Page 44 of Falling Backwards (The Edge of Us #1)

The first couple days after my injury really do a number on my mood. I’m all over the place. I’m happy it’s been a little over two full weeks since anything last happened with Kyle, and I have bouts of grouchiness because of my pain, and I’m thankful I didn’t get hurt even worse, and I’m tired because it’s hard to sleep even halfway comfortably, and my heart is full over how Luke has been taking care of me, and I hate not being able to get back to physical intimacy with him thanks to my knee….

Then there are things that have started whispering behind all those more prominent thoughts. Like that I still so love the silky, sheer fabric of the crop tops but haven’t tried either size on yet because I’m nervous, so they remain tucked away in their bag in my bedroom. And my break from cardio has been soothed a bit by me and Luke trying out our dumbbells, but I can’t actually do much of anything with them because even upper-body workouts seem to use the whole body somehow, so my limits threaten to bring back my worry about the tougher exercise I’m already behind on. And my short Monday shift at work is quiet, but I end up in a rattling mental loop because I can’t quit thinking about how I want to go home and should have called in, except no, I was right not to and I need to stop being a whiny baby, except my knee hurts even with the Tylenol—and I never call in, so why am I not allowed to do it when I’m injured?

By the time I’m lying in my bed on Monday night, I’m close to aggravated tears.

I don’t like it.

As my knee throbs and aches, I take measured breaths and try to quiet my mind. Luke will be calling soon. Hearing his voice is sure to make me feel better, and it’ll be nice to hear how his evening with his mom went; today is her birthday, so he took her out to dinner.

Was I rude not to accept their invitation to join them? I fret, not for the first time.

I shake my head at myself. No, I wanted them to have special time together. Just because I’m dating Luke doesn’t mean I should horn in on every aspect of his life.

But he said they’d love to have me if I was up to going.

I wasn’t, though. My knee was still pissed off about me going to work and I truly didn’t wanna feel like I was imposing on his and his mom’s evening.

Frowning at the lamplit ceiling, I sigh.

Damn my knee. I feel stupid for being so bothered by it. It’s not like I broke my kneecap. Why has it put me all out of sorts?

My phone vibrates next to me, bringing me out of my head. Luke is calling.

“Hey,”

I say to him.

“Hey, how you feeling?”

The warm question pulls the truth right out of me.

With my free hand, I rub at my eyes.

“Tired and hurt and annoyed and like an idiot because this is just a scrape, not something serious, yet it has knocked me on my ass. I don’t know why I’m having trouble ignoring it. I feel like a drama queen or something.”

My knee chooses this moment to randomly throb hard, making me wince and huff out a noise of sharp discomfort. Ow.

Luke’s voice doesn’t lose one bit of its warmth.

“I’d be tired and hurting and annoyed, too, ’cause that thing is shitty. You hear what I just said? Your injury is shitty. It being a scrape doesn’t make it not hurt—it’s a bad scrape. And since it’s on the knee, it’s easily agitated, which makes doing normal things without pain striking kind of a tall task. Who would be able to just ignore that?”

He clicks his tongue.

“By the way, if the injured were someone else and you heard them saying what you said about yourself, I know you’d tell them in a heartbeat that there’s nothing to feel ashamed of. You’d be kind and encouraging. So give yourself that same grace.”

I…

…kind of melt from that.

My muscles relax and allow me to really sink into my bed, my exhalation coming out slow and easy.

He says, “Yeah,”

in a way that tells me he knows the effect his words have had on me.

Diffidently, I tell him.

“Thank you.”

Then.

“How are you feeling?”

“You don’t have to keep thanking me for caring for you.”

I can hear his smile and I just know it’s soft.

“And I don’t mean to be braggy or anything, but I’m great. Dinner with Mom was great.”

I surprise myself with a chuckle.

“I don’t think that sounds braggy. I hoped you’d have a great time. I’m happy you did.”

“Aw. Well, I missed you. In fact, I—”

A knock comes at my closed bedroom door.

“Hold on,”

I tell him. Then I call towards the door, “Yeah?”

It opens and I wait to see what Joy or Emma wants…but….

I gasp into a smile.

“Oh! Luke?”

I hurry to sit up and remember with a hiss that I need to move more slowly—torn between my discomfort and being happily surprised to see him, I watch him come into my room and shut the door behind him.

“Ow, but hi!”

“Easy!”

he reprimands good-naturedly.

“Don’t re-hurt yourself.”

I nod compliantly while I toss my phone aside; I see he has already ended our call and put his own phone away. I carefully scoot around to make sure there’s room for him on my bed, and in moments, he’s got his shoes off and he’s settling onto the stretch of blanket next to me. We lean right into each other, one of his hands slipping over my waist, one of mine over his shoulder. The kiss he gives me is eager yet gentle, and it works with everything else about him to further settle the rattled cage of my mind.

I literally slump with relief.

A slight curve of a smile moves against my lips; he isn’t amused, just affectionate. He rubs at my waist.

In a low, knowing tone, he says.

“Although I came to see you ’cause I wanted to, something also told me you’d feel better if I did.”

I whisper, “I do.”

“Good.”

Remembering his words from before our phone call ended, I add.

“I missed you too.”

He inhales for a slow couple of moments. I lift my hand from his shoulder to bend my fingers against his face, and he nuzzles them without moving his lips too far from mine.

“My mom missed you too,”

he says.

“Just not as much as I did.”

“Aw, my gosh.”

I touch my hand to my heart.

“Yeah, she likes you.”

“I like her too.”

“Do you also like double-fudge brownies? ’Cause I brought you one from the steakhouse we went to.”

Sitting back in my own space lets me see him properly. His blue eyes drift over my face, bright like he’s grinning even though he isn’t; I don’t know why, but it has butterflies awakening in my stomach.

“The brownie sounds awesome,”

I murmur.

“Thank you.”

“Anything for you,”

he murmurs back.

The brightness is still in his eyes, but it doesn’t speak of teasing, only of happiness.

I love that.

I inhale it along with normal air, then start lying down. It’s quickly becoming uncomfortable to remain sitting like I have been.

“Does ‘anything’ include snuggling with me in an awkward way so my knee doesn’t get hit?”

“It does include that.”

He flops down, waits for me to get situated, and then fixes himself closer to me. I get an arm around him. As soon as we’re still, we both sigh and relax.

Well, I relax physically. My emotional state has improved, but my harried thoughts haven’t actually gone anywhere.

I don’t want to dwell on them, though. Don’t want to sink back into them.

Luke’s hum of contentment is just startling enough that my eyes flutter open because, apparently, they’d closed at some point.

That’s no good. I can’t fall asleep so soon after he’s gotten here.

As if on cue, he asks.

“Was work hard?”

I sigh.

“Yeah. Painful.”

He gives my waist a sympathetic squeeze.

“You should’ve left, not suffered through it.”

The aggravated parts of me prickle at that, though I don’t know why; he’s just saying what I kept thinking. I give that a moment to abate before I murmur.

“Well, you know me.”

“I sure do.”

He squeezes me again, and this time, I reciprocate.

“No need to talk about all that, though. It’s not exciting. Tell me about dinner.”

“You are forever exciting to me in one way or another, but okay.”

I can’t help smiling about that; I feel the same way about him.

And as he starts talking about food, I let my eyes close again so as to do nothing but listen. It makes the vibration of his voice against me feel even more soothing and wonderful. My earlier frustrations and tangled thoughts don’t get cleared out, but they do get nudged to the sidelines.

I know they’ll come back; I’ll deal with them then.

Now is for embracing the happy surprise of Luke’s presence.

—

Tuesday.

Cold, dark gray, drizzly.

Work has brought annoyance and a certain tension from the assistant manager being in a bad mood; at one point, Ronald even snapped at me for how slowly I was walking when showing people to their tables, despite that I told him about my knee yesterday. I also got hit with extra pain because a woman swung her purse right into my wound as I was seating her and her tablemate. Ronald got irritated with me about that, too, and said I was unprofessional for crying where people could see, which upset me more.

There have been a couple of unhappy customers, too, and the resurfacing of the up-and-down mood that wore me out so much yesterday, though it’s mostly been down. My bones have felt heavy today, and I haven’t been able to convince myself to end my shift early and go home to rest my knee. Not like Ronald would let me do that anyway; if he did, I’d probably be in fresh tears from whatever scolding he’d give me, which wouldn’t make me feel better at all.

And here’s something that definitely isn’t making me feel better: I’ve spent the last half-hour with another kind of discomfort nagging me because my ex and his new girlfriend showed up and I had to seat them in the bar area—and every time I looked over there because I felt like I was being watched, I found I was right. Marcus sat himself in a way that put my hostess stand in his sights. Since then, I’ve seen him shooting glances right at me as clearly as he’s been drinking and flirting with his girlfriend.

What the hell is that about?

A question that has been twisting at my stomach all this time—and freshly twists at it now that I’m noticing his attention again.

I finally send a frown back to him.

Just as I’m wondering if he’ll even see my expression properly from where he is, I realize he probably does since I can see the way he smirks.

He smirks at me while he drags his fingertips up and down his girlfriend’s arm on the table, turning his gaze to her just before she looks at him from her phone with a smile.

Something about it makes me feel ill at ease. Like he’s mocking me somehow.

I go back to minding my business here at the hostess stand.

Thankfully, a moment later, the employees-only phone rings and offers even more of a distraction.

“This is Maggie,” I answer.

“Go get the clean cutlery so you can sit in the bar area and fix up napkins.”

Ah, God.

Ronald’s order has me uncomfortably shifting my weight from one foot to the other. I always have a good time working on silverware bundles, but….

I chance saying.

“Yes, sir, but does it absolutely have to be the bar area? I know there are tables to spare in the dining room.”

He hangs up on me.

I measure out a breath as I put the phone away.

I’ll sit as far as I can from Marcus, then. After all, that’s what I always do when I wrap silverware: sit as far from guests as possible so I’m neither a distraction nor an imposition.

But I’m the only hostess working, so I’ll have to keep this front area in view and not miss coming to greet anyone who arrives. That means I can’t sit at just any distant table.

Lord, please let him start ignoring me. I don’t wanna deal with whatever he’s doing.

I happen to know I’ll have a reservation to tend to in about ten minutes, so I decide to wait on that before I go to the kitchen. Part of me hopes Marcus will be leaving by the time I sit down—maybe he and his girlfriend are just here for quick drinks, not food.

My hope grows when the guests with the reservation turn out to be a bit late; it helps me kill time. And I still have to hobble to the kitchen, then to where the clean cloth napkins are, then to the table of my choice, then back to my stand so I can sanitize my hands and collect the iPad to keep with me while I work on my task, then back to the table….

No, though.

No, when I finally sit down, the sticky gaze coming from Marcus feels as settled-in as ever.

I straighten my spine and go for a glimpse at his table to see how far along into their visit he and his girlfriend might be; I’d like to have some idea of how long I’ll have to sit with this weird-ass feeling. And ugh—I don’t make eye contact with Marcus again, but that’s only because he’s currently watching his server place a just-brought-out appetizer between him and the girl. They’re not getting the check and preparing to leave.

I wish Luke were here. I wish I could look in the direction of the bar and see him instead of my stupid ex.

…Even though I am now recalling he, too, was in a bit of a bad mood earlier, before I came to work.

Well, he was in an off mood, not a bad one, I guess. He was his normal self upon waking next to me today and all the way up to when we went to lunch, and then something was different when I came back to our table from washing my hands. I couldn’t gauge what had irked him. When I asked, he said he was fine. I could tell it wasn’t true, but I didn’t want to prod too much, so I just moved on, trying not to think about Thanksgiving Day when he also was bothered by something—clearly and truly—and told me it was nothing.

But it probably was nothing, both on that day and today at lunch. People are allowed to be randomly peeved and to not want to dwell on whatever caused it. And I wouldn’t want to be pestered if it were me, so it’s only fair I be courteous to Luke.

My stomach remains unsettled by those moments, though, and knowing Marcus isn’t going away yet only worsens it.

Just focus on work, I tell myself. Put unease out of your mind and do what you’re supposed to do.

I listen to me.

Soon, I’m rather soothed by my task.

It’s a relief that the fun of preparing silverware bundles isn’t being ruined today. It’s still nice to be sure each cloth napkin is precisely folded in the crisp and elegant Lucent way, and I know I’ll still enjoy confirming the cutlery is clean once I’m on to that step of the process, and it’ll still be satisfying to tuck the silverware into the angled crease of the cloth—forks, knife, spoon—for a perfect look.

Honestly, I wish I had nothing but this to think about for the rest of my shift. As it is, I have other work to deal with. I pause now and then to look to the front of the house for anyone who might need me. I check the iPad to ensure I’m not sitting over here when guests arrive for their reservations. I go answer the phone when it rings.

And when a familiar voice pointedly calls.

“Excuse me, miss,”

in my direction, I know I’m not allowed to ignore it.

‘Miss,’ he called me, as if he doesn’t know me.

It’s like the other time he came in and spoke to me like I was a stranger, not someone he dated for months.

I look up from the last napkin I’m folding and see Marcus looking at me in an expectant yet once again smirking way. He’s definitely talking to me—his wave for me to come to their table makes it that much clearer. Inhaling deeply, I gingerly get up from my chair and go.

He takes a break from watching me to turn and reach to his girl, makes a show of slipping his hand around her waist and rubbing it the best he can while they’re sitting. I remember the other ways he has seemed to flaunt his affection for her in front of me, and then I think farther back to him grabbing her ass when I sat them in the dining room last time.

Why does he keep doing things like that? Does he think it’ll make me jealous?

Mocking, that part of me from earlier thinks again. He’s mocking me in some way.

I don’t have time to ponder it before I’m close enough to the table to speak.

Before I can, he says again.

“Excuse me, miss.”

I fight not to let my stiffness show.

“Yes, sir? What can I help you with?”

“Can you go find our server?”

He picks up the short glass in front of him and shakes it at me, rattling the ice cubes.

“I need another drink.”

His girlfriend cuts in lightly with.

“Oh, I don’t know, honey. You’ve already had three, right?”

I notice a few things at once now that I’m not at a distance: the way he looks and sounds gives away that he has managed to have a few drinks while he’s been here, and his girlfriend is eyeing his empty glass with hesitation, and it’s evident that he hasn’t eaten any of their crab cake appetizer like she has.

So he’s been drinking far more than he’s been eating. Great.

Part of me wants to mention Lucent’s alcoholic beverage limit policy, but I know it’s the server’s place to go there, not mine. Juanita will know exactly how many drinks Marcus has had anyway. I’ll say something to her about it when I find her; I believe I have a responsibility to do that.

“I’ll go get Juanita,”

I say.

“One minute.”

“What’s all that looking for?”

Marcus asks sharply as I’m just starting to move, causing me to pause.

“Is that a little bit of judgment I see, miss?”

His girlfriend murmurs.

“Marcus, no,”

and sends me an apologetic smile.

He shrugs.

“‘Marcus, no,’ what? She looks judgmental to me.”

“Why don’t you eat a crab cake while she’s gone? If you leave it too long, it’ll start….”

As I finally, wordlessly get away from their table, I feel a twinge of unease—and I feel bad for the girl. I only saw Marcus get truly drunk a few times in the months we were together, but I remember they weren’t fun. When he’s drunk, his lips get loose and he says things he shouldn’t say. I once witnessed him tell a secret about a friend of his and it got them in trouble, and another time he lied about a coworker because he was mad at them and it later made them look bad to their boss.

I hope he won’t ruin his girlfriend’s night with the way he gets.

Halfway to the kitchen, I find Juanita, so I tell her she’s needed at Marcus’s table.

“And hey,”

I add as we go in that direction together.

“do you know how many drinks he’s had so far?”

We talk about it until we have to part ways. As I return to my table so I can get back to work, I feel better about the situation; Juanita assured me he isn’t allowed any more drinks. I’m glad she didn’t brush me off like Ronald probably would have.

I shake my head at remembering how inebriated he allowed those wedding engagement parties to get a month or so ago. So dangerous.

My knee thanks me when I get seated again. I attempt to soothe it with a brief rest of my hands around it, being extra careful not to touch any of the places that actually hurt. At the mere memory of that one lady hitting my knee with her purse, I cringe—God, I could cry all over again from—

A rising voice from across the way draws my attention. I look and see Marcus with defiant eyes, his girlfriend with a hand rubbing over hers, and Juanita walking away.

Briefly, I wonder what that’s about. Then I set my hands to the silverware in front of me.

I’m a few minutes into my inspection when movement nearby has me glancing up and finding Juanita nearly upon me. She looks annoyed. I tilt my head in a curious greeting.

Her hands land on a bit of free space on my tablecloth, and she leans over to me. I lean in, too, and catch her low voice.

“Just thought you’d like to know I cut that guy off from his fourth drink and he told me to go get my manager. Since Mr. Polk isn’t here, I had Ronald come over to talk to him, and look how that’s going.”

With a roll of her eyes, she turns and leaves, and I’m able to see Ronald and Marcus smiling and shaking hands. In fact, I’m looking at just the right time to watch Ronald point at the empty glass Marcus was shaking at me earlier and, winking, very clearly ask if that’s what Marcus wants another of.

My mouth falls open.

Next, Ronald walks over to Juanita and says something. She crosses her arms and looks like she’s protesting. He puts on an expression I know well: the, ‘Do as I say and do it now, or else,’ expression. Juanita seems to hold her ground, and a moment later, Ronald turns and goes to the bar proper, speaks to Tia, and motions to Marcus’s table—then smiles at the guy and gives him a thumbs-up.

…Am I understanding all this right? Is he rescinding the cutoff?

I try not to keep staring. Really, I do. But my eyes never quite make it back to my task before they’re up again, watching Juanita tend to another table while trying to rein in her displeasure, watching the straight-backed girlfriend stand from the table and go in the direction of the restrooms, watching Marcus drink the watered-down remnants of his beverage.

Which means I also notice when he turns his attention right to me.

At last, I snap my eyes down to the silverware. I pick up a fork and scrutinize it, spy a dirty spot, and set it aside to be taken back to the kitchen.

Please just ignore me, I silently beseech Marcus. Please finally get bored of me and just—

But at the edge of my vision, I can see a figure approaching my table.

Oh no.

Stomach dipping, I pick up another fork.

Don’t be him.

“You know….”

It is him, though. Of course it is. Damn it.

New discomfort ripples over me. I swear even my knee throbs from how unwelcome his closeness is. I look up at him, though, because if he has no qualms about going over his server’s head to complain about being refused a drink, he won’t have any qualms about complaining that I ignored him when he tried to talk to me—and Ronald won’t side with me on it for any reason, because to him, the customer is always right.

I do my best to level out my expression as I wait for Marcus to finish the sentence he started. He seems to study me for another second before he does.

“I see what you’re doing,” he says.

“Working?”

I manage to ask politely.

He smirks anew.

“Working near me. Picking a table near me out of all the ones in this place.”

Oh, hell.

Internally, I curse Ronald for making me sit in the bar area. Out loud, I tell Marcus.

“It wasn’t my decision. I had to sit here.”

“Yeah, sure.”

He puts a hand on the table and leans heavily onto it; unlike with Juanita, I don’t mirror his inwards slant.

“It’s okay to admit you miss me.”

At that, I don’t know if I want to laugh or scoff. I end up just staring at him in disbelief.

He winks at me.

This guy is out of his mind. Is he this drunk or does he seriously think I wish I were still with him?

I inform him.

“I don’t miss you at all. Not for a second.”

He stares at me, too, and he does scoff. It’s as if I’ve offended him.

Except then he pushes up out of his lean on the table and says.

“Yeah, I don’t miss you either.”

His eyes wander over the parts of me that are in view with me sitting like this. He smiles smugly.

“Fucking hell, do I not miss you. It’s so nice to look at the girl I’m with and feel turned on instead of—”

he points at me, then behind him to the direction of his table and the bathrooms.

“—oh, and proud, honestly! It’s fucking awesome to look at her and feel proud and turned on instead of grossed out.”

He squints at me.

“Did you really think I could still want you after you gained all that weight? Surely not, right? Surely you knew I’d have no choice but to let you go, right? Or maybe you didn’t know that. Your bartender boyfriend didn’t get it either when I told him that day I saw him. But I mean, like I also told him, you still have a pretty face, but God, Maggie, how could you think anyone would…?”

I try to take a breath as I lose track of the onslaught of his words, but the air is thin going into my lungs.

My insides are being gripped and squeezed hard, leaving me wide-eyed.

I stare at him once again, unseeingly now, as bits and pieces of what he’s said ricochet around my skull. Each sharp ping makes my face feel hotter, makes my midsection feel heavier, makes my memory of Luke telling me about their encounter seem jagged and embarrassing and—

Marcus told him my weight gain is the reason he dumped me? And Luke hid that from me?

My thoughts are all over the place. I recall Luke telling me that he got in trouble for insulting Marcus, who had insulted me first, but I can’t remember him telling me the whole truth and I can’t believe he wouldn’t have. And I think about how Marcus is drunk right now and shouldn’t be listened to, except that drunk Marcus is just as likely to be too honest as he is to lie and stir up shit, so I don’t know where the truth actually lies in his words. And I know I need to get back to work if only to distract myself from him, but I’m having trouble moving and looking away from his stupid face and his perfect clothes and the ghost of his new girlfriend standing beside him—she hasn’t come back from the bathroom yet, but I can picture her standing here, all slim and graceful.

He’s a piece of shit, part of me whispers. Who cares what he thinks?

The rest of me is made up of knots of confusion and disquietude.

I tune back in to him because he wobbles into the table and jostles the cutlery, interrupting my thoughts with several noisy clangs.

“All right, I gotta get bad to my—I mean, back to my goddess,”

he says. “Yum.”

Then, as he’s turning away, he flicks one last look over me and wrinkles his nose.

I watch him wander back to his table, and I realize I’m shaking as I grip the slim metal handle of the fork still in my hand from before.

‘Yum,’ he said of her. ‘Yuck,’ he thought of me.

I have no idea what he was saying before, but I caught that loud and clear.

I don’t care what he thinks. I don’t care at all. I don’t.

Of course I do, though, in a way. Not because I want him back, not because I love him, not because I even like him—I care because I’m human. I have feelings and insecurities and he just…he just….

I try not to tear up.

I try to think about Luke and how good he makes me feel instead.

I try not to be upset with him, too, over what he didn’t tell me about his past conversation with Marcus.

I try to focus on work.

But the knots in me just keep growing.

—

By the time I’m walking out of Lucent and to Luke’s car, I feel something new: the insistent dig of frustration.

It doesn’t help for me to get into his passenger seat and receive only a slight nod, not even an attempt at a smile; something is still off with his mood, and I’ll just bet he’s going to keep evading me if I ask what it is.

He asks.

“How was work?”

and I know him well enough to hear the nearly forced interest in his tone. Not even the low music playing can distract me from it.

“It was shitty,”

I say. My thoughts glance over everything with Marcus and then over how my shift managed to worsen after he left my table.

“That sucks.”

Judging by that tone, I don’t think he’s even halfway here with me.

I clench my jaw, buckle my seatbelt, and ask.

“Is something bothering you?”

“No. I’m all good.”

As he gets the car moving, I look at him. It’s dark outside and mostly dark in here, but I can see his expression isn’t any different from how it was during lunch. Except….

Worse. He looks worse. He feels worse.

There’s a tightness about him. It’s in his eyes, in his jaw, his shoulders, his grip on the steering wheel.

Something is on his mind, and it’s big enough that it hasn’t just been with him for hours, it has deepened.

What happened? I wonder yet again.

“What happened?”

he asks me.

“Why was work shitty?”

The questions are wrought with evasiveness, not stirring sympathy.

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

I ask back instead of answering him.

“I really feel like something got to you at lunch and is still bothering you now.”

“I’m fine.”

“I know you, Luke.”

“It’s nothing, Maggie.”

There’s an edge to his tone now.

Great. I’m pestering him exactly like I didn’t want to do earlier.

Bad on me for caring, right?

I look straight ahead now. Crossing my arms over my stomach makes me think of Marcus and the rest of my shift. I find myself answering Luke’s questions at last.

“My ex was there, drinking in the bar area with his girlfriend. Ronald told me to do napkins and silverware over there and I asked if I could do it somewhere else, but he ignored me, so I had to pick a bar table that I could see my stand from, which meant I had to sit near enough to Marcus that when his girlfriend went to the restroom, his drunk ass came over to me and said I was sitting there to be close to him because I miss him.”

Luke exhales and I don’t know if it’s because that’s part of breathing or if that’s the best scoff-sigh-whatever he can give right now.

As I replay my conversation with Marcus in my head, I realize my fingers have started gripping my shirt. I can’t get them to loosen for more than a second.

“I told him I don’t miss him at all, and he said he doesn’t miss me, and then he—he said he’s so happy to be able to look at his new girlfriend and not be disgusted. He talked about the weight I gained when I was with him and said it was why he dumped me.”

When I slide a look back to Luke, I see his hands tightening a little more on the steering wheel.

In my memory, I hear Marcus mentioning….

I have to ask.

“Did you know that? Did he tell you that’s why he broke up with me? Is that what you meant when you said he came to the bar and talked to you and insulted me?”

He takes a slow breath, his eyes still on the road, and nods.

I didn’t notice I’d been hunching my shoulders, but I do now that they drop with heavy shock.

“Why would you not tell me that?” I demand.

The red glow of a stoplight washes over him, and after the car has stilled, he turns a frown on me. It’s still not wholehearted, and neither is his tone when he says.

“I didn’t think you wanted me to.”

I raise my eyebrows.

He raises one at me and finally looks more like himself.

I ask.

“So you just hid it from me? You made the executive decision that I couldn’t handle hearing something like that?”

“No?”

he counters, his eyes doing a quick sideways dart like he has no idea why I think that.

It only confounds me more.

“Yes, you did! You just told me you kept it from me because you didn’t think—”

“I offered to tell you!”

He gestures at me, his frown coming fully to life in the glow of the red light.

“Before you go and get all accusatory, maybe think back to you sitting right there and not taking me up on that offer. I said I’d tell you what he said about you but that it would probably upset you and that it upset me, and you never asked me to keep talking. You never told me you wanted to hear it. What was I supposed to do, say it anyway like I didn’t give a shit about your feelings?”

Now I’m frowning too.

But all of that actually sounds familiar, so I do what he suggested and think back. I remember him telling me he got written up for insulting Marcus—I couldn’t believe he’d done that, but he informed me, ‘Well, he insulted you first.’ I was embarrassed that my ex had said anything behind my back, and I was surprised and stirred by Luke defending me.

Presently, the glow on Luke turns green and he turns his eyes back to the road, getting us going again.

“I guess if you wanna say I kept it from you, then that’s technically true, but I didn’t do it to hurt you somehow. I did it to not hurt you. And you participated in that, so….”

New embarrassment floods me now.

I do remember Luke offering to tell me what exactly Marcus said. I silently wondered about it, and Luke had said he’d tell me…but he’s right, I never….

Turning away from him, I put my hands over my face and sigh.

He doesn’t prompt me to confirm that he didn’t do anything wrong like I thought. I can’t seem to find the right words to do it on my own.

Even after my hands are in my lap and I’ve spent a minute looking out my window, I don’t quite know what to say.

Eventually, I go with.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,”

he mumbles, only audible because a song has just ended and the next hasn’t begun yet.

“No, I guess I….”

At last, more words come to me.

“Too much piled up on me at once. My knee has been hurting worse because a lady knocked her purse into it when I was seating her. Then everything with Marcus happened and there was even more that he said to me than what I told you. And then there was this whole thing with Ronald.”

I cannot believe he wrote me up because of Marcus.

Except of course I can. Wasn’t I thinking earlier that Ronald always picks the customer over his employees, no matter what? Nevermind me not having a history of being rude to our patrons, and nevermind Marcus clearly being drunk—so drunk by the time he was leaving that he couldn’t quite walk straight. No, of course Ronald still took his word over mine and penalized me for saying things I didn’t say and acting in ways I didn’t act.

Once again, my hands are balled into fists.

I’m not truly surprised Marcus lied about me to him either. In a twisted way, it’s funny that I was remembering him drunkenly lying to get someone else in trouble and then forty-five minutes later, he was doing it to me.

What I am surprised about is that I didn’t freshly cry when Ronald bitched at me and issued the write-up. Instead, the unfairness of it all had me tense and burning hot and ready to just…. And I still feel that way now. Not like crying, just like telling Ronald exactly what I think of him in Emma Haledon style.

But as I loosen my fists, I realize how tired I also am. I don’t want to be in this mood, don’t want to carry it with me for the rest of the night.

So I’ll try to let it go for now. I already decided I’ll take this up with Mr. Polk the next time he’s at the restaurant; I’ll tell him everything that happened. I know he’ll straighten things out. There’s no need to stew about it any more tonight.

Luke belatedly responds to what I said before with.

“Wanna talk about it?”

My decision stays in place, and not just because he’s back to sounding distant.

“Not right now. I’m tired of being upset about it.”

I sigh.

“Tired of being upset in general. I’ll tell you tomorrow or after I’ve talked to Mr. Polk or something.”

I think I hear him say, “Okay,”

but it’s hard to know for sure.

The music fills the quietude we fall into. I recognize it as a cover of an older song; I rather like the sound of this one. I start to settle into it while I look out my window—

—and I jump at the sudden weight on my thigh, snapping my eyes to it.

But it’s just Luke’s hand. Just his touch resting on me there.

My heart swells.

He reached out to me. He’s not at such a distance that he doesn’t want to touch me.

I lay a hand on his. He gives my thigh a light squeeze that melts all the tension out of me.

What a difference something like this makes to a bout of unhappiness. Ronald and my ex matter even less. The mood Luke has been in doesn’t feel as irksome to me as it did before.

Outside problems and worries and unfairness be damned. I’m still his, and he’s still mine.

The quiet between us seems to soften. Even the music soon changes to something gentler.

My mood continues to improve as we park at my apartment and Luke accepts my invitation to come upstairs and watch TV. I feel steady as we hold hands while we walk even though my knee hates the strain. There’s a sense of comfort in the bright warmth of the building welcoming us out of the drizzle of the cold night. I think ahead to my pajamas, to what food I can easily whip up, to what time Joy said she’d be back from a coworker’s birthday dinner and Emma from being out with Paxton.

Gosh, I can’t wait to relax.

“Make yourself at home,”

I tell Luke once we’re in the apartment and taking our shoes off.

“I’m gonna change out of my work clothes. And are you hungry? I am.”

“Yeah, I am. I’ll look around the kitchen for something for us.”

Aw.

“Oh. Well, only if you feel like it. I can do it myself if you’d rather sit down.”

He surprises me with a chuckle that sounds halfway normal.

“You’re the one who should be sitting down. I can handle the food.”

I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve smiled since lunchtime.

“Thank you,”

I say, watching him go towards the kitchen.

The glance he turns back to me brings a little smile of his own—it’s not much, but it’s something.

Mmm. I’ve only just realized I need a kiss from him. And another easy touch. And some real, true closeness.

I’m hopeful that we’ll get to at least some of that here in a little while, after we’re settled in.

First things first, though.

While I cautiously change clothes, Luke calls food questions to me from the kitchen. I answer, but not without considering pretending not to hear him; I’m torn between feeling self-conscious about my body thanks to my ex and wishing Luke would walk in on me half-dressed and help me get back to the confidence I was starting to build up before I hurt my knee and had to stop doing my workouts.

Remembering my necessary hiatus brings on that old familiar glumness and discouragement. I told Luke recently that I’d try to be nice to myself, but it’s proving difficult. I thought I was doing a good job of getting into shape—not like it was happening overnight or anything, but it was something, you know? It was effort and I was happy about it even when it sucked. And now I’ve had to put it on pause for…I don’t even know how long. My knee is torn up. Am I looking at weeks before I can get back to exercising without it hurting?

Well, we’re not doing this right now, I remind myself as I finish putting my pajamas on. We’re in the market for a better mood than the one we’ve been in. No negative thoughts allowed for the rest of the night.

Yeah.

I leave my room and leave the glumness and discouragement behind.

Luke insists I sit on the couch while he finishes making our sandwiches. I sigh with relief as I sink into the cushions, then snag the remote control from the arm of the couch. What sounds good to watch?

I’ve narrowed it down to a few options by the time Luke is sitting next to me. He passes my plate and a napkin to me, and I’m surprised the sandwich looks rather picturesque.

Before I can compliment him on it and ask what he wants to watch, he speaks.

“So, my oldest friend is in town from med school and he asked me to get drinks with him tomorrow night. Just wanted to let you know I’m gonna do that. At six, I think?”

His tone is mild; it’s neither excited nor dull, giving away neither that he’s looking forward to the outing nor that he wishes he could bail.

I can understand it. There are some people in life with whom you’re simply fine to visit—nothing more, nothing less. His oldest friend, though? I’m pretty sure I haven’t heard about anyone like that, especially no one in medical school.

“Oh, yeah?”

I ask.

“Who is it? I don’t think you’ve mentioned him.”

I try to think back while I pick up my sandwich.

“Uh…yeah, he’s….”

I wonder where they’re going. Tomorrow is Wednesday, which means Merritt’s will have half-price margaritas. I haven’t been back there since the stuff with Kyle started and neither has Luke, so if I miss it, I know he does too. He used to go there as often as I did. It would be nice for him to—

“It’s Jayden.”

The name slows the bite of sandwich I’ve just taken.

Jayden? Where do I know that…?

But a face promptly comes up in my mind with sharp familiarity.

I stop chewing and go stiff.

My heart drops and starts my stomach churning.

No, surely not.

Surely it’s not that guy.

With my appetite suddenly stunted, I have to force myself to finish chewing and swallow my bite of food. Then I look at Luke and see he’s taken his own bite of sandwich—and see his hand shaking, his face slightly colored, his eyes firmly cast down to his plate.

And…it all speaks the truth. It all answers the question I haven’t asked him.

Jayden is that guy I remember. Luke’s friend from high school. The friend who….

‘Maggie, wait! Please let me explain!’ sixteen-year-old Luke’s voice blasts through my mind, as clear as it was the other thousand times I replayed it over the years. ‘It was just this stupid idea—this stupid bet Jayden came up with that I swear I—and—but I actually care about you, Maggie, so please—’

“Are you serious?”

I whisper, cutting off that memory the way younger me cut off Luke’s stammering with hands over her ears and a shriek for him to shut up and never talk to her again.

“Jayden-Jayden? The guy you said—you said came up with…?”

He swallows his bite, too, then wets his lips. After a second, he sets his sandwich down and puts his plate aside. I do the same and realize my hands are shaking, along with the rest of me.

The look that Luke turns to me isn’t all weird and distant and whatever like most of his others have been today. This one is reluctant.

It’s guilty.

The air huffs hard out of my lungs.

“Maggie,”

he begins.

I shake my head.

“No. No way, Luke. You’re not serious.”

“He’s…. Believe me, I hate being reminded of what happened and I hate thinking about it, but he’s been my friend for so long. So it’s complicated, you know? And I don’t even wanna go for very long. He’s not actually my favorite person or anything. I’m just gonna see him for maybe two—Maggie!”

I can hear his concern through the gasps brought on by my rush to stand—shit, my knee—but I still wobble a couple steps backwards, away from his reaching hand.

His eyes had already turned imploring, and that intensifies now.

“Be careful, will you? Come sit back down before you hurt yourself.”

I try to demand.

“Before I hurt myself?”

but my voice comes out weak and breathy.

You’re the one hurting me right now.

Like I’ve said that out loud, an ache of a look spikes over Luke’s face.

He stares at me, and I stare at him.

Neither of us says anything else.

I don’t know what to say. There are too many words ramming against the inside of my skull. I’m just…I’m—I’m stunned.

And the sting of betrayal is quickly taking me over. It’s coming on so strong and recognizable that I almost feel dizzy with it. With panic. With heartache.

Part of me scrambles for calmness, tries to recall the whole, ‘To hell with the outside world!’ thing I was thinking in the car about nothing mattering as much as Luke and I do. But it doesn’t work. I can’t just brush this off, can’t just let it go. This is the opposite of the outside world—this is a home strike right to my chest.

I never imagined he’d do anything like this after how things have changed between us.

I tune in to how thin my breaths are in the silence. How shaky his are.

This is not happening. Luke has not actually made this choice.

He finally says.

“I’m not trying to hurt you, Maggie. I don’t wanna hurt you.”

‘This stupid bet Jayden came up with….’

The jagged pain and mortification from that day come back to me in full.

It helps me to finally keep talking, too, around the lump growing in my throat.

“What are you trying to do? Pretend like none of the bad stuff from high school was real?”

“I—”

“Are you trying to pretend like everything’s fine and nothing ever hurt like hell and—?”

“We agreed on that, didn’t we? We said we’d put up a wall between then and now! Glazing over the past is what we decided to do!”

“But not like this!”

My sudden yell bounces around the room and leaves him frowning in surprise for long moments. Then he’s outright unhappy as he gets to his feet too.

“So it’s only a good agreement as long as it goes the way you want it to?”

he asks.

“What I want out of it doesn’t matter? A friendship I’ve had for years and years doesn’t matter?”

The prickle of oncoming tears hits my eyes. I rub at them and sniff.

“Why do you want this? I—I have a very clear memory of you running after me at school, telling me you cared about me, and now you’re my boyfriend for real and we’ve had it so damn good and you—just a minute ago, Luke, you said you hate thinking back on what happened—and you’re still gonna go get a damn beer with the guy who started everything?”

My chest feels heavy, like my lungs are working overtime and still not bringing in enough air.

“And you said you don’t wanna hurt me and he’s not your favorite person, so why go at all?”

He looks like he hadn’t thought of that before or something, but what he says is.

“I feel like I have to. He’s a part of my life even if we’re not close like we used to be. Can you understand?”

I take a beat to think through my upset and try to see his side of this. I can’t make it make sense, though.

“No,”

I whisper, “I can’t.”

Luke scoffs.

“Did you even try?”

“Did you consider how this would make me feel?”

I counter, crossing my arms over my chest.

“God, did you really care about me back then? Do you care about me now?”

“Of course I do!”

he bursts out in a shout, blue eyes sparking with abrupt insult and anger and a streak of what looks like affection.

“And of course I did! You have always mattered to me like nothing else ever has!”

I utterly love that and am utterly bewildered by it.

“Well, you’ve had a strange way of showing it a big couple of times, haven’t you? And how do you really not think me feeling betrayed is valid? This isn’t like earlier when I got mad that you didn’t tell me what Marcus said about me. That was me misremembering and overreacting. What’s happening now is something that well and truly hurts.”

A new realization hits me from the idea of Luke keeping things from me, and it puffs out of my mouth before he can reply.

“Is this what you’ve been trying to hide from me?”

I raise my eyebrows at him.

“Is this why your mood has been weird today and—and why you wouldn’t talk to me about what bothered you on Thanksgiving Day? Have you been hiding that you’ve had plans with him? Do you know it’s valid that I feel betrayed and you just don’t care because you still wanna be friends with someone you’ve known forever even though he had a hand in hurting me? Have your plans been looming over you and making you wonder how you could be so fucking amazing to my face when you knew that as soon as I found out, I would feel—?”

“No, it’s been my dad, not Jayden,”

he snaps.

“And I haven’t wanted to confide in you because I have a very clear memory of trusting you with how I felt about him and it fucking backfiring on me.”

The words are a kick in the face.

A punch to the stomach.

A slash at my lungs.

The air crackles like he’s shouted again, like he’s thrown something and shattered it.

Well, he has thrown something: my heart against the floor.

Dazed, I blink and blink and look at him as a tear escapes down my cheek—and I get caught in that blue gaze, which is all anger now.

“What?”

he demands. He points at me.

“You stand there and talk like I’m the bad guy for agreeing to spend a couple hours with Jayden while you’ve conveniently forgotten the time when you were the bad guy? Is that it?”

With a lift of his chin, he cuts his eyes along me.

“Of course it is. Because I’m the one who’s always doing something wrong or badly or stupidly, not you. You’re a perfect person who never makes mistakes or steps out of line.”

I glare at him through the new wavering at the edges of my eyes.

“That is not true. And I haven’t forgotten a single—”

“You’ve forgotten enough that you think you have the right to be pissed off and hurt by being reminded of the past and I don’t!”

“No, I—”

“Please! You should’ve seen the look on your face when I brought up my dad just now! It was like you couldn’t believe I’d say something like that!”

The way this rings out puts chill bumps on me; the pain I can feel from him is, like his anger, coming in rough waves that lash at my defensiveness, at my ability to continue to talk. Not because he’s right—he’s not right about what I think he deserves—but because I’m overwhelmed.

He still doesn’t feel like he can trust me with how he feels about his dad. I broke that trust and never really earned it back.

And I don’t feel okay with him keeping up a friendship with someone like Jayden.

I can’t wrap my mind around what these truths are doing to me.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I remember Luke’s hand on my thigh in the car and the sense of being settled that came with it. Looking at him reminds me that I wanted to kiss him and touch him just a bit ago; it had felt like we were returning to our usual selves after this gray and distant and annoying day, felt like I’d be snuggled up against him with his lips on mine by the end of the night. We were supposed to relax together, not…not have something drive us apart.

But more is separating us than just these few feet of space.

And even if I decided I still wanted to touch him, I know he wouldn’t want me to. Tension and ire and offense are radiating from him as obviously as they’re keeping me feeling short of breath.

He doesn’t wanna let me in on however his dad has upset him. He’s gonna hang out with Jayden tomorrow.

I can understand one and not the other, and each is its own kind of agonizing.

Noise from the front door cuts through the thick silence we’ve been standing in, snaps us out of our holding stare. It’s a key in the lock. One of my friends is home.

It spurs on the conclusion I was coming to moments ago. As I wipe at my wet eyes, I tell Luke.

“I think you should go.”

Saying it is agonizing, too, though.

So is hearing him agree.

“Yeah, that’s what I think,”

and watching him turn and stride away, heading for the opening door.

All kinds of emotions bombard me as Joy comes into the apartment—she’s got no idea what she’s walking in on and it’s going to hurt in a new way to tell her about it.

Indeed, she greets Luke and then looks surprised by him grabbing his shoes from the front area in such a rush; she bumbles out of his way as he slips into the hall without another word to me, without even a look back.

In her own rush, she shuts and locks the door, her head turned this way so she can look at me. “Maggie?”

she asks lightly, worriedly.

My attention shifts to the couch, where my and Luke’s dinner has been left lonely. And even with one of my best friends audibly hurrying over here to come to my aid, a terrible sense of loneliness slams into me.

I gracelessly sit back down. The shrieking pain in my knee doesn’t come anywhere close to the pain of what just happened.

With Joy landing next to me and her arm going around my shoulders, I put my face in my hands and finally give in to the urge to really cry.