Page 122 of Oleander

“I remember when you spoke to me about Ellie, about how you felt about her,” said Luke, gentle and soft like he was scared I was going to bolt. “You said that being with her felt like lying. Was that why?” He pointed at the piece of paper. “Because you felt that way about Cas?”

I nodded, still unable to speak.

“You loved him?”

I nodded again. Some desperately sad look moved into his eyes because he knew, then. What I’d lost.

“Oh, buddy,” Luke whispered, moving across the sofa and pulling me into a hug. Like every time he did it, something loosened in me, and I let go.

After it was over, I sat up, scrubbing a hand over my face. “Christ. What is it about you hugging me that makes me do that?” I muttered, throwing an accusing glare at him.

Luke chuckled softly. “Sorcery?”

“Yeah, okay, Gandalf.”

“I reckon I could pull that off, you know. Grow this bad boy out a bit.” He stroked his beard a few times and made a pompous, self-important face.

“It’s definitely grey enough,” I smiled, and he pretended to look insulted.

Then it was sombre again, silence swelling between us loud and huge.

“So …you’re gay?” he asked very carefully.

I looked at him. “Would that bother you?”

He made a weird face. “No. Not a bit.”

“I actually don’t know… there’s been girls too. So I guess I’m bi?” I felt very out of my depth talking about it, my own sexuality. It also felt weird talking to Luke about it. “Beth?” I asked him, a new kind of panic spreading through me. “Did you show her this?”

He shook his head. “Course I didn’t. It’s not for me to tell her your secrets – or whatever this is. Christ, I wasn’t even going to mention it to you.”

“Why did you?”

He looked uncomfortable. Shifting in the seat, he threw a glance over towards the big house, then back at me, and then, finally, at the letter I was still holding. “Because I hated not knowing what was going on with you. Last couple years...you’ve felt so…far away. And I hated that. And Beth and me...I suppose we were still trying to deal with the baby, and so it was easier to pretend it was normal A-Level stress that was going on withyou that summer. But it wasn’t, I knew that. I knew it was Cas.” Then, a look of mild embarrassment came over his face. “Truth is, it feels like I’ve been losing you a little every day since we came here.”

I tried to protest this but he raised a hand, gently, urging me to let him finish.

“I hope you know that from the moment I met you, I thought of you like a little brother, and then when you came to live with us, it was like I had a son, too.“ Luke never referred to my (Beth’s and mine’s) parents’ deaths as what it was. To him, it was always ‘when Jude came to live with us.’ ‘When you came to live with us.’ “A clever, moody, funny son who surprised me every day with how brilliant he was.”

“Oh god.” I cringed.

“What? I’m being sincere here!”

“I know, that’s why it’s so awful.” I covered my eyes with my hands and sank back into the chair.

Luke laughed, but he persisted.

“But when we came here, it was like this new part of you started growing, a part I couldn’t understand or help tend to, you know? Seemed like Gideon and Cas were the only people who got to see that side of you, and so I lost my best friend a little, it felt like. But you were mainly happy, and so I was happy.”

His expression was painfully earnest and I felt as though I might cry again.

“Then Cas left, and you were so bloody sad, mate.” He took a deep breath. “Judey, before I found that letter, I could only guess at what Cas meant to you based on what I saw with my own eyes.”

Heat spread out from my chest and up to my cheeks at that. At how obvious I must have been.Everything you feel is in your eyes, you know.

“And when he went off to America with...well, that lawyer fella, I wanted you to talk to me about it, but I understand why you didn’t. You loved him, and he left, and that sort of thing is hard to talk around, I imagine. But I need you to know that I’m here if you ever do want to talk about it, about anything at all. I never want you to feel alone, okay? Or that you might not have a place here.”

He was talking about the letter now. The words I’d put in the letter. I knew how they must have sounded, what Luke was worried about, what he must have been worried about every night since I left for Uni. That I’d do something stupid. That I’d hurt myself.