33. Luke
luke
. . .
What the hell had I done?
Only an hour had passed since I left Luce at her home, yet my mind continued to reel, with a spreading suspicion in the pit of my stomach. I fucked up. With each moment that ticked away, I was more than sure of it.
I had spent the past ten years craving her presence, wishing I hadn’t let her go that day. The thoughts of what I could have done differently haunted me for years, and now that I had a chance to make things right, I was messing them up all over again.
Without a moment of hesitation, I started my truck. It had been parked at our spot in the forest, where I often came to clear my mind. I had spent an hour blankly staring at the two initials carved into the bark, surrounded by a heart I tried to do myself.
“What are you doing, Luke?” Luce couldn’t stop laughing as she watched me carve into the bark. It wasn’t my fault; the bark was the problem. It was unusually hard and uneven. This wasn’t my first rodeo, so I knew something was up with this tree. I practiced this before to impress her—not that I’d say it out loud.
But no matter how hard I tried to explain the logistics to her, she didn’t believe me. “That doesn’t even look like a heart. Well, maybe if I squint my eyes…”
Now, I couldn’t help but smile either. I looked back at her, unable to believe how lucky I was to have a girl like her with me.
“I’m purposely making it uneven like that,” I told her, “to show that even when things aren’t perfect, we’ll stick together.”
The view of the uneven heart did the trick—I knew what I had to do.
I had to make things right and tell her how I felt. I didn’t want to spend another second away from her; I wanted to hold her in my arms and assure her everything would be okay.
I meant it when I said it. I was all in, and it was time to prove it.
The drive to her home passed in the blink of an eye with how focused my mind was on what needed to be said and done. My body was on autopilot, moving between the streets with muscle memory that took over the charge of my truck. My head was elsewhere, and my heart was aching to see her and apologize.
When I finally pulled up in front of her home, I didn’t head for the front door. Instead, I hopped over the fence and moved into the backyard. It was still perfectly maintained. I guessed that was Ed’s doing while Eve was unable to do it.
I swept my hand over the ground until I found the tiniest rock I could spot. With great precision, I tossed it on the familiar window on the second floor. I had done this dozens of times a decade ago, and my precision remained intact. It was like riding a bike.
A few seconds passed before Luce opened the window and stared at me. Her brows furrowed in confusion, and her eyes were red from crying.
Fuck.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, her tone quiet as she leaned against her window’s white, wooden frame. “I thought you wanted some time to?—”
“Fuck that,” I said. “I want to talk to you. I don’t want to spend another second away from you…” I hesitated. “If you’ll still have me, of course. Can I come in?”
“You know, there’s this thing we call front door that people use nowadays when they want to enter someone’s home…” Luce retorted. Good, I thought to myself. If she was joking, that meant I hadn’t entirely fucked up.
“And where’s the fun in that?” I sized up the tree. The lowest branch was still within my reach, though I was much heavier than I was in my teenage years. I leaped and grabbed hold of the branch, pulling myself up. I took a moment before climbing my way up on some thinner branches that threatened to crack under my build.
“If you fall, I’m calling Landon, and you’ll have to explain what you were doing…” she called out, watching me.
“If that happens, please, just let me die in peace.” I finally reached the branch that was close to her window. I reached out and swung myself over the windowsill, landing right before her.
“No dying today, I see,” Luce stated, crossing her arms over her chest. The moment I was on my feet, I stepped toward her.
“I’m sorry. That’s the first thing you need to know. I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I got so fired up over those flowers and the note. Why I didn’t hear you out.” I exhaled, running my hand through my hair. “Well, actually, maybe I do. I got upset because you’ll be leaving soon, Luce. Once you’re gone and back to the life you’ve built in Seattle, I’m terrified that you’ll realize there may not be a spot for me there after all. Maybe it will be too much. Maybe you’ll need?—”
“Luke.”
Now, I was pacing around her bedroom. It looked just like it did ten years ago, almost as if it had somehow been frozen in time. It was both impressive and creepy at the same time. “No, I need to say this. Please. I’m terrified that we won’t be able to handle the distance. Because it will be hard, and I love you too damn much to be selfish. I can’t even?—”
“I love you too,” she interrupted me again, and this time, the world stilled around me. In fact, I was pretty sure my breath had been sucked from my lungs. “You don’t need to worry about long distance. I’m not going anywhere. I decided I want to stay in Port-Cartier.”
That was it. There was no way this was happening. I had likely fallen from the tree and somehow ended up in a coma—that was the only logical explanation I could think of for the words that she had just said.
“What?” I stammered in disbelief. “But you love your job. I don’t want you to sacrifice anything in your life.”
“I do love my job, but I have a meeting scheduled with the principal of the elementary school to interview for a position.” She extended her hand toward me, and I took it, still trying to understand what was happening. Hallucinations were another possibility… “I ran as far as I could when I left this town ten years ago. So much so that I had forgotten all about its magic. I have never been able to make a home out of another town, and now I know why. It’s because the home has been waiting for me here all along, right by your side.”
I closed the distance between us in one short step, and my lips collided against hers. She was right. By each other’s side, we had everything we’d ever need. My body was overwhelmed with so many different emotions, but the most prominent one was relief because I got to keep my girl by my side.
“I love you,” I repeated the words again. It was the only sentence that could snap through the synapses of my brain and make it to my lips.
“I love you, too,” Luce whispered in return. Four simple words and an eternity before us to get to hear them.