Purple Hearts(83)

He swallowed. “Eat avocado and eggs.”

“Huh, who knew?”

Mittens trotted in, tongue out. We moved our plates out of her reach. I stood, paused the Led Zeppelin, and put on Xenia Rubinos’s “Hair Receding.” A crease rose between his eyebrows, his mouth slightly turned up, listening.

“I knew it,” I said.

“What?”

“I call this look your new face.” I pretended to frame him with my fingers.

“My new face?”

“Your new face. It happens every time you’re exposed to something outside of your comfort zone. It’s the song, and I can tell because of this.” I reached across the coffee table to touch the crease between his brows. “You got it when I put on Dirty Projectors, too. And when you ate sweet potato fries.”

He touched the spot, too, and shrugged, looking at me. “I bet I get it a lot around you.”

“Hey!” I sat back down beside him, an inch closer than I had sat before, and gave him a small push. He didn’t scoot away.

“It’s not a bad thing.” He glanced at me, smiling.

“No, it’s not.” We were quiet for a while, finishing our breakfast.

Our breakfast. The plants were flourishing even though I’d been so busy with the band. Because he’d watered them. I thought of my dream and felt a rush of gratitude. He’d asked what I was doing today, and I realized I just wanted to be here, or anywhere, anchored in peace, knowing Luke was there, too. I’d tried not to name it last night. I could tell myself I had been too tired, too confused, too torn up from talking about Frankie, wanting someone’s comfort.

“Are you okay?” Luke asked beside me. I nodded, unable to look at him right then. Looking at his hands.

Because here we were, wide awake and well fed, and I knew I hadn’t just wanted to be held by anyone last night. I wanted to be held only by him.





Luke


Beside me on the futon, Cassie curled her knees into her chest. The flash of her lower back under her tank top, her calm breath, the waving black strands of hair falling on the back of her neck—it all kept pressing, pushing some tender part of my chest out into the open. Since I’d come back from the cemetery I still hadn’t figured out how to broach the subject of what she meant to me, what we meant to each other, let alone what to say. I’d tried to get some sleep before she woke, but I couldn’t. So I’d taken a shower. I had put on her music, letting it loop quietly, realizing I’d learned the words. I’d made her eggs and avocado toast.

And now I just wanted her to lean into my arms, against my bare skin, and stay there indefinitely. I didn’t want to reach out to her without knowing she wanted me to, without knowing that what happened last night was not just a fluke because we were both so exposed, so vulnerable.

“Can I ask you something?”

She nodded, her chin still against her knees, her eyes ahead.

“When we were talking last night . . . ,” I began.

She suddenly adjusted her legs, shifting to face me, her gaze set on mine. I didn’t break it.

But now that she was listening, not just listening, but listening for something, there was so much to say. There’d be no way I could say it all without messing it up. I started slow. “Talking about Frankie meant a lot. And I didn’t get a chance to thank you.”

“It meant a lot to me, too,” she said. “And—”

“And—” I echoed, almost on top of her. We paused, waiting for the other, and burst out laughing.

“You go,” she said.

“No, you,” I said.

“Well,” she said, then swallowed. “I was thinking about what I said at your dad’s barbecue. I mean in the attic. When I said if you talked this much all the time, our lives might be a little easier.”

I remembered what had taken root that day, the day I showed her my dad’s medal. “Right.”

“And you have, lately.”

“I’ve tried.”

“You’re different,” she said. Then she shook her head, holding up a hand. “Not that you were bad before,” she added.

“I was, though.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, quick.

Another step toward the truth. I realized I had stopped breathing. Honesty was a new sensation. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it still shocked me, bit by bit. Like descending into a cold pool. I was probably making that new face Cassie pointed out. I tried to relax, to breathe again.

“I was just in this for the money, and now I’m not.” The truth, lapping harder. Refreshing. Cleansing. Wishing I could take her hand.

“Yeah, yeah,” she said, sitting straighter, nervous. “Yeah,” she repeated. “Me, too.”

My heart skipped.

I saw her eyes glance at where her phone lay dead on the coffee table. She was thinking of Toby, probably. Trying to tread carefully. She brought her eyes back to mine. “Now that we’re better friends,” she continued, and the word “friends” felt like a stab, though it shouldn’t have. “I can’t help wondering why you needed the money. I mean, the real reason you were in debt.”

“Right.” This part of the truth was harder, cracking ice. The feeling of Johnno’s bones under my foot. His crumpled form on the bed. “I’m sorry. I should have told you a long time ago.”