by Stella Rhys
“Did things… change in your house? Once he was born?” Lia asked. She was hopeful again so I felt sorry that the answer I had for her was nothing but the same.
“Things changed but not for the better. My parents were different with each other. Mom resented that she wasn’t getting any help so while they were still drinking, they weren’t going out as much anymore. They weren’t Bonnie and Clyde anymore. Wyatt put a wedge between them, and my mom resented that. I could actually see it sometimes, her eyes just looking dead when she looked at him. He barely cried but if he did, she’d groan and roll her eyes and if my dad caught it, he’d give her some ‘I told you so’ type speech. And then all hell would break loose. So Tess – she was only eight years old but she made it her job to just grab Wyatt and rock him in her arms anytime he made a noise. Just to keep the peace in our house.”
“She’s so sweet,” Lia whispered. “I wish I could’ve seen that. Babies holding babies are the cutest.”
“Yeah, especially since Tess is like…”
“Thumbelina.”
“Yeah,” I laughed. “She’s tiny. Even now.”
“Have you spoken to her recently? How is she?”
“I call her every night. She’s as good as she’s going to be right now. She’s with our Grandma, the French one I told you about.”
“Grandma Elodie?”
I turned to her with a smile. “You remember.”
“Of course I do. You told me about her the day you made me my first French omelet ever. It was delicious. And you made it so fast. I was pretty impressed that morning.”
I laughed. “You would’ve been even more impressed watching me make those in middle and high school. I was probably even better then.”
“Seriously? Why?”
“Well, Grandma Elodie spent a couple years living with us after Wyatt was born. She couldn’t whip our parents into shape but she whipped me and Tess into shape. I was the cook and the dishwasher. Tess was the one who cleaned up around the house and Grandma was the one who fed Wyatt, changed his diapers, all that jazz. She found an apartment to rent nearby and she’d come in every morning at six and she’d leave a couple hours after Tess and I came home from school. She wasn’t the type to baby us,” I laughed. “She missed home and every evening, she went to hang out with the community of French expats she found. Pretty sure she kept a couple boyfriends in Miami.”
“Damn. Grandma Elodie sounds like she knows how to have fun.”
“She does. She’s a good balance of working hard and playing hard.”
“I see. Sounds like I should meet her and get a couple pointers,” Lia joked.
“Hey, if you want to go to France, we can. We’ll say hi to Grandma and Tess and then hop the high speed train to Barcelona,” I said, peering to my side to change lanes. When I went several seconds without hearing anything from Lia, I turned to find her staring at me with a goofy smile on her lips. “What?” I laughed.
She shook her head. “Nothing. Go on with your story.”
“Let’s stop for a bite first,” I suggested when I spotted a sign for a diner ahead. “I’m hungry again and I haven’t seen you eat all morning, so you must be starving.
“I didn’t notice till now but you’re right,” Lia smiled, giving the back of my hand a little kiss before letting it rest in her lap. When I looked over at her, she was gazing out at the window, oblivious to the smile she just put on my face. It was funny to me. The smallest things she did could turn my mood entirely around and she had no idea. It was just a passing moment to her but to me, it brought me another step closer to that unfamiliar feeling of complete warmth and comfort. I’d never felt it with a woman before, but I had a feeling I knew what it was. Of course I wasn’t ready to admit that I might be falling.
So returning my eyes to the road, I chose to keep it to myself.
23
LIA
The diner we stopped at was old but charming with its red booths and vintage Coca Cola signs. I was charmed even before meeting the world’s most delightfully stereotypical diner waitress. The nametag on her turquoise uniform read “Dot,” she looked in her sixties or so and she wore thick glasses that she had moved up and down her face while checking out Lukas.
“You hold onto that one, doll – and be sure to use both hands, ‘cause he’s big!” she’d said before leading us to our booth in the back.
When I took a seat, I was pleasantly surprised when Lukas slid in next to me instead of across. My heart skipped another beat when he casually took my legs and laid them over his lap before scanning the menu. Spotting us from behind the counter, Dot looked at me, smiled and patted her heart. I wasn’t exactly sure what she was saying, but I felt the same way.
After ordering, I watched as Lukas took a minute to call and check in on Tess. When she didn’t pick up, he left a voicemail.
“Hey. Just wanted to see how you were doing and what you’re up to. Grandma sent me a picture of you guys at the beach yesterday. Looked like you guys had a good time. Call me back whenever. If I don’t pick up, it’s because I’m with Lia, but leave a message and let me know how your day was. I’ll talk to you later.”
My eyebrows stayed raised even after he hung up. “Tess knows we’re – ” I paused for half a second. “Hanging out?”
“Yes. She wasn’t pleased with me at first, but now that she knows that you’re not a one-night stand, she’s relaxed a little.”
I smiled. “Do you know when she’s coming back? I miss her, actually.”
“Me too. But I’m not sure when she’s coming back. She usually stays away for at least a week after.”
I nodded slowly, realizing he meant a week after the anniversary. I was quiet for a moment before I dared to ask, “Is it today?”
Lukas gazed down at my legs in his lap. “Yeah. His birthday.”
I couldn’t hold in my confusion anymore. “What happened?” I asked softly, studying Lukas. He kept his eyes down at his hands on my knees and for once, I felt a vulnerability coming off of him. He looked as strong as he ever did with a white T-shirt pulled tight over his broad shoulders, the sleeves stretched around his biceps. But his eyes had drifted elsewhere and there was a different kind of frown in his brow. I could see him trying to figure out how to start, his lips parted but saying nothing.
“I originally thought I was going to go to college in Miami,” he finally said. “I didn’t trust my parents to raise Wyatt properly. If they weren’t fighting each other, they were fighting him. My dad loved to tell him he was an accident. That he never wanted another kid and definitely not a – ” His lip curled as he swallowed. “Definitely not a ‘sissy’ for a son. He’d get called to school about the bullies harassing Wyatt and he wouldn’t go. He’d never meet the teachers or other parents. He was pissed that he was sixty years old and dealing with this and every day, he took it out on Wyatt. And Wyatt would just take it because he was the quietest kid. If he was happy, he was quiet. If he was angry, sad or upset, he’d be quiet. It was like he was always being careful not to bother anybody. He was like that even as a baby and a toddler. He was always looking around quietly, just studying everyone and making sure no one was angry.”
“Jesus. Poor thing,” I whispered as I pictured him. I could only imagine that being so fearful of others’ feelings was a result of growing up on eggshells and it broke my heart in two. “I’m glad he at least had you and Tess.”
“He did, but I had to go away to college at some point. I thought I’d stay near to take care of him and Tess, but when I got into Wharton, everything changed. I’d dreamt of going there since I was eleven. It was my reach school, but I got accepted and I was so fucking happy. But I also felt like a piece of shit because that meant I had to move far way. And even though she’d say she couldn’t wait and she’d visit me all the time, I knew Tess cried about it every night.”
“She didn’t want you to go?”
“She did. She knew it would give me opportunities I wouldn’t get anywhere else
, but she was afraid of taking care of Wyatt alone. He was six, she was only fourteen and our parents were getting worse by the day, it felt like. They refused to take Wyatt to the doctor when he was hurt. They refused to buy him new clothes.”
I buried my face in my hand. “God. You didn’t have relatives nearby to help?”
“None. But when our parents fought particularly hard, we’d bring Wyatt to Noelle’s house next door.”
“Noelle. The girl who was at your door when I first met you.” I raised my eyebrows. “And the one who works for you.”
“Worked for me, but yes. She grew up with us. When I went away to college, her mom was nice enough to let Tess and Wyatt hang out to avoid my parents but there were times she couldn’t because she had a life of her own, of course. She was divorced and she brought a lot of different men back to her house and the second I heard that one of them hit on Tess, I told her not to go there anymore.”
I shuddered. “You were at Wharton by that time?”
“Yeah. I’d met Cam and Emmett already. We lived in the same townhouse near campus, but I wound up moving out when I was twenty because I sued for custody of Tess and Wyatt. And since my parents didn’t put up a fight, I won.”
My hand flew to my mouth, which hung wide open. “When you were twenty? Twenty years old?”
“Yes.”
I blinked several times to process it. “God. When I was twenty I was a part-time college student.”
“And you were taking care of your ex’s mom.”
“True. But you were taking care of two people and you were in school… full-time?”
“Yes. Full-time. Thankfully, I worked nights as a bartender and got some help from the government, so we were able to rent a two-bedroom apartment in Philly.”
“Two bedrooms? So you slept…”
“On the couch. Passed out hard every night so it was no problem for me.”
“Wow.” I was floored. I hadn’t imagined any of this – not that anyone really could imagine a story like Lukas’s. “So if you were twenty, Tess was sixteen. And Wyatt was…”
“Eight.”
I exhaled, my heart breaking yet again as I thought about twenty-year-old Lukas raising a high school junior and a second grader, going to school probably six or seven hours a day and then working at least eight hours at night. “So Tess took care of Wyatt while you were at class and work?”
“Yes. I bought her a used car so she could drive straight from school to pick up Wyatt. Poor kid – she barely had a social life. But she was still smiley and happy every day because Wyatt was actually making friends at this school. He was starting to come out of his shell with people besides us and it was so fucking rewarding. It made everything worth it – to study all night, crush my exams in the morning, work a ten-hour shift at the bar and come home to find Wyatt sleeping, his room all clean and all his homework laid out for me to check.” Lukas laughed to himself. “God, he was such a good kid.”
“You raised him,” I pointed out gently.
“But it wasn’t me, he was just born good,” he murmured, frowning in what looked like awe for Wyatt. “He was just such a perfect kid.”
I watched him get lost in a memory. My heart twisted suddenly when I thought about why Lukas might be against having kids. I wasn’t sure if I was right and I wasn’t about to ask for confirmation, but the thought alone made me so sad I needed to hug myself.
“So you graduated college the same time that Tess graduated high school, right?”
A smile touched Lukas’s lips. “Yeah, that was great. Cam and Emmett threw us a joint graduation party and they, uh – ” He winced, as if his good memory of Cam was fighting the impression he had of him now. “They planned us a surprise with Wyatt,” he finished, letting himself laugh. He thanked Dot as she came by with our food, but he didn’t lose his train of thought. “It was Emmett’s idea, but apparently, they spent a good two weeks memorizing the dance from Napoleon Dynamite because that was Tess’s favorite movie for… a long fucking time.”
I giggled as I scooted closer to him, loving all the little details about Emmett and Tess that honestly didn’t surprise me at all.
“I still have the video, actually,” Lukas muttered, popping a fry in his mouth. “All three of them were so into the choreography and they fucking nailed every beat. It was such a stupid looking dance, but they took is so seriously that it was the best thing I’d ever seen in my life. Especially since I’d never seen Wyatt happier. His friends from school were there and they loved it. They were all running around playing, being loud. Wyatt was introducing them to me and Tess’s friends. He didn’t have any friends in Miami and he was always so quiet, so it was huge for me to see him be a hundred percent himself for once.”
“Sounds like you guys did an amazing job. You were kids raising a kid. You have to know that that’s amazing and impressive. You were in college and you were providing for them at the same time,” I said. I felt the need to point out the positive because I knew where the story was heading. I knew the ending wasn’t a happy one and my heart was beating fast because unless I was mistaken, there was a shine to Lukas’s eyes. And I wasn’t sure how I’d fare if I saw him shed even one tear. I wanted to be strong for him, but I knew I’d cry, too. That was just the way I was. If someone I cared for was crying, my body gave me no choice but to follow suit. “Lukas?” I hugged his arm to my chest when he was quiet for awhile. “Can I just tell you that I think you’re incredible?”
He glanced at me with a brief smile. Then he brought the back of my hand to his lips, pressing the lightest kiss to it before holding it in his lap and staring down at our interlocked fingers.
“I shouldn’t have moved him away from Philly.”
“Lukas, you had to do what you – ”
“No. I didn’t have to. I commuted from Philly to New York for the first year. I had an offer from the biggest real estate group in the city and I had to take it. I was drowning in student debt, credit card debt, back rent. But I didn’t want to take Wyatt out of school. He was finally having a great time. So I chose to commute two hours each way.”
“Was Cam working in New York, too?”
Lukas shook his head. “No, he took awhile to graduate. Failed some courses, needed extra credits. For the first year of the company, I took his connections and built them into something big while he fucked around at school and apparently started… some sort of relationship with Tess.” His jaw clenched tight and his hand on the table formed a fist. “I didn’t realize it because I was working so much, but apparently he was trying to sleep with her so he’d swing by the apartment, pressure her to drink with him. He got her so drunk a few times she forgot to pick up Wyatt from school. And those mistakes always triggered her depression. She’d beat herself up, convince herself she was a bad person, and when she was in one of those moods, Cam would always swoop in and ‘take care’ of her, but really, he was just molding her to do whatever he wanted because he knew she was at her most vulnerable. I didn’t realize he was stringing her along for years until a few months ago, when she broke and told me everything.”
I cursed under my breath, feeling sick to my stomach. I hated Cam for taking advantage of a girl who was doing her best to be unbroken. She was a teenager who’d spent most of her life raising and worrying for her little brother. She’d sacrificed a normal life so Wyatt would have a fighting chance at one. If I were in her place, I could imagine feeling weak sometimes, lonely and in need of support. The fact that Cam offered it just to mask his shitty intentions made my blood boil.
“Long story short, I made the mistake of uprooting everyone,” Lukas murmured, letting go of a heavy breath. “My grandma always used to say, ‘The way we start doesn’t have to be the way we end,’ and I hung onto that the entire time I was saving up for this new life for us. I was so fucking excited to have a brand new slate and a fresh start where we were financially stable, where I could give Wyatt a birthday party and a big Christmas. I thought all that was worth
taking him out of school in Philly, and I really believed he’d eventually love it. But he just didn’t adjust.
“When he was twelve, I started to realize he had the same tendencies as Tess, in terms of falling into depression. When he was thirteen, he started therapy. He switched schools. But I knew from the teachers that he was getting bullied again at this one, and I was ready to beat the parents of those kids into the fucking ground, but Cam told me that’d only make it worse for Wyatt. But I felt helpless.” Pain twisted his handsome face as he stared forward, his hands grasping at something at something intangible in the air. “I felt so fucking helpless and he wouldn’t talk to me anymore, so I didn’t know what – ” He cut off and shook his head, dropping his hands helplessly into my lap. His eyes were wet as he gave a bitter laugh toward the ceiling. “The best part is I went to work happy that morning because I thought he was in a good mood. It was his birthday and he said he was four years away from the age I was when I sued for custody of them. He said thank you, he said he was proud of me. And he hugged me so hard.” His voice fell to a whisper I could hear the agony in as he went on. “He just seemed so happy. He was smiling at breakfast, but by lunch he was gone. He cut his wrists in his room.”
I choked on a sharp breath, tears streaming from my eyes without warning. “Lukas, I’m so sorry,” I whispered, pulling him to me and hugging him tight. “I’m so, so sorry.”
I didn’t know what else to say. It wasn’t his fault, it wasn’t Tess’s and it wasn’t Wyatt’s. I couldn’t think of a single thing to say to comfort him because I could hardly stomach the story myself, so I hugged him tight and feathered kisses on his forehead. He wasn’t crying, but he let me hold him and he accepted my comfort. For so long, his expression was stony, unmoving, but finally he looked up at me and held my cheek. With a glassy gaze, he studied me unabashedly for several seconds. His eyes took their time on each part of my face, from my eyes to my cheeks, then my nose and my lips. When he brought his eyes back to mine, he kissed me.
