Page 121 of Oleander

“Is it?” I was feeling like the worst sort of company. Yesterday’s stand-off with Gideon and the quick resurgence of my self-pitying attitude could not have been easy for Luke to deal with, especially as he and Beth had also had a silly argument this morning – the cause of what I didn’t know – which had resulted in the slamming of the front and car doors just after 8 a.m.

But still, he sounded genuine when he said it.

“Sure it is,” he sighed. “House feels empty these days.”

I thought about how there was supposed to have been a baby running around and how Luke might feel about the fact that there wasn’t.

“How are you and Beth doing?” I ventured. “With everything.”

I hoped he knew what I meant.

When he gave me a sad kind of smile, I knew he did.

“It’s been hard, buddy,” Luke admitted. “Beth still thinks there’s something she did wrong which isn’t right. But I think maybe it’s easier for her to blame herself than to believe it was just bad luck, you know?”

I nodded, feeling out of my depth on the subject.

“She’s had it rough, though. I wish I could do more for her.”

I looked round at him. Luke was one of the greatest people I knew: strong, dependable, loyal. He always looked to help others before helping himself.

“You have, too,” I said.

He smiled sadly and ducked his head. “I’ll be alright. Feels nice having you around, though; grateful you decided to come home this summer.” There was no accusation in his tone; it wasn’t his style. When he turned his body on the seat to face me, I guessed where we were going next.

“So, you fancy telling me what’s been going on with you?”

I shifted under his scrutiny. Turned my head to look out at the lake, avoiding his eyes. “Just uni stuff; it’s a lot tougher than I thought it’d be.”

“I’m sure it is,” he agreed. “But that’s not what I mean.”

I looked round at him.

“Something’s been going on since before Oxford,” he said evenly. “In fact, I reckon since about when Cas left.”

My breathing shifted, heart rate spiking a little.

He watched me and waited and when it was clear I wasn’t going to say anything he let out a sigh. Then he stood up and wandered back inside the house. He was gone a couple of minutes before he reappeared, holding something in his hand that looked like a folded piece of paper. He held it out to me as he sat back down, face soft with understanding.

Confused, I took it from him. It looked like a piece of lined paper torn from a notepad. For a moment, I thought he was trying to tell me something so serious he’d had to write it down. I unfolded it clumsily.

As the words were revealed, I was sure I felt my heart stop.

It was my own handwriting. Angry and messy, scrawled forcefully on the page.

I glanced at Luke in horror, cold sweat spreading over my entire body.

His face was calm, utterly free of judgement, but still I trembled.

“I found it under your mattress after you left for Oxford,” he said. “I figured it was one of your stories. You hadn’t shown me any of them in so long.” He smiled fondly. “You used to write about King Arthur when you were younger, then it was aliens, so I was curious what you were writing about now.” He looked down at the piece of paper. “Felt wrong after reading that.”

My gut twisted, dread curling upwards.

Luke shifted forward then, urgently. “Not wrong, shit, Jude, that’s not what I meant. I meant guilty – I felt guilty about reading something you’d meant for him. I’m sorry I did that. It was private.”

There was a noise inside my head, like a rushing of water. It filled my ears and my chest, and it made it hard to think, breathe, to speak.

“I...” I managed. “He...we...”