Chapter 26
TWENTY-SIX
I was waiting for Luke to come marching over to my house and demand that I open my door to talk to him, but all I got was radio silence.
It was the first time I had been at my house for almost a week, and it felt good to be back and surrounded by my own things, but every time I glanced over at Luke’s that night, I didn’t see a single light on… and that bothered me.
I didn’t contact him, though, even if it killed me not to.
While he was in Afghanistan, I couldn’t contact him—not right away, at least—and it made things a little easier.
But now, he was here—within spitting distance.
It was a lot harder to resist him when he was so close.
I actually thought about morphing into my teenage self and star-sixty-nining his number a thousand times just to hear his voice, but I didn’t.
My armor had slipped away the second I got away from Ember’s party. After texting JoJo that I was fine ( total lie ), I bawled my eyes out, and if you must know, it wasn’t over a pint of ice cream…instead, it was over an entire gallon.
So, what? I turned into one of those girls. Whatever .
It didn’t last long, though. I’d worked three shifts that past week and I was beat.
Even now, standing at work, I was exhausted mentally and physically, but that didn’t really matter when you were a nurse.
You were supposed to be the strong one in the hospital.
You were supposed to be positive and caring, and that was exactly what I was doing.
I acted like I was happy as a clam, positivity pouring out of me.
“Cammie, someone’s asking for you over at the nurse’s station.”
I turned my head toward Jenny, one of the best nurses on our floor. Her cheeks were a shade pinker than normal, which had me puzzled.
“Who is it?” I asked, curiosity and dread filling my voice.
She got even redder. “I’m not supposed to say…”
I ground my teeth just as my pulse started to quicken. “Tell him to go away.”
I knew exactly who it was. Was he serious? Radio silence all week and then he came here! To do what? Make a statement?
“He won’t go away. I tried, but he’s really hot, and it makes me nervous.”
A laugh bubbled up inside me. It wasn’t the right time to laugh, but my life was just that fucking funny.
I walked around the corner of the brightly lit hallway, and my eyes found him within half a second. He was sitting in one of the waiting chairs, wearing jeans and a faded T-shirt. He stared directly at me, and I swore, even from several yards away, I could still see the twinkle in his eyes.
I walked slowly toward him, adjusting my scrub top and praying that this wouldn’t be as hard as I thought it was going to be .
“What are you doing here?” I let out an annoyed sigh, feeling a bit lightheaded, and waited for a justifiable excuse.
“Just felt like coming back to the place we first met.”
He stood as he said this, and my leg itched to kick him.
“I just knew you couldn’t avoid me here.”
I rolled my eyes.
“What do you want? I’m working.”
I could sense Becky staring at us from her little spot behind the desk.
“I came here to talk to you. You didn’t really let me explain much the other night.”
I retorted, “There is nothing to explain, Luke.”
“But you don’t believe me, and I hate that.”
I let out a sigh. “I do believe you, Luke.” He looked surprised and relieved all at once, but I was about to shoot him down. “It just…doesn’t change anything.” I looked down, staring at the tiled floor. “There had to be an end to us eventually. It was never even supposed to happen.”
He stood in front of me, and I raised my chin to stare at him.
“But it did happen.”
“And now it’s over.”
Was I doing the right thing? If what I was doing was right, then my heart probably wouldn’t have been thumping this hard in my chest and it probably wouldn’t have been physically painful to look at Luke in this state.
The light in his eyes went dim, and it hurt me. I looked away as confusion set into my body. This was stinging a lot worse than I’d thought it would.
“The baby isn’t mine.”
I felt like we should be on Jerry Springer. The baby isn’t mine! I’m not married, anymore!
His voice shook when the next words poured out. “We were having problems when I deployed last time, and she cheated on me with a guy back home. That was the news I got—the day that Zach took a bullet for me. Remember?” I looked away for a second and then met his stare.
“The guy got her pregnant, and she wouldn’t sign the divorce papers because she was using the Marine Corps medical insurance, claiming the baby was mine.”
My eyes widened. I felt like I had gotten slapped. I could almost feel the sting on my face. The haunted and determined look in Luke’s eyes told me he was telling the truth.
“She was…”—his voice dropped a bit—“fucking with me one last time by telling you she was my wife. She isn’t my wife, and I haven’t considered her my anything for a really long time, Cammie. What she and I had… It wasn’t real.” He looked away briefly. “I know that now.”
Wait. What? My heart halted in my chest. I couldn’t form words; it was all too much to process. My father’s words echoed in my head. “Everything isn’t always what it seems to be.”
I didn’t have a chance to say anything else, because Luke walked backwards and said, “I hear you. I get it. It’s over. But I just wanted you to know the whole story. I would never intentionally hurt you, Doc.”
He turned around and walked over to the elevator, never once glancing back at me. I watched him walk inside, his back still facing me, and then he dropped his head low. He placed his hand on the back wall, and the doors slid together slowly.
My heart was aching in my chest. My pulse had picked up pace, and I just stood, staring at the chrome elevator doors until I heard Becky’s voice.
“That was so much better than Days of our Lives .” I met her raised eyebrows. My dazed expression matched hers to a fucking T.
“Mom, I need to ask you something.”
My mom had been jabbering my ear off since I had emailed her, begging her to call me. She thought I wanted to see how Mexico was and how she was keeping sane while staying with José’s huge family, but I was really only calling for one particular reason.
I wanted the truth about her and my father.
I had been so angry at him after he had cheated on my mom.
I had been so angry that they had just separated without even giving it a chance.
They hadn’t gone to marriage therapy or tried to work on things for a while.
They’d just…given up. And maybe that was why I gave up so easily on Luke.
Ash had cheated on him, as his wife, while he was deployed, fighting for our country and freedom. What a low fucking blow! I hated her. I hated her, and I didn’t even truly know her.
“What is it, honey?” My mom’s voice held a gentle tone.
I leaned back against my countertop, feeling the edge dig into my back. “What really happened between you and Dad?”
There was a long pause on her end—so long that I started to pace around the kitchen.
She cleared her throat. “I know you were mad at your father despite me telling you not to be.” She paused, but I didn’t say anything.
“We wanted to protect you and Alex. We tried to stay together for so long that, by the end of our marriage—the last few years, anyway—we were so tired, we both just gave up.” She took a long breath and blew it out so loudly that I had to pull the phone away from my ear.
“So, what do you mean?” Confusion washed over me.
“Your dad technically cheated on me, because we were still legally married, but we had already established that our relationship was over long before then…” Her voice trailed at the end, and I felt like I had been run over by a Mack truck.
“Now, don’t get me wrong, I was still annoyed that he’d gotten his new wife pregnant, but my anger wasn’t really justifiable.
She made him happy, and he no longer made me happy, so there was nothing left to salvage.
” She cleared her throat. “Then, by the time things blew over, and your father and I were ready to talk to you about our reasons for separation…Alex happened, and we didn’t want to add anything else to the mix.
We wanted to give you time. We knew you would come around and you’d stop being so… ”
I finished for her, “Angry.”
She laughed. “I was going to say sad, but angry works, too.”
I found myself turning toward my kitchen window, and I stared over at Luke’s house.
My mom changed the subject after mumbling something motherly about following my heart, but I only pretended to listen.
I stared at Luke’s, wondering if he was really giving up, or if he was just leaving it all up to me.
Part of me (okay, most of me) hoped it was the latter. But should I fix it? Or was it truly over? Did we just give up that easily? Did he finally throw the towel in and actually give up? Suddenly, I wasn’t so sure I was ready to throw my towel in just yet.