Chapter Five
To the Rescue
Sunday morning, I get up early out of habit. The sun isn’t even up yet, but there’s enough twilight outside that my biological clock tells me it’s time to be awake, and I have no choice but to obey.
I don’t mind it. There’s something about waking up with the sun that I’ll never get tired of.
It’s the only time of day when the world feels half asleep, yet still energized, and I’ve witnessed some of the most beautiful sunrises in my life just for the joy of rising early.
It feels like I’m privy to a great secret, watching how the sky slowly changes through a myriad of colors before breaking into daylight.
It's getting darker each day, though, and I dread the coming winter. It doesn’t matter that it’s months away.
Once the summer solstice hits, it’s like my body purposefully rebels against the Earth’s tilt and the fact that I decided to live this far north of the equator.
It makes waking up early more of a struggle when it’s still dark outside, and the lesser amount of daylight depresses me.
There’s a reason the acronym for ‘Seasonal Affective Disorder’ is SAD.
After spending a few hours reading and enjoying this morning’s sunrise with a cup of coffee, I make a list of all the chores I need to take care of today.
There’s laundry to do, along with my regular Sunday chores of vacuuming, dusting, and scrubbing the bathrooms. Now that it’s not raining, I have no excuse not to mow the lawn, and there’s some weeding I’ve been ignoring all summer.
I also want to clean out the garage before winter so I can park my truck there when it starts snowing in a month or two.
But maybe I’ll hold off on that until October.
I start with the laundry, dragging my clothes downstairs to the basement. Sorting and separating everything by color, I empty my pockets as I go along, so nothing gets washed that shouldn’t be. When I get to the jeans I wore last night, I find the napkin with Chrissy’s phone number, and I groan.
Crap. I almost forgot I’d agreed to take Chrissy out on a date.
It’s not that I don’t want to—Chrissy’s great, and I’m sure it will be fine—but at the same time, I’m still pissed at the guys for how this whole thing went down.
I really wasn’t looking to date anyone right now, but they clearly had other plans.
If I hadn’t been so distracted by what happened with Luke, I would have given them a piece of my mind when I went back inside instead of watching him from across the bar as he laughed with his friend. But that’s not the point.
The guys don’t understand how I do things.
I’m used to being single. I have routines, and I enjoy the freedom of not having to answer to anyone except myself.
I get to do whatever I want without asking permission or checking in with someone to see if it’s okay, and I never have to fight for the space to exist in my own home.
I mean, who wouldn’t enjoy coming back to a house free of screaming children?
Besides, dating means dealing with everything else that goes along with it.
It means making plans and having to do them.
It means dressing up in nicer clothes and watching terrible movies I’m not interested in seeing, or having long-winded conversations about our likes and dislikes, then petty arguments over stupid things with no real bearing.
It means adjusting all my priorities to incorporate another person into my life.
I blink, realizing how cynical that makes me sound. Jesus. Maybe the guys are right. I have been single for too long. Fuck.
With a strangled laugh, I realize I have no choice but to go through with this, even if I’ll be kicking and screaming the whole way.
It’s fine. This is cool. Who knows? Maybe this will be the end-all relationship I’ve been lacking.
I’m beginning to wonder if it’s even possible, but maybe Chrissy will be the one who finally ties me down for good.
Or, it’ll end like all the rest, with me not wanting to commit to anything, and her leaving when she realizes she wants more—doomed to fail from the start.
Texting anyone before 8 a.m. feels like a faux pas, so I add it to my to-do list rather than simply getting it over with as I would have liked.
I shove my anxiety about this situation into the furthest reaches of my mind and spend the rest of my morning working on the indoor chores until lunch, feeling more relaxed with each completed task.
I throw on some loud, peppy music to drown out my thoughts, and dance for no one but myself.
Before long, I forget that there was even a problem.
After a break to eat, I change into my yard clothes and head outside to mow the lawn.
It’s clear almost immediately that I should have checked the weather before deciding to do this because it’s fucking hot.
The rain from yesterday pushed in an uncomfortable warm front, and the humidity is insane.
I’m only outside for ten minutes before I’m drenched in sweat, and it feels like I’m walking through a wall of water as I push the mower across my yard.
I can't stop with the lawn only partly done, so I have no choice but to power through it, but I curse every godforsaken minute.
Stupid beautiful Mitten State with its stupid humid summer.
I love it and simultaneously loathe it with all my soul.
Two and a half hours later, I’m exhausted, possibly dying from heatstroke, and ready to collapse in a puddle when I’m back in the air conditioning, but at least the lawn is done.
The weeds will have to live another day because it’s too hot to do anything else, and I’m not willing to test my limits in this unyielding hell.
Instead, I take a long, cold shower, and slowly regain the will to live.
When I pick up my phone to text Chrissy a little while later, I almost drop it out of shock to see a missed call from Luke.
Not a text or voicemail—just one missed call over an hour ago while I was still outside.
I never even thought to check my phone before jumping in the shower because hardly anyone ever needs me.
A million thoughts race through my head about what he might have wanted and why he didn’t leave a message, or at least text me.
Maybe it was a butt dial? Or maybe he was going to ask for a ride to work tomorrow.
Then my heart leaps to think he might have wanted to take me up on my offer from last night, looking for a serious chat, and I wasn’t available.
Well, I suppose there’s only one way to find out.
The phone only rings once before the other end comes to life.
“What the fuck do you want?” a voice snaps at me by way of greeting. There’s so much hostility in it that I’m stunned and speechless.
“Uh… Luke?” I frown, pulling the phone away to check that I’ve called the right person. It definitely shows ‘Luke’ on the caller ID.
There’s silence for a moment before I hear a long, drawn-out “fuck” in the background, and I assume he’s just done the same thing.
“Sorry, Ethan.” Luke sighs heavily, coming back onto the phone. He still sounds irritated but also apologetic. “I thought you were… Never mind. It doesn’t matter. I didn’t realize it was you when I answered the phone. I swear I’m not normally that rude.”
“It’s…fine,” I reply, arching a confused brow. Who would he have answered the phone like that for? “Are you all right? You sound out of breath.”
“Yeah, I’m good,” Luke replies. “Ignore me.”
“I saw I missed a call from you. What’s up?”
“Oh. I was just—”
There’s a terrible sound in the background, like a gravel train whooshing past, drowning out whatever Luke was saying, so I can’t hear it. It sounds close, like it’s right next to him.
“Where are you right now?” I ask as soon as the noise dies down.
“Walking home.” His voice sounds tense.
“From where?” I frown.
Luke sighs. “A junkyard in Sterling Heights. I sold my car for scrap. I had it towed, but had to get some shit out of it, meet the guy up there to sign some paperwork, and give him the keys.”
“How… Did you walk there?” I balk. That’s over thirty minutes by car from his house, but it would be more like five or six hours on foot.
“No. My fucking jackass of a stepdad drove me up there. Then we had some words, and he left me like the piece of shit he is. So, I’m walking home.”
Before I can even stop to think about it, I’m already heading to the front door, grabbing the keys to my truck on the way.
“Where are you exactly?” I ask as I throw on my shoes.
“Walking up M-53.”
“Ok. But, like, where exactly?”
I grimace once I’m back out in the oppressive heat. I’m already dying again just standing outside, so I can only imagine how awful it would be walking for hours in these conditions.
Luke must be able to hear the sound of my truck as I turn the key in the ignition because he curses. “Ethan, what are you doing?”
“I’m coming to pick you up.”
“I don’t need you to do that,” he groans, and I can hear the exasperation in it. “I can deal with my own shit, okay? You don’t need to keep getting involved.”
“It’s over ninety degrees outside, and it’s humid as shit.” The call switches to my car’s radio while I back out of my driveway, and I set the phone down in the middle console as I head toward the highway.
“Ethan, I really don’t—” Luke starts with tension in his voice.
“Shut up, okay?” I snap, surprising myself at the level of authority behind it. “Go find somewhere to wait for me, and I’ll be right there. I’m already on my way.”
Luke is silent before he begrudgingly concedes. We agree to meet at a McDonald’s up the road from him, then we hang up.
I don’t know why I’m suddenly so angry.
When I get to the restaurant about twenty minutes later, I see Luke sitting on the sidewalk in the shade, with his back against the wall and one knee pulled up to his chest.