“I’m sorry,” she said, looking down to her folded hands. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Kara?” I asked, softening my tone.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said again.
I wanted to say okay. I wanted to let it go and pretend that it didn’t matter. But it mattered! She was the reason I’d lost the part of Matt that I’d loved so much. I wanted to know what happened between them. What had she said? What had she done? What had she written in that letter—the one postmarked just days before he returned home and gave up his dreams? She knew something I didn’t know, and while it was really no one else’s business but hers and Matt’s, I couldn’t look away, pretending that I didn’t care.
Kara’s refusal to say anything else on the subject put an end to what little conversation we’d opened up. With Matt away from the group, Kara maintaining her silence, and with Luke’s mind elsewhere, I knew the basement was going to stay quiet again for a while. I leaned down and rested my head in Luke’s lap, and he stroked my hair, gently lulling me to sleep. The darkness and the quiet were getting the best of me, and little by little, I felt myself slipping into a slumber.
Chapter Five
Not long after I’d fallen asleep in Luke’s lap, he’d nudged me awake with the promise of a better sleeping arrangement for the night. He’d divided up the few blankets and pillows we had at our disposal, leaving Kara’s share to her. He’d taken ours and made the most comfortable bed he could, which really wasn’t all that comfortable. But at least I had him to keep me warm.
I shivered and cuddled closer to Luke, feeling his arms tighten around me. Maybe the circumstances weren’t ideal, but at least I had the comfort and security of the man I loved right at my side. I loved that. There was really nothing better in the world than being that close to him. I didn’t know what it was, but something had changed for us a long time ago, something that had brought us closer together. I knew I was the luckiest girl in the world to be the one he loved—the one he trusted, cared for, and valued.
I nestled my face into the curve of his shoulder, breathing in that familiar scent of his that I’d grown to love so much. I started to drift again, falling asleep, in spite of the cold.
“Kara?” Luke’s quiet whisper rattled me, and then his grasp loosened on my body.
“Hmm?”
“You okay?” he asked, keeping his voice low—for both mine and Matt’s benefit, I was certain. My cousin hadn’t moved from his spot in the corner since he’d taken refuge in solitude, and I had drifted in and out of sleep for most of the few hours since settling into our makeshift bed. Since my eyes were plastered shut and Luke’s voice never raised higher than a whisper, it was only my guess that he assumed Matt and I were out for good.
“Can’t sleep,” Kara answered from the other end of the room, her voice no louder than the one right at my side. “Am I keeping you awake?”
My eyes fluttered open then, and I could see her still sitting in that familiar spot in the middle of the basement. She hadn’t moved once from that spot next to the pizza box. Her blankets and pillow were still piled up next to her, and her eyes were locked on the small flame burning from the candle. Two hours after Luke and I had left her alone with her thoughts, she was still sitting there as if she were completely numb.
“Is the light bothering you?” she asked, still quiet. “I can blow it out.”
“No, no. Don’t do that,” he whispered, and then he moved again, slowly pulling away from me. I closed my eyes instinctively, not wanting him to know his voice had jolted me from a near-slumber. Luke rested my head against the pillow, and I felt him stand. I opened my eyes again as he walked away from me and took a seat across from her on the floor. “You want to talk?”
She stayed quiet for a minute, seeming as though she was just as eager to talk to him as she had been to talk to me. “No, not particularly.”
“Okay,” he said, nodding.
The silence lingered still, and I could tell even by the faint candlelight that Kara had been crying. Her eyes were swollen and puffy, her cheeks red. There were the faintest of mascara tears trailing down her face, ones that she’d obviously tried to wipe away without success.
“You did the right thing, you know,” Luke said, breaking the silence again. He scooted closer to her so that he didn’t have to project his voice any louder than necessary. Kara’s lips parted at his approval of whatever she’d apparently done right, and she seemed almost surprised by what he’d said.
Like her lips parting by surprise, I felt mine doing much the same. What was he talking about? What had she done, and why did he believe she’d been right to do it? Better yet, why did it seem as if Luke knew something that I didn’t know? Had even he kept a secret from me?
“You know, then?” she asked, keeping her voice low. Every time she spoke, she turned her head to look over her shoulder, making sure Matt hadn’t moved. And he hadn’t. He hadn’t moved a muscle since he’d stormed away from the group earlier.
“I do.”
“But…how?” she asked. “I thought he hadn’t told anyone.”
Luke’s nod confirmed that one truth: Matt hadn’t told anyone. But Luke knew more than he was saying, more than he’d been letting on all along. Just like my cousin, whatever it was that my fiancé knew, he’d chosen to keep it to himself.
“I don’t know if you know this,” Luke said. “But Charlie suffered a heart attack in November.”
“Yeah,” she nodded. “Yeah, I heard. He’s doing better now, though, right? I’ve seen him around town. He’s back to work, back to his normal self.”
“He’s at a hundred percent. It was a rough go for him for a while, though. He didn’t have a miraculous recovery or anything of the sort. It took a lot of hard work and commitment from his friends and family.”
“Yeah,” she nodded. “I’m sure you guys did everything you could.”
“Neither Matt or Julie know this,” he said. “But just after his heart attack, he confided many of his secrets in me … things I’m sure he’s never told another soul.”
“Like what?”
“For one, what your parents told him.” Kara perked up. I shifted my head on the pillow a little, freeing my other ear so that I could hear their conversation as best I could without drawing attention to myself. “Your parents felt Charlie deserved to know the truth.”
“Maybe he did,” she said. “But why would he tell you? It wasn’t his secret to share.”
“He wanted me to know the truth—to be here for Matt, if and when he was ever ready to talk about it. He wanted to make sure his son was taken care of.” Luke looked to my cousin before focusing on Kara again. “Matt’s been dealing with a lot of emotional strife lately, and Charlie’s chosen to let him deal with that on his own and in his own time. But one day Matt’s going to need to let go of everything he’s bottled up, and Charlie wanted to ensure there was someone here to see him through his darkest time … if he couldn’t be here to do it himself.” She looked down to her folded hands, and Luke dipped down to catch her stare. “Kara, you were right, you know? You did the right thing.”
She was quiet for a minute, blinking slowly and breathing hard.
“I may have,” she admitted. “But I went about it in all the wrong ways.”
“How so?”
“I never wanted Matt to find out,” she said, choking on her tears as they started to stream down her face again. “But I had to tell him. I was living with so much guilt, Luke, and I couldn’t let another day go by without telling him.”
“He deserved to know.”
“I should’ve told him from the start, but I was scared. It was my selfishness and fear that kept him in the dark, and that wasn’t fair to him.”
“But you finally told him.”
“I did,” she said. “Even though I never stopped fearing what he’d say or who he’d tell.”
“He’s never told a soul, from what I can gather.”
“I se
e that now.”
“His silence is hard to interpret,” Luke said. “But I can only imagine this whole situation has been a lot for him to process.”
“Emotionally, sure,” she agreed. “But why drop out of college? Why come home? If he’s so sad, or hurt, or angry, then why couldn’t he just stay in school and be mad while he’s there? Why did he return to Oakland?”
“I think you already know the answers to those questions, Kara,” he said, sliding closer to her. He draped his arm around her and pulled her closer. “You missed your last year of high school. You didn’t graduate. Your life fell off track.”
“That wasn’t his fault.”
“Maybe he doesn’t see it that way,” Luke said. “You broke up with him because you didn’t want small town life. You wanted to travel, see the world, and settle down after you’d experienced everything the world had to offer. All of your plans hinged on graduating high school and going to college. That didn’t happen, and he feels responsible.”
“But—”
“Kara, you got pregnant. You dropped out of school.”
“I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t even know I was pregnant when I broke up with him, but then my pro-life parents found out, sent me to live with my aunt upstate until the baby was born. I couldn’t tell anyone where I was going or why I’d left. My entire life was thrust into secrecy, and the worst part is that I didn’t get a say in the matter. Mom and Dad were never going to let me stay here or go to school anywhere else. They said I’d never survive the ridicule of being seventeen and pregnant. Their grand plan was that after I returned home, then I could continue my education. But without a high school diploma, there was no way I’d get into college. My life derailed because they didn’t let me have a choice. Matt didn’t make those decisions for me. They did. None of this was his fault.”
Luke’s arm never left her shoulder as she talked. And the longer she confided in him, the sadder his expression turned. He hurt for her; even if he didn’t know what to say, he was still going to try everything he could think of to comfort her. She dropped her head on his shoulder, and he squeezed her tighter.
“I spent the entire pregnancy interviewing adoptive parents,” she continued. “After the baby was born, the adoption papers were signed, and I moved back home.” Again, there was a long moment of silence, and another tear streamed down Kara’s red cheek. “Luke, I’m trying to get my life together again. I’m working two jobs, and I’m only weeks away from my GED. I’m trying, Luke, I am.
“I know,” he said, stroking her back.
“So I don’t understand. I don’t understand how Matt could give everything up. He had his entire life ahead of him; he got through high school, and he made it a year into college. He—had—it—made. And then, like an idiot, he gave it up. For what? It’s not like there was a baby to come home to. When I wrote that letter, it was never my intention for him to put his life on hold. I wasn’t asking him to give up his dreams and raise a child. I would’ve never asked that of him.”
“Try to understand, though,” Luke said. “You reached out, and you told him the truth.”
“I couldn’t live with the guilt anymore,” she said. “He deserved to know that he had a child out there in the world. I couldn’t keep that from him forever.”
“And because you came clean,” Luke continued. “He realized the sacrifices you’d made. You gave up school, your future, and your dreams. You gave all of that up for something you never wanted to begin with. He felt responsible. He wasn’t going to let you suffer alone.”
“But I am alone,” she said. “I’d heard rumors months ago that he’d come home, and someone even told me he’d taken up classes at West Bridge. I just assumed he wanted to be closer to his family, especially after Charlie got sick. But he never contacted me when he got back to Oakland. He’s never once reached out to me since I sent that letter. For all I knew, he may not have ever gotten it! So what was the point in coming home if he never planned to initiate contact?”
“It wasn’t about seeing you,” Luke said, closing his eyes. He knew as well as I did that those words were going to sting, but he had to say what she needed to hear. “You guys had been broken up for over a year by the time you’d sent that letter. He’d moved on, accepted the fact that the life he’d pictured with you was never going to happen.”
“Then—”
“He came home because he felt it was the only fair thing to do. You had a child, and because of that, your life changed course drastically. He doesn’t feel it’s fair to keep living his life as if this never happened. If you have to suffer, then he should have to, too. This was just as much his mistake.”
“That’s not how it works, though.”
“It’s how it works in Matt’s head,” Luke said. “He loved you. He feels he’s ruined your life. He’s not going to run off and have the world when he knows that he’s the reason you can’t.”
Kara sat silently under Luke’s arm, a few slow streams of tears soaking her face.
“I never meant to ruin his life,” Kara said. “I just wanted him to know.”
“I know,” Luke said, nodding. “And Kara, I can’t speak for Matt, but I think what you did was incredibly honorable. You knew you couldn’t give that baby the life it deserved. Raising a child is serious business, and you couldn’t have done it alone. You gave your child to a family who would love and support her through the worst of it. You should be proud of yourself.”
She swallowed hard and nodded.
“Proud of myself,” she scoffed. “At what cost? I’m a mother without a child; I have two parents who call me a disappointment, and the only person who ever loved me unconditionally now hates my guts. That’s not really a life to be proud of.”
“Matt doesn’t hate you,” he said. “He hates himself. There’s a big difference.”
As Luke sat talking to Kara, holding on to her and confiding in her the same was she’d confided in him, I trailed a look over to my sleeping cousin, only to find that he wasn’t sleeping at all. He’d turned in his bed, turned to watch the same scenario I’d been watching all along.
A tear slipped out of the corner of his eye, landing on the pillow beneath his head.
So there it was: the truth. Matt and Kara had a child … one that Matt hadn’t even known about until long after she’d signed her parental rights away. His bad attitude, his sudden desire to be anything but the person he used to be, was just his way of masking the pain. If he couldn’t do what he loved in pursuit of his dreams, then he wasn’t going to do it all.
I kept watching Matt, watching him watch them. And my heart broke in two for my cousin. Poor Matt. Poor, poor Matt.
###
“Do you have any idea what time it is?”
My curiosity had gotten the best of me. I could’ve asked Luke anything, especially given the conversation I’d just overheard between him and Matt’s ex-girlfriend. I could’ve hounded him about the secrets he’d kept, or the revelations he’d made to her about the things he’d known. I’d spent months wondering and worrying, and it seemed that Luke had known enough all along to put my mind at ease. But he didn’t. And I’d thought long and hard about giving him an earful because of it … but I couldn’t. Given the situation we were in, picking a fight with Luke seemed like the dumbest thing I could do. We only had each other. I didn’t know how long we’d been trapped in that basement, nor did I know how long it would be before someone found us. I had to be smart about my interaction with the other three, and that meant I had to do whatever I could to keep my frustration in check. We had to keep peace as long as possible.
The basement had finally gone silent again after Kara and Luke’s revealing discussion. In the time since the room had fallen quiet again, my cousin had turned over and faced the wall. Whether or not he’d fallen back asleep, I had no way of knowing. Kara, though, had finally blown out her candle and settled into a small bed she’d made underneath the folding table.
Luke returned back to o
ur corner, the place where he’d laid and cuddled me before he’d gotten up to take care of Kara. He used his cell phone to light the way back over.
“It’s just after midnight,” he said quietly as he settled back in beside me. He didn’t seem too surprised to learn that I’d woken up.
“Six hours,” I said under my breath.
“Hmm?”
“We’ve been down here six hours,” I said, taking a long breath and counting to ten. “Luke, why haven’t they found us yet? Why aren’t they looking? They have to know we’re unaccounted for by now.”
“I don’t know, Jules,” he started. “It’s hard to tell what’s—”
“Charlie would’ve come for us first,” I said, interrupting whatever assurance he’d begun to offer. “I spoke to him right before the storm hit. He knows where we’re at, and Matt and I would be his first priority. Charlie would’ve come straight here to recover us.”
“Yeah,” he said, swallowing hard. I didn’t need him to tell me what that meant. The fact that Charlie hadn’t busted his way through that door, or that he hadn’t sent someone else to do it, meant one of two things: the house was buried beneath too much debris, and there was no easy access to us, or Charlie was injured himself and not making any of the calls. “They’re going to focus on the areas with the highest level of damage. I haven’t heard a single siren, no movement outside. Chances are, if they’re not over here, they’re likely in the district.”
“But aren’t the lives on this end of town just as important as the ones on that side?”
A Little Beyond Hope Page 8
