thought I was with Will— I wasn’t with him then, but he took care of me. I was so—” I flinched at the terrible memories invading my thoughts. “I couldn’t get out of bed. I wouldn’t listen to anyone, not Jane, not even Rose. My family stayed away because I demanded it, and I was in such a state that they were afraid of not doing what I asked. But Will would not stay away. He brought me food, made me eat it. He dragged me out on walks. ‘Fresh air will do you good,’ he told me. Later, I started to get sick—nauseated for no reason, dizzy spells, insomnia. I stopped getting my period.” I laughed, shaky and bitter. “Will was the one who figured out I was pregnant. He brought a bunch of tests home. Every single one was positive.” My voice broke and I took a deep shuddering breath to regain control.
Tears ran openly down Luke’s face. “I’m so sorry, Lily.” He reached out his hand to touch me, then pulled it back.
My knees felt weak as I stood there with my head spinning. I’d never spoken about this with anyone, but I took a deep breath and continued anyway. “Will proposed to me right then, surrounded by all the used pregnancy tests in the bathroom. He told me he loved me and would raise my baby with me and treat it like his own child. I believed him, but I told him no. I lovedyou. I wantedyou,Luke. I told him that,and he said he didn’t care. He said he had loved me for years and—” A strangled sob escaped my throat, and I couldn’t say any more.
“He was a good man.” Luke sighed, defeat coloring his features.
“Luke, he was my best friend. I loved him. We didn’t get together until Dylan was almost two. But before then, he—even though I was still writing all those letters to you, trying to get you to come back, making endless calls to try to find where you were—he refused to give up on me. He was there for Dylan like a father would be. He was there for me like a husband would be. And all that time I leaned on him, feeling so much guilt. I told him that he should find someone else to love him like he deserved, but he always said no. Then I got a box in the mail.” I paused and studied his face. This would hurt, but keeping it from him would be like telling a lie. “It was full of every letter I had ever sent to you. All were unopened.” I grabbed on to Luke’s hands and held them tight. “I gave up then. I buried you in my heart and mourned you like you died.”
His hands convulsed in mine as he pulled me closer. I was half a step away from being in his arms. His eyes stared into mine but this time I didn’t want to look away.
Defeat settled across the features of his face. “I should have listened to my heart, not my fears. I should have listened to my soul screaming at me that it belonged with yours, not my fucked-up mind telling me I would hurt you again. I should have listened toyou,Lily, and read your letters. Am I asking the impossible?”
I stood there holding Luke’s hands and for the first time since I had been back home, I got out of my head. My heart demanded that I listen to it, listen tohim. His words had shattered my doubts.
“I love you, Luke,” I blurted, and his jaw dropped. “I neverstopped loving you, not ever. I loved Will with all my heart. But you—Luke, you are part of my soul. I just wish?—”
“I know, I wish it too. And I love you. I’ll always love you.” He choked the words out. His body was stiff, like he was holding himself back. “Lily, I can’t stop myself anymore.”
His grip on my hands tightened as he yanked me forward to band an arm around my hips and lift me closer to his mouth for a kiss. Winding a hand into my hair, he held on as I wrapped my arms around his neck. Electricity shot through me at the touch of his lips, the taste of him, the feel of his body finally against mine, the way we used to be. I threaded my fingers into that beautiful hair I’d been dying to touch and pulled him even closer. A low growl rumbled from his chest. I wanted to crawl inside of him. I couldn’t get close enough. Stumbling backward, we crashed to the couch and I straddled him as he wrapped me tightly in his arms. All those lost years were no longer between us. Nothing was. Our tears had burned it all away—the fear, the doubt, the pain. Nothing had ever felt more right than this.
I pulled back, taking his face in my hands. The need I saw in his eyes reflected the need in my heart. I kissed him again, tasting the salt from his tears. He gripped my waist as his mouth moved down to my neck, tickling my skin and making me tremble. He caressed up my back and into my hair again to grip it lightly as he pulled my face to his. He kissed me deeply, exploring my mouth. Soon, I grew restless and hungry for more.
