Chapter 8 #2
“You made a little joke.” She wrinkled her nose playfully at him. “That’s the boy I knew. He’s still in there.”
Amusement flickered in his eyes, but then the cloud returned.
“I learned to wear shoes too,” she said. “Bare feet are frowned upon in Manhattan. Especially if you have to go into the office.”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “So you work in an office?” he asked.
“Yeah. I work at a marketing firm in midtown.”
“That’s high-rent territory. It must be a pretty big firm.”
“Yeah.”
“I could see you doing marketing. Just enough creativity and all the numbers.” He took a cracker and popped it into his mouth.
“In that respect, I haven’t changed at all.” She took another drink of wine. The fruity, spicy flavor reminded her of summer. “How did you get to Columbia from Charlotte?”
“My last two years of high school, a teacher took notice of my science ability. She tutored me after class and taught me skills beyond the curriculum. She had a good friend at Columbia, and she told him some of the things I was working on. When he was in Charlotte visiting family, he came into her classroom one afternoon, and the two of us completed a project together. He ended up convincing me to apply to the university.”
“That’s amazing to have a teacher that invested.”
Lucas took another sip and looked out over the water. “Sometimes, I wonder what turns my life would’ve had if she hadn’t noticed me. Would I have ended up … happier?”
Before Ava could ask him about his comment, he turned to her.
“Are you happy with where you ended up?”
“Well, minus the beating and the broken ribs, I’d say yes.”
He acknowledged her viewpoint, a pensive pout on his lips.
He wasn’t elaborating, so she decided to take the pressure off him and talk about herself to fill the silence.
“I worked my way up in the firm, and it took a toll on my marriage, but in the end I realized I loved my job more than him …” She’d never admitted that before. “It sounds awful, but it’s true.”
“At least you can see it.”
“Yeah.”
“So you’re happier by yourself?”
“I think so.”
He nodded again.
“When my dad died, with you gone, I had to learn very quickly how to do things on my own. It took me a while to get my bearings.”
“I wish I’d have known you were going through that. I’d have tried harder to keep in touch.”
“We were kids. What did we know?”
“We should’ve kept in touch, though. It might have been nice to have a friendly face when we needed it, someone with a wider perspective of who we are.”
“Yeah, it would’ve been helpful during the tough times. The males in my life don’t seem to stick around.” She gave him a melancholy smile .
“I’m sure the divorce was hard on you.”
She wasn’t talking about her ex. But how she felt looking at Lucas didn’t make sense, so she pretended his observation was correct.
“By the time we agreed on a divorce, we’d completely lost the bonds that had brought us together in the first place.
I threw myself into my job, and the divorce just became more paperwork in my afternoons.
I spent long hours at the office, and one day, I came home to my apartment, and the last shred of evidence that I’d ever been married was gone. ”
“You didn’t miss him?” He topped a cracker with cheese.
“Gosh. Telling you now makes me sound heartless. But after you left and Dad died, I never really found anyone I connected with the same way, and I guess I was forcing myself to do adult things. Everyone I knew graduated college and got married. But while they continued—having kids, some of them staying home to raise them—I just … didn’t.
I tried. I thought I found someone I could love, but I failed. ”
The fire danced in the breeze as the two of them sat in the quiet that followed. Neither of them needed to speak. In the hush between them, even after all these years, she felt more comfortable with Lucas than she did with most people, and she hoped he wouldn’t rush off.
“What about you?” she asked, breaking the silence. “What’s your story?”
His spirit visibly shrunk in on him, closed off, and moved away.
“There’s nothing to tell, really.”
“Columbia-Presbyterian is prestigious. I saw it in the top ten of the nation’s hospitals when I was doing research for a client. While Vanderbilt’s reputation is nothing to sneeze at, why did you decide to move from one to the other?”
His expression shifted, as if he were scrambling for an answer .
“I … wanted another position.” He tipped his glass of wine against his lips and downed half of it. The tension in his shoulders made it clear that even divulging that much pained him.
There was definitely more to it. Ava set her glass on the table and folded her arms.
“I admitted to you that I’m a loveless, detached workaholic, and all you’re going to say is you wanted a different job?”
This time, there was no smile, no small rise in his features.
“Ava …” He rose to his feet. “I’m really sorry, but I can’t do this.”
“Do what? Talk and eat cheese?”
“You know what I mean.”
She stood and looked up at him. “No, I really don’t know what you mean.”
“I’m not … good around people anymore. Thank you for everything, but I have to go.”
She put a hand on his arm. “I don’t know what’s eating at you, but I can tell it’s something.
From this moment forward, I won’t press you, I promise.
But you have to direct me as to what you feel comfortable saying because I’m not a mind reader, and I just want to know what’s going on with my old friend. That’s all.”
“I’m not comfortable saying anything. I’m not comfortable at all right now.” He set his glass on the table. “I need to go.”
“What about fishing?” she scrambled.
He didn’t answer.
“We never finished my testing. Will you at least be there if I come back to finish it?”
“I don’t know.”
“I can’t let you walk away again without knowing how to reach you. I promise not to call if you don’t want me to, but will you give me your number so I don’t lose you again?”
He faced her. “What good is my number if you can’t use it?”
A flurry of sadness tickled her chest. “I’ll keep it for emergencies. It’s more reliable than notes or emails.”
His eyes glassed over with emotion.
Something big had happened to Lucas in adulthood that had changed him.
She had this cosmic need to be near him again, and he wasn’t available for it.
Why would God tell her to find him if he wasn’t receptive to her at all?
What was the point in that? She couldn’t help but fear she hadn’t fulfilled her part of the bargain.
But what exactly was the bargain? She didn’t have all the rules.
And now she was losing Lucas for a second time, and she didn’t want that to happen.
She pulled her phone from her back pocket, opened up her contacts to a blank page, and held out her phone. “Please.”
Hesitantly, he took it, typed in his number, and handed it back. “I’ll help you get the crackers and cheese inside,” he said.
“No, it’s fine. Leave it. I’ll walk you to the front.”
Together, they went around the cabin and out to the driveway, stopping at his Range Rover.
“I want you, specifically, to finish out my testing. If you show up, I’ll keep it strictly business.”
“Thank you.”
Ava gazed at her long-lost favorite person, wishing things could be different between them.
There had to be more to finding him than this.
Would the reason be made clear at some point?
How could she ever get to know the grown version of him if she wasn’t allowed to ask him anything?
What was he holding back? And given his demeanor today, did she want to know this side of him?
“Well, I’ll see ya,” Lucas said.
“So I’ll see you tomorrow? ”
Lucas didn’t answer, unsaid words on his lips.
He turned around, got into his vehicle, and pulled away.
“Where’s Lucas?” Martha asked when Ava came into the kitchen with the plate of crackers, balancing both glasses of wine against her body with her arm.
“He couldn’t stay.”
“You didn’t even fish, did you?” She set down a swatch of fabric she was sewing.
“No, we just talked.”
Her mother got up, pulled out a container, and filled it with the cheese slices. “And how do you feel after talking to him?”
“Even more baffled.” Ava took the glasses to the sink, dumped the remainder of the wine, and then rinsed them.
“When I’m with him, he brings a part of me to life.
I don’t know if it’s because we were inseparable as kids, but it’s like I’ve known him forever and always will no matter how long we’ve been apart.
I never realized how much I missed him until we were together again. But he’s not the same.”
“Maybe just give him some time.”
Ava put the glasses in the dishwasher. “Yeah.”
She hoped he’d show at her next appointment. Ava didn’t think sticking to business was a good idea at all. If he wasn’t helping her with her job, and he wasn’t trying to save her, then what was the purpose of finding him? He was only serving to muddle her own mind.