Luka #3
“It may not be glamorous, and it may not be someone’s first or twentieth pick for a career, but yes.
Even if people turn their noses up at helping corporations run better, it’s still a necessary role, and I am, in fact, quite good at it.
So I do my job because I am good at it, and because I garner satisfaction from it. ”
“Hmm,” I leaned back, took a sip of coffee, and thought for a minute.
It wasn’t the first time I was unable to argue with his logic.
Most of what he did seemed to use logic before anything else.
..except sex. In fact, that seemed to be the one thing he felt first, and then worked his mind around; everything else seemed to be filtered through logic, and then he figured out how he felt.
As someone who was supposed to figure out what brought him to Arete and what he needed to work on.
..was that the problem? Was he intellectualizing rather than dealing with his feelings?
Or was he just one of those people who had learned to take a more measured approach to life?
The first was a problem because it meant he would never truly feel anything, but the latter was just personality, and I wasn’t here to change who he was.
He was watching me, though, and I turned to show him the back of my head. My hair was short enough that the jagged scar that ran from the back of my ear into my scalp could be seen. “Did you notice this?”
“I did not,” he admitted, and I snorted at his irritation.
“You don’t like missing details,” I said with a laugh as I sat back in my seat. “The hole-digging woman? Yeah, that was from that.”
He frowned. “How?”
“Another boy and I were playing; we knocked a picture off a table and broke the glass. She put us both out to start digging. We were out there for a couple of hours before the other boy, Trey, got dizzy. His shovel swing went wide, and the edge caught me in the head. He didn’t mean to, he just..
.it was so hot, and we were so out of it.
Split my head open. That woman, I can’t even remember her name—”
“Nor should you have to.”
“True. She didn’t want to take me anywhere, said I just needed to lie down.
I was bleeding from this massive head wound, and she was worried what the neighborhood would think,” I explained with a roll of my eyes.
“I would have died in that bed if Trey hadn’t waited until she ran to the store and helped me.
What a sight we must have been, two twelve-year-old boys stumbling down the road.
One was dragging the other, who was bleeding all over the place.
Someone passing by saw us and took us to the hospital.
I was so out of it, I never thought to lie.
I don’t know what would have happened if the social worker who showed up hadn’t believed me and acted when she did.
I probably would have gone back to that house.
I don’t know what happened to her, or to Trey, for that matter.
So I got a neat scar and a fucked-up story for my troubles. ”
Rowan stared just long enough that I started feeling uncomfortable. Then he snorted softly and turned to look away, speaking softly. “It was a drunk driver that ruined my back.”
Oh, well, shit. I’d told him my story, and now he was going to tell me his? I guess it worked.
“At least, that’s what I tell people when I feel like talking about it,” he said, frowning. “It’s not the full truth.”
“Okay, then what is the full truth?”
“I was the drunk driver,” he said. Against all logic and sense, his eyes darted to mine, and I saw the wariness.
“Okay,” I repeated, cocking my head. “So you had too many, got behind the wheel, and ended up ruining your back for life.”
“Yes,” he said, and I could still sense him watching me.
I realized he was waiting for me to say something. “I don’t know what you want from me here, Rowan. I get the feeling you’re waiting for me to say something, but I don’t know what you want to hear.”
“I want to hear what you think about that.”
“Sure, one question...were you the only one hurt?”
“Ah, yes, I was.”
“Alright. Well, you did something incredibly stupid. Everyone knows driving drunk is dangerous, and it kills thousands every year, including people who didn’t make that bad decision.
You could have easily hurt or killed innocent people who didn’t do a damn thing wrong.
But...you hurt yourself instead. You fucked up your back and changed your life permanently.
You did an incredibly selfish and dangerous thing, but you were the one to pay the price.
So if you want me to beat you up for it, I’m not going to.
I mean...you haven’t done it since, right? ”
“No.”
“Then you learned your lesson. The only thing you can do now is decide how you’re going to handle that lesson. Plus, I couldn’t beat you up any more than you’ve already beaten yourself up, or at least, I hope not.”
He shot me a bemused look. “Why would you hope that?”
“Because if I could beat you up more than you did, it means I’m a lot meaner than I thought, or you didn’t beat yourself up enough.”
To my surprise, he tipped his head back and laughed. “I see. That makes sense.”
“I sense you’re relieved,” I said with a frown. “Did you think I was going to get up and beat your ass or chew you out?”
“You...lost the only family you had to a drunk driver,” he said slowly.
I froze, my lips parting in realization, and I closed my eyes with a sigh.
Now that explained why he had been so wary, and why he had been watching me so intently after telling me.
I suspected it was because he was afraid I’d condemn him for something people universally condemned, but now I understood.
He had been looking at me not as someone who would moralize for the sake of it, but as someone who had been personally affected by someone who had made the same terrible decision.
He had been worried that it was going to bring back old memories for me that would cause me discomfort or pain.
I smiled at him. “So there it is, finally.”
He stared at me, confusion etched into each feature of his face. “What?”
“I’ll give you this much: you’re good at coming off as someone who doesn’t care about others and isn’t worried about what they think or feel, but.
..you do care. Maybe I should have realized it when I saw that you got along with Clay despite him being the biggest dick hound this place has ever seen,” I said with a shake of my head.
“But you do care about people, and the fact that you were worried about my feelings when telling me about what was probably the worst night of your life tells me that.”
He frowned. “My actions are not without consequence; it doesn’t take caring to understand that someone who lost his parents to a drunk driver could be upset learning I had done the same thing.”
“And you paid for it, no one else. You didn’t create another parentless child; you didn’t kill an innocent person.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m touched that you were worried about my feelings, and I appreciate you approaching the subject with care, but you don’t need to worry about telling me things just because you’re afraid it might upset me, alright? ”
Rowan watched me, evaluating me, and I stared back, knowing he was probably searching to see if I was being genuine or just doing my job.
I hoped he was good at seeing the truth, because I wasn’t upset or bothered.
It had taken a lot for him to tell me the truth, and now it was clear that telling me specifically was hard because of my history.
That told me that, at the very least, he not only cared about other people but also cared for me.
What a strange warmth that created...and probably dangerous.