Purple Hearts(97)

What happened?

Luke laying a hand on my head.

We’d come so far since then. So much had happened. And we had come out with scars, with strength.

I rewound the footage to the beginning.

. . . the serenity to accept the things you cannot change, the courage to change the things you can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

The courage to change the things I could. We still had a couple of hours before we needed to hit the road to Galveston.

I found my keys.





Luke


Strange to find myself back on Dad’s lawn, feeling differently than even just weeks ago, when I was here with Cassie. I felt as if I had been chewed up and spit out, but tougher for it. Less static. Less of the elephant-on-the-chest feeling. Less doubt, even when I thought of Cassie, and came up with only questions. That was how this worked, I was realizing. Big questions had only small answers, barely answers at all, more like fractions of answers, and you just had to hope that one day those fractions would come together to form something passable.

Dad and Jake were approaching from the cooler, fresh beers in their hands.

“And then Luke starts chanting,” Jake was telling Dad. “And the whole crowd is like”—he made the airy, loud whisper that people make when they’re imitating crowds—“Jacob, Jacob, Jacob.”

“I mean, it’s a year’s worth of Gino’s,” I said, letting out a laugh. “Big moment. Lot on the line.”

“Except Gino’s pizza tastes like cardboard soaked in grease,” my dad said.

Jake shook his head. “You just like undercooked dough, is your problem.”

Dad made a pff sound, and sent a sunflower seed rocketing a little too close to Jake to seem accidental. Jake put up a forearm to block it, laughing.

We were quiet again, watching JJ make a nonsense-sound-filled circle around Hailey, who was sitting in the grass, sipping a beer.

Jake pulled his phone out of his pocket, stared at it, and began texting furiously.

I looked back at JJ. Though I was hopeful about the charges being dropped, I was planning for the worst, where Cassie was concerned. I was resigned that no matter how I ended up, wanting Cassie from a distance and knowing she’d never want me was the most manageable way to think. My method: I could think of things that I liked about her, and then replace them with some very concrete, tangible elements in the present moment.

Thing: I missed the way her car smelled. Replacement: The fresh-cut grass. Remnants of Dad’s meatball burgers on the grill.

Thing: I missed the way she shuffled around her wood floors in her socks, not bothering to pick up her feet because, as she said, “It’s fun, it feels like ice skating.” Replacement: The sound of Jake snorting to himself as he looked at his phone. A casual moment. A kind of moment that I had taken for granted.

Thing: her singing voice. Replacement: I didn’t have one yet.

Jake cleared his throat. “Hey, uh. Luke.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“You’re gonna wanna check around the house.”

I shot him a puzzled look, but he just shrugged. I made my way across the yard, and squinted beyond the back door. A car was pulling into the driveway. A beat-up white Subaru, to be exact.





Cassie


I texted Jake when I got close to Buda. That way I couldn’t back out.

I sped, making the twenty-minute journey in fifteen, and each time I thought about turning around, I pressed the gas more.

What was I going to do, run into his dad’s backyard and give him a Hollywood kiss?

Here’s looking at you, kid.

God, they were going to think I was crazy. I was going to solidify every stereotype about emotional women that ever existed. Crazed, illogical, blind to the rules of society. Rules like speed limits and whether a relatively random woman could just waltz into someone’s private property and declare love.

I was just a woman with something to say.

I just wanted him to know. That’s all. He could do whatever he wanted with it. I fucking helped him take a bath, for God’s sake. The least he could do was hear me out.

I slowed down as I approached, and parked in the driveway. I took a deep breath, and got out. As I came around the house, my hands were shaking.

“Hey,” I called when the backyard came into view, shielding my eyes from the sun.

Luke’s mouth was hanging open. He was wearing his dress blues, looking handsome and distinguished and unapologetically happy. Jake was covering his face, trying not to laugh. Luke’s dad was looking at me like I was a crazy woman.

Fuck ’em.

I approached Luke. He was still smiling. That was a good sign. I could hear Jake and his wife muttering to each other.

“Hi,” I said, stuffing my hands firmly in my pockets.

“Hi,” he said.

Well, this was it, the fuck it moment. I motioned to a corner of the yard. Luke met me near a patch of bushes.

“I’m sorry I missed the ceremony,” I started. “I just needed to come anyway. Because after we talked, I thought a lot.”

“Yeah, me, too,” he said.

My heart lifted. “Really?”

“Really.” He swallowed. “But go ahead.”

I pressed tighter into my pockets. Holding myself together. I stared at the grass below my feet. “I know it doesn’t make a lot of sense for us to, you know, be involved after everything that’s happened. But I need you to know that—” It felt wrong to say this to the ground. I looked up at him. “I love you.”