The Book of Luke

by Jenny O'Connell

  But Josie wasn’t going to cooperate. Instead, she said, “Maybe I’ll make it into a voodoo doll and stick it with pins.”

  I tried to laugh. Really, I did. Only I couldn’t find the humor in our situation. The only thing I could do was tell them the truth. I could tell them right now and get it over with.

  “If you need extra pins, I’m sure Emily’s got some left over from her Sean doll, right?” Lucy laughed and nudged me.

  “I’m sure I won’t be needing any. Em’s done a great job with Luke, right, Em?” Josie looked at me hopefully.

  “Right,” I agreed, and returned to my seat at the bathroom counter.

  I was wrong. I couldn’t come clean. The only thing I could do was sit down and let them do my makeup. “So, how are you going to hide the huge scald mark on my neck?”

  “Don’t worry about it. We’re going to make you beautiful.”

  “Half my head is wavy and my neck is seared, how are you going to do that?”

  “Don’t you worry,” Josie assured me, dabbing a brush in a pot of concealer. “Just leave that to us.”

  Thirty minutes later I was ready to go. The mark on my neck was camouflaged and, after finally giving in and letting Lucy work on the other half of my head, I looked pretty decent. No, I looked better than decent. I looked good enough to make Sean regret that he ever let me go.

  Chapter Twenty

  The Guy’s Guide Tip #67:

  Make note of a few basic things early on—my hair color, how I look in a pair of jeans, the fact that I have a full set of teeth. You can remember the 1996 defensive line for the Patriots, the least you can do is remember I have blue eyes.

  I drove around for a half hour before finally giving in and parking in a garage. I didn’t want to spend the twelve bucks, but I was already late. As I ran down the steps of the parking garage, my cell phone rang. I grabbed the phone out of my purse and glanced at the screen. Sean’s name and number appeared on the display, reminding me that he was still programmed into my phone.

  I flipped the phone open and started speaking even before he had a chance to say hello. “I’m almost there. I’m crossing State Street right now.”

  “I almost thought you decided not to come. You’re never late.”

  He was right. Whenever he’d come to pick me up, I was always ready. I was always on time. Punctuality was a given in our household. Even my period always arrived on time.

  “Yeah, well, things change.”

  I was fifteen minutes late, but I did show up, and there he was, sitting on a bench, waiting. Wearing the same coat he had on when he said he wanted to break up with me.

  In the movies this is where either the girl goes running to her guy and he embraces her and spins her around, legs flying in the air, or there’s a moment when both people realize that that old spark isn’t there. That meeting was probably a huge mistake and they would have been better off imagining meeting up one last time instead of actually attempting to do so.

  In our case, neither of those happened. Instead of running into Sean’s open arms, I walked over to him just fast enough to show I wasn’t afraid to see him, but slow enough to demonstrate I wasn’t in a rush. The entire time I walked toward him, Sean sat there watching me, a little grin on his lips. And even though I’d promised myself I wouldn’t let him get to me, he got to me.

  When I reached the bench he finally stood up. “Long time no see.”

  Not exactly eloquent, but it would do. “You could say that.”

  I didn’t know if I should hug him or shake his hand or what. How did you act in front of someone you once thought you loved, someone you thought would love you a hell of a lot longer than he did?

  “What are you in the mood for?” he asked, leading me toward Quincy Marketplace. “They’ve got anything you could ever want to eat.”

  “Pizza,” I told him, noticing how the field coat had become worn in around the elbows.

  After we ordered slices at Pizzeria Regina, we found a table and sat down.

  “You look tan. Did you go somewhere?”

  “I went skiing for spring break.”

  “Who’d you go with?”

  “My friends Josie and Lucy. Josie has a house in Killington.” Sean had given me my opening, the perfect opportunity to say I’d gone skiing with Luke. I don’t know why I didn’t just tell him. That was the point of all this in the first place, right? To show Sean I could land the hottest guy in school. To prove that I wasn’t going to sit around and bemoan the fact that Sean unceremoniously dumped me.

  But I didn’t mention Luke. Not because I wanted Sean to think that I was still waiting for him or that, if he went to Boston College and I stayed around here, too, we might start seeing each other again. I didn’t tell Sean because I had to stop thinking that Luke was really my boyfriend.

  “Don’t you want to get that?” Sean asked, pointing to my ringing purse.

  Instead of answering, I reached for my phone and pushed the off button without even glancing at the screen. I didn’t want to know who was calling. I wanted to ask Sean the question. Actually, I wanted to ask him two questions.

  “Why’d you never let me have the last slice of pizza?”

  Sean looked at me. “What?”

  “Whenever we ordered pizza you’d always take the last slice.”

  “I guess because you never said you wanted it,” he explained. “I wouldn’t have cared if you had it, you just never asked.”

  I never asked. Was it really that simple?

  Sean held out his slice for me. “Why? Do you want this one?”

  I shook my head and prepared to ask question number two, which I was sure wouldn’t have anywhere near as simple an answer. “Why’d you break up with me?”

  Sean stopped midbite, his pizza flopping in the air as he tried to figure out if he should answer or finish taking a bite. He decided to take a bite. Probably needed the extra time to come up with a good answer.

  I waited while he finished chewing, and then waited while he wiped the corners of his mouth with a napkin.

  “Well?”

  He shrugged. “I broke up with you because I knew you wouldn’t break up with me.”

  Of all the answers! “Of course I wouldn’t break up with you,” I told him, my voice rising loud enough to get some disturbing looks from the couple at the next table. “I liked you, why would I break up with you?”

  “Because you were moving. Because we wouldn’t be seeing each other.”

  “We could have seen each other plenty, if you wanted to. The fact was, you didn’t want to.”

  “When?” he asked.

  “When what?”

  “When would we have seen each other? We have different school breaks, neither of us is exactly putting up the dough to fly back and forth. It wouldn’t have worked, and you’re crazy if you think it would have.”

  “I’m crazy? I wasn’t the one who waited until the morning—the morning,” I repeated, for emphasis, “I was leaving for Boston. That’s not just crazy, Sean, that’s downright shitty.”

  So much for a nice lunch. So much for acting like I was over him.

  But I was. And even if I was yelling at Sean, it was more out of frustration than anger. Because if Sean wasn’t the bad guy, if he wasn’t the one to blame for how things ended up between us, then who was?

  “I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I know it wasn’t probably the best way to do it, but I didn’t know what else to do. Would you rather I let you leave and we acted like nothing would change?”

  “Maybe.” My voice sounded more sulky than I’d intended. “Would that have been the worst thing in the world?”

  “It would have been if you actually believed it was true.”

  “You let me give you this coat for Christmas, for God’s sake.” I touched the sleeve of his coat, almost expecting to feel the same electrical current that used to pulse through me whenever I touched Sean. But there wasn’t. I didn’t feel anything at all. “Why didn’t you at
least tell me before I went out and bought you a present?”

  “Because I wanted us to keep having fun right up until you left. If I’d said anything earlier you just would have been miserable and we wouldn’t have hung out. We had fun over Christmas break, if you remember.”

  “Of course I remember, that’s why I was so pissed.”

  “Don’t act like you really believed it would have worked out with you living all the way in Boston. You know you’d be lying. I was just being honest with you.”

  He was being honest with me. Funny how that worked out. Sean was honest with me and ended up breaking my heart. I was lying to Luke every single day and in the end my heart would still end up broken.

  Sean pointed to my neck. “So, where’d you get the hickey?”

  “It’s not a hickey. I burned myself with a curling iron.”

  “Then why’d you try to cover it up?”

  I felt the spot on my neck and then inspected the smudge of foundation on my fingertips. “I lied. I do have a boyfriend.”

  “Who is he?”

  “This guy in my class. His name is Luke.”

  “How long have you been seeing him?”

  “Since February.”

  “It sure didn’t take you very long to get over me.”

  I didn’t bother correcting him. I didn’t bother pointing out that, until I actually saw him today, I didn’t think I was over him, at least not completely. A big part of me didn’t even want to be over him. Because if I was, then maybe it meant Sean was right when he said we couldn’t last after I moved away. Which meant he did the right thing when he broke up with me.

  “Yeah, well, I guess you were right after all.”

  Sean laughed. “You know, I was kind of hoping I was wrong.”

  Yeah, me, too. In fact, I’d been counting on it.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The Guy’s Guide Tip #72:

  We like surprises. But telling us you have another girlfriend doesn’t count. Neither does anything else that makes us want to hit you.

  “Luke called looking for you,” TJ shouted when he heard the kitchen door open.

  I found him in the family room playing with his Xbox. “What’d you tell him?”

  “Nothing. I just said you weren’t home. I told him to try your cell phone.”

  I hoped that was all TJ told him. Even though I hadn’t technically done anything wrong—I mean, technically, Luke wasn’t really my boyfriend. Technically, I was just pretending to be his girlfriend while I tried to prove the guide worked. And even if Luke was my boyfriend, technically it wasn’t like I’d cheated on him by going to see Sean. So, if I hadn’t done anything wrong, why did I feel so guilty?

  “And, while I was playing answering service, Josie called, too,” TJ added. “She wants you to go over to her house when you get home.”

  I had two choices. I could call Josie or Luke. I could call Josie and continue lying about how I felt about Luke, or I could call Luke and lie about where I’d been all day. And lie about who I was with. And lie and lie and lie.

  You’d think that after so many years of holding in the truth (no, of course I don’t mind if you cut in line ahead of me; I’m not hungry, you have the last slice of pizza; sure, Dad, it’s okay that you want to stay in Chicago for a while even though your family is moving to Boston) I’d be used to it. You’d think I’d be able to continue ignoring how I really felt and just let the lies roll off my tongue. The only problem: It was exhausting. And the pressure was getting to me.

  Never in a million years would I have predicted I’d turn into the kind of girl who’d call a guy over her friend. In eighth grade Mandy Pinta was like that when she went out with Ricky Barnett, and Josie, Lucy, and I always swore that friends came first. But we also swore that we’d never lie to one another or keep secrets, and look how that turned out.

  I picked up the phone and dialed Luke’s number.

  “Where were you all day?” Luke immediately wanted to know. “I tried calling your cell.”

  “Yeah, my battery was dead.” Lie.

  He believed me, of course. Why wouldn’t he? “There’s not much going on tonight, you want to do something?”

  You know what I felt like doing? I felt like telling Luke the truth. I wanted to tell him that the only reason I ever started hanging out with him was to prove I could make him better. I wanted him to know that, even though he’d started out as a project, it wasn’t like that anymore. And I even wanted to tell him that I’d gone to see Sean today, and that seeing Sean just reminded me how much I wanted to be with Luke. I didn’t want to be with my ex-boyfriend, I wanted to be with my real boyfriend.

  So, did I say it? Did I suck it up and take my mom’s advice to stop ignoring how I really felt? Did I just finally get it all out in the open?

  Of course not. Because then I’d have to admit the ugly truth—I was someone who’d fallen in love with her best friend’s ex-boyfriend. I was someone who’d knowingly continued to fall in love with her best friend’s ex-boyfriend even after she knew said best friend wanted to get back together with him.

  And I’d have to admit something else, too. I’d have to tell Luke that he’d started out as a way to prove myself. He’d been nothing more than a flaw that I was determined to correct.

  Only now I had the flaw that needed to be corrected. But I wanted one more night with Luke. Just one more night. I mean, I’d already made a complete mess of things, what was one more night? One more amazing, fantastic night. A night to remember long after this is all over.

  “Yeah, I’d like that,” I told him. “I’d really like to see you.”

  “You know what? I missed you today.” Luke waited for me to say something back. And for the first time during our entire conversation, I told him the truth.

  “Me, too,” I whispered. “I missed you, too.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The Guy’s Guide Tip #77:

  Turning your clothes inside out does not mean they’re clean. It just means we can read that your shirt should be machine washed in cold water and tumbled dry.

  Luke’s parents were out to dinner in the city. The same city in which I’d just had lunch with Sean. It was like the universe was trying to tell me something. And I wasn’t going to listen.

  Somewhere between leaving a message on Josie’s voice mail and driving to Luke’s house, I’d decided to forget what everyone else wanted me to do, and just do what I wanted me to do. Maybe, somewhere deep down, I knew this was the last time we’d be together. Our last time and our first time all at once. I found myself wondering if they’d almost cancel each other out. And I hoped they wouldn’t.

  Sitting on the couch watching a movie with Luke, it was exactly where I wanted to be. It didn’t matter that he didn’t offer to get me a drink or that he hogged the remote control. Unfortunately, what mattered the most to me was exactly what I wouldn’t be able to have.

  “Do you want to go upstairs?” I asked, my voice sounding a little like I’d just run a marathon.

  Luke muted the TV and turned to me. “Why, do you?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I do.”

  Luke took my hand and led me upstairs, not even bothering to turn off the TV.

  When we lay down on Luke’s bed, he didn’t start unbuttoning my shirt or try to unzip my pants. Instead, we just lay there together, my head resting against his shoulder.

  “What’s with the glow-in-the-dark stars?” I asked, pointing to the ceiling.

  “Leftovers from years ago. I went through a phase where I was all into space and planets and that stuff. I always forget they’re up there until I go to bed, and then I don’t feel like taking them down.”

  It wasn’t the perfect beach scene I once envisioned. There were no waves lapping at our feet, no sunset or shooting stars. Just glow-in-the-dark planets stuck to the ceiling above us. It wasn’t how I’d always pictured it, but for some reason it still felt perfect.

  I just had one more thing to do. It wouldn�
�t change what was about to happen, but I owed it to Josie. “Can you do me a favor?” I asked.

  Luke stopped running has hands across my stomach. “Sure.”

  “Can you apologize to Josie?”

  Luke hesitated before answering. “Yeah, I can do that. For you.”

  I rolled on my side and faced Luke.

  “Do you have something?” I whispered.

  Luke propped himself up on his elbows and smiled, like he was getting ready to make fun of me. “Something? Like a can opener or a bag of frozen peas?”

  Despite myself, he got me to laugh. “You know what I mean.”

  “Yeah.” Luke closed his eyes and kissed my neck. “I know what you mean.”

  I could tell Luke had had sex before, who knows, maybe even with the sophomore from St. Michael’s on New Year’s Eve. But, as he looked down at me, his eyes barely an inch from my own, I knew I was different. And I swear, right before I closed my eyes, Luke muttered something that sounded an awful lot like “I love you.” And then I heard myself muttering, “Me, too.”

  Three months ago if somebody had told me I’d be lying in bed with Luke, I probably would have assumed I was doing it to prove I was over Sean. But that’s not why I was here right now. It wasn’t why I wished I never had to leave and that Friday would never come. I slept with Luke because I wanted to. I slept with Luke because—I can’t even believe I’m saying this—I slept with Luke because I really believed I loved him.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The Guy’s Guide Tip #79:

  It’s called instant replay for a reason—it should only take an instant. There’s no reason to watch the same touchdown or stolen base over and over again. For days. You’ve seen it once, move on.