by Leanne Davis
And she missed everything real about him. She missed his hands along her shoulders as he gently rubbed her with affection. She missed the feel of him alongside her naked. She missed kissing him, and touching him. She missed the conversations when he told her about himself, about his past, about his pain. When he told her what was right about her, and tried to convince her of what he saw in her.
She missed being here and wanted to be here all the time. She wanted to have the right to touch him, to care for him, to love him.
Kelly suddenly had to get out of there. Her plan for Luke was a good one, she was sure. He needed time. Time and patience from her. Still it was a hard plan for her. Patience was not her strong suit and not running into Luke’s arms and begging him to be with her took considerable restraint on her part. Still, she was committed to doing this right now so she’d end up with Luke later.
“Hey, you’re out of milk. I think I’ll go grab some at the gas station,” she mumbled. She was walking past Luke to get her keys when his hand grabbed her arm. Startled, she turned to look at him.
“What? You need something else?”
“No. There’s another quart in there on the bottom shelf. There always is. Just forget the milk. You don’t need to go anywhere for God’s sake,” he said, as he suddenly let go of her and turned back to the table, practically dismissing her.
What the hell was that? Why was he so sure there was extra milk? She went over and opened the fridge, and sure enough, there was an extra carton of milk. Why was there extra milk? What single guy drank that much milk? And why was Luke so adamant that it was there? Luke was hardly ever adamant about anything, and now he was over milk? Her running to buy milk? She waited for some kind of explanation, still he kept reading.
“Luke? Why are you so pissed off?”
“Nothing. Just forget it.”
You only keep extra milk in the house if it was a problem in the past. An issue. A thing. It was the thing. The Shelly thing. The basis of Luke’s entire life and reaction to everything. Shelly.
“How did Shelly die?”
“In a car wreck. Jesus, you know this. Why the hell are you asking now?”
“Yes, but where was she going? Was she on her way to get milk?”
His head shot up. His mouth compressed.
“Was she?”
“Yeah. So what?”
She flinched. “What happened?”
He looked down at his paper and was so quiet, she could hear the clock ticking, and the faint roar of the ocean waves on the beach outside, it sounded like the thudding of Luke’s heart.
“I forgot to grab milk on the way home from work. She asked me to, and I forgot.”
Kelly sat down too. Quiet. Her silence urging him to continue.
“She hated not having milk with her dinner. Something about getting enough servings of calcium. She was pregnant, you’d think I’d have been sensitive to that. She got mad I forgot. I got mad she got mad about that. She was tired, I was tired. We argued. I told her to go get it herself. I was watching a fucking baseball game by then and didn’t want to leave. She left, we didn’t say goodbye to each other, and she never came home again. She died on the scene. There was nothing that could be done for her.”
What could Kelly say? Finally she understood something. The guilt. The anger. The grief. The frozen pain. Luke thought he killed Shelly because he wouldn’t go buy her milk. Because he’d forgotten to buy his pregnant wife milk.
“God, you didn’t kill her.”
He glanced at Kelly. “I didn’t say I did.”
“You don’t have to say it. You think you did.”
“Didn’t I? She was out because of me. I forgot. All she asked me was to buy her some milk. Her one craving. The thing she wanted all the time because she was pregnant. And I forgot. I wouldn’t go get it. Tell me how that isn’t my fault?”
“You had a bad day. You were pissy to her. It happens. Everyone acts like an idiot sometimes. Everyone is grumpy, forgets, acts inconsiderate. It’s supposed to mean nothing. You’re supposed to get a next time in order to say you’re sorry, to make up. How many times in your seven years together do you think she was inconsiderate to you? How many times did she nag you?”
Luke shrugged. “What the hell would I think about that for?”
“You don’t remember because it didn’t matter. And forgetting to buy her milk on August fifth, four years ago, shouldn’t have mattered either. The only reason it does, is because of a catastrophic, totally blameless accident of fate. Not because of you.”
“Thanks for the pep talk, but I don’t want to discuss this with you.”
She put her hand over his. He jerked away. She did it again. He let her that time. “If I leave here to go buy milk, I’m not going to die,” she said softly.
“I know.” The fierce look in his eyes said differently. The look spoke volumes. Luke loved her. She snapped her hands back. Holy shit. Luke loved her.
But he loved Shelly. He couldn’t put those together and feel them both. Guilt riddled him, so he rejected her, because obviously, he couldn’t reject Shelly. He couldn’t figure out how to love them both.
Kelly watched Luke for a long, silent moment. Then with a voice full of sincerity she said, “You know one argument doesn’t change—she knew you loved her. I mean you know that, right? You couldn’t have known you wouldn’t have a chance to work out a very normal argument.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “I know that. You can’t be with someone for that many years and not fight. It wouldn’t be natural. We both knew how we felt. We had a good marriage, not a perfect one. It’s just I can’t stand that her last time with me on this earth, I was short and rude to her. And she was nagging me. I’d give my life to go back and pick up her damn milk, or as sloppy seconds, I wish I could leave our last memory as something else.”
“She knew that. She would never want you to carry that burden of guilt.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do. I do know that.”
“You don’t really know that.”
“Neither do you.”
“Meaning what? That I should forgive myself? I know that, I really do. But no matter how rational I am about it, nothing changes that I have to live with that as the last memory of my wife and I together.”
“Was your wife a bitch?”
Luke looked up at her, his eyes ablaze. “What’s wrong with you to ask something like that?”
“I take that to mean she wasn’t.”
“Of course, she wasn’t.”
“Did she love you?”
“Of course, we loved each other.”
“Then if she’s everything you claim she is, if she’s the person you believe her to be, and she really loved you, then she would not want you to hate yourself, or blame yourself, or in any way think you could have prevented her death. And she certainly wouldn’t want you to let a handful of unpleasant moments destroy thousands of better moments between the two of you. She would not, do you hear me, would not want you to let that one argument define how you loved each other. What you meant to each other. She was your wife. She, more than anyone, including me, would want you to forgive yourself for one stupid, and what should have been meaningless, argument.”
“What do you know? You hardly had been on a second date until me.”
“You’re just going to hate yourself if you start being mean to me to deflect the pain you have thinking of the day Shelly died.”
“I’m not being mean to you. I’m stating a fact, aren’t I?”
“Yes. That doesn’t mean I don’t get love, and it doesn’t mean I don’t understand what any rational person would know—Shelly died in an accident, not because you forgot to run an errand. And that little argument, one of hundreds in the course of your relationship, had nothing to do with how you both felt about each other. It was just an argument.”
“She was pregnant, and I refused to go grab her some milk. That’s more than just a little argument.�
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“Oh Luke, Shelly loved you, she doesn’t want you to live with guilt. She’d want you to live your life, remembering her, all of it, the good and the bad and everything in between, every day in between.”
“How would you know? How could you possibly know?”
“Because it’s what I’d want for you if it was me.”
“But it wasn’t you. It was Shelly. It was my wife who died, thinking I was angry with her. Don’t you get it?”
“Yes, I do. I finally get why you don’t want me to love you. It isn’t to protect me; it’s to protect you. You think you don’t deserve to get better, you think you don’t deserve to heal. But you’re wrong. If Shelly loved you like you say she did, she would forgive you, she’d want you to move on and heal. She wouldn’t want you to carry this with you, to let it eat away at you, and poison the rest of your life.”
Luke suddenly got up, his chair scraping on the hardwood floor, as if emphasizing his sudden anger. She had him cornered, and this time, he wasn’t able to run.
“How dare you speak for her.”
“She loved you all those years. But she’s dead now, and can’t tell you what clearly needs to be said to you. I have to speak for her.”
“How dare you? How can you think you can speak for my wife?”
“Because I know what it’s like to love you, and I know what I’d want Shelly to tell you if she were standing here now, and I was the one who died. Shelly loved you then, and I love you, now. We have that in common, so I can tell you what you need to hear from her.”
“Is that what you’ve been doing here? Waiting for a chance to tell me this? When you know damned good and well I don’t want to hear it? I’m sorry if I hurt you. I never intended to. But don’t you dare do this. Don’t presume to know how Shelly felt, or how I feel. I love her. Not you. Do you hear me? I love her.”
“I know that. But it’s okay to love me, too. To love me now, to move on. You may want to be dead, too, but you’re not. You’re here. You’re living and breathing, and you’re ready to waste your life in grief. Do you really think Shelly would want you to do that? To sacrifice yourself like that? Out of what? Guilt and anger?”
“I can’t do this. I told you I couldn’t from the start.”
“Yes, you can. You already are—you just keep trying to deny it.”
She took a step toward him. She never intended to confront him this way. She wanted to slowly get Luke to accept what was so obvious between them. She meant to gradually get him to a place where he could let go and start to move forward, with her. But that was before she understood the roots of why he was so angry. Before she understood exactly why he wouldn’t change anything. He’d been silently punishing himself all these years over a carton of milk he forgot to buy. And now that she was challenging it, he had to lash out at her. His marriage had ended before he could say he was sorry for a simple, ordinary fight, which now took on Goliath proportions in his mind.
He didn’t shift a muscle when she touched him. He stood there as frozen in time physically as his mind was emotionally.
“Why won’t you let me be?”
Tears filled her eyes. “Because I can’t. That’s what everyone else does, not me.”
“I don’t want you. I can’t do it again. I can’t start a life over again. I can’t get married and have kids as if I haven’t already done that. It will never happen, and I keep trying to tell you that, but you won’t listen.”
“No, I won’t anymore. I won’t. I love you, and I’ll wait as long as it takes for you to acknowledge that. And I’ll push you until you realize what we have.”
“You’re ready to settle for half a heart? Half a life? I can’t deal with the guilt of doing that to you. I can’t add that to the grief I already live with. Can’t you understand that I can’t be responsible for you, too?”
“Yes, you can.”
He was silent. His arms were crossed over his chest.
“You love me.”
He didn’t answer. She turned and started to leave the kitchen.
He grabbed her arm and spun her around, staring at her long and hard, unsmiling, and intense in ways no one else ever saw him. The force of his anger, the force of his grief, and Kelly believed, the force of his love for her scared him senseless. It was reflected in his gaze, fastened on her, at that moment.
He kissed her then. He grabbed her by the arms, kissing her with as much as passion as he used trying to get her to leave. His mouth was over hers, rough and demanding. She was about to thrust him away. She wasn’t about to start this again. She would not be used this time for him to feel better, only to discard her when he was finished, because he couldn’t face loving her. She raised her hands to cup his cheeks, about to shove him away, when her hands encountered moisture.
She tugged her mouth back, and in her hands held Luke’s face, wet with silent tears. He tried to lurch away from her. Hating her for opening up everything that hurt him. He tried to knock her hands off him. She persisted and won their struggle, pulling him into her arms. She hugged him and held onto him.
“I can’t,” he said, his voice hoarse against her neck.
“You can. Let go. For once, just for once, let it go. It’s okay. I’m here.”
His hands clutched her back; he was nearly trembling with pent-up grief, emotions he never let out. He didn’t know how, and he didn’t want to.
They slid to the floor together, a tangled mess of limbs, clutching at each other like they were drowning together. Still, he said nothing. Not a sound passed his lips, but there was a wet spot on her neck, fresh and hot. He was crying. Luke didn’t cry. Ever. But he was now.
“I love you,” she said quietly, letting him fall apart in her arms.
He shook his head on her shoulder, as he told her no. He hated to hear it, but it was also the only thing keeping him sane just then.
He didn’t want it, yet he needed her love more than he needed air just then. He needed hope. He needed a reason to keep breathing.
But in the end, she’d lose him anyway. Shelly’s presence in him was greater than any force in his life.
Kelly wanted to hate Shelly. She wanted to resent the loss that held Luke tied to memories. But she didn’t. Her heart bled for a man who loved so deeply that he couldn’t forgive or forget, much less move on. He wanted to, but he couldn’t. Shelly’s death had broken something inside him that even her love for him couldn’t fix.
He couldn’t help it. Kelly was pretty sure Luke loved her, and he’d never meant to hurt her. He just couldn’t find the strength to start over again.
And maybe she wouldn’t either, if she’d lost all that Luke had. Who could blame him? Yet how could she help but love a man like him? He was good and loyal, and his love was deeper than the ocean. Beyond life itself. And Kelly got that.
It was also her downfall, which she’d probably known from the first time Luke kissed her.
His mouth was suddenly on hers again, kissing her frantically, and she responded as wildly. Their tongues met and mated, their lips and breaths mingled together as closely as their bodies. They touched each other’s faces as if blind, and feeling each other for the first time.
She was crying too by then, with tears on their faces, and on each other’s hands, her heart was breaking, for herself, for Luke, for their disconnected futures.
They started grabbing at each other’s clothes at the same time, as anxiously as they were kissing. It was hot and hurried, as if their very lives hung in the balance of them touching each other.
They made love right there on the kitchen floor, after which, they clung to each other, exhausted by the intensity of their union. Their breathing finally started to slow and the sweat on their bodies began to cool, but still they stayed there, hugging each other.
Then Kelly jerked away.
“Kelly?”
She put a finger to his lips. She couldn’t hear it.
“I know. Don’t say it.”
She got up and righted
her clothes, gathering the few they’d bothered to remove. Then she went to her room, collected the things she’d already packed, and headed for the door.
“Don’t just leave.”
She turned at his voice.
He stood in the darkened hallway, his arms crossed over his chest. His face was pale and drawn, his eyes puffy and red. His pain was finally reflected on his face. His pain for another woman, one Kelly could never fill the shoes of.
“I have to.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, his tone miserable.
“I know. I know that. I knew it before I ever touched you. I’m not sorry. If I helped you for even a few moments feel better, then I’m not sorry. And you shouldn’t be either.”
“Kel…”
“No, really I don’t want to hear it. I know it all. And I’m not mad. It’s best this way, and we both knew that last summer.”
She opened the door, hefting her suitcase herself, not even noticing its weight. She glanced back and said softly, “Please take care of yourself. I know I’m not the answer for you, but find one. Find some kind of happiness before you give in and completely quit trying to live.”
She slammed the door on Luke, wishing it would be that easy to shut the door on her feelings.
She left Luke alone, just as he requested.
Chapter Thirty-One
“You hurt her.”
Luke nearly drove off the road when Tim suddenly spoke after a long ride during which he’d been uncharacteristically quiet. Luke volunteered to drive Tim to his soccer game to let John and Cassie have a night alone with the baby.
“What did you say?”
“You hurt my aunt. You made her cry. You made her leave here. I know that you know. I was glad to have you as my uncle, but I don’t think I am anymore.”
