Sweet Nothing (15 page)

Luke’s hunched next to my door when I get to my classroom, a move that shocks me into momentary silence. Even more surprising than his audacity is his appearance: hair matted to one side of his head, eyes puffy, clothes wrinkled. Like he hasn’t slept at all. That makes two of us.

“I have class,” I snap, shoving past him to unlock the door. “And I need to prep.” I jam the electronic key into the door. It bleats in protest. I try at least three more times before he has to do it for me.

“Elle, I have to talk to you. Please.” Luke opens the door and holds it for me, following close behind. “I need five minutes. Just do me this one favor, and hear me out.”

“You
need
five minutes?” I ditch my tote and busy myself at my desk, shuffling papers that don’t need to be shuffled. I can’t look at him. He has the nerve to look destroyed. Between the two of us, I’m the only one who has the right to look that way. “Why the hell would I do you a favor, Luke?” Even saying his name out loud is painful.

“I know. I don’t deserve it. But if you would only let me explain about Ashley—”

“I don’t need an explanation about
Ashley
.” I spit the name at him. “I got plenty of explanation yesterday.”

I can feel him moving toward me, and I bristle. Even when we’re fighting, there’s electricity between us. “You don’t understand. Just give me five minutes at lunch. Let me explain, and then if you still hate me, well…” He exhales slowly. “then you hate me. And I won’t bother you again. I swear.”

“I don’t want to talk about this at LUNCH, Luke!” My outburst surprises even me. Luke takes a step back, toward the door. “In front of my colleagues? Where my roommates can see? Don’t you think you’ve humiliated me enough?”

“Okay. No cafeteria. Then meet me off campus,” he pleads. “At the place where we had lunch on your first day.”

“That’ll take more than five minutes.”

“It doesn’t have to. You can leave at the five minute mark, if you want.”

“Morning, Ms. Sloane! Just wondering if you could go over last night’s reading with—” Vi Miller prances in, looking disgustingly chipper. “Oh. Hey…Mr. Poulos.” She glances back and forth between us. “Am I, like, interrupting something?”

Luke shakes his head. “Nope. I was just confirming a lunch meeting with Ms. Sloane. So… we’re all set?” He locks eyes with me. His are pained. Desperate. I recognize that kind of desperation. It’s what I felt yesterday. What
he
made me feel yesterday. I just want him to leave, and I know there’s only one way to make that happen.

“Sure. I’ll be there.”

It’s my first guiltless lie.

For the rest of the morning, I teach like my life depends on it. I manage to pack my drama with Luke deep beneath my consciousness, and I pour everything I have into my work. I’m funny, and sharp, and relaxed, and the students are engaged in discussion like I’ve never seen them before. Josh Marville raises his hand six times, and not once does he mention how good I look in my dress. Which I count as a victory. Hayden Santiago stays silent, as usual. I’m not a miracle worker.

When the bell rings, I wait for the classroom to empty, then grab my tote and head for the door. I decide to go home for lunch. I have no intention of meeting Luke.

I step into the hall, moving with the tide of kids and noise and laughter. I even get a few
Hey! Miss Sloane!
s, which feels good. I don’t need Luke to make Miami work for me. I can do this on my own. My confidence and my smile dissolve when I see him, shoving through the crowd to get to my side of the hall.

“What are you doing here?” I keep walking, barely glancing in his direction. “I thought we were meeting for lunch.”

“Do you really think I’m that gullible? I knew you wouldn’t come, unless I came to pick you up. Call me a gentleman.” He whips around and falls into step next to me. “I can think of plenty of things to call you at the moment.
Gentleman
doesn’t happen to be one of them.”

“Elle.” Luke nudges me into an empty classroom.

“What are you doing?” I hiss. “Luke—”

“Please.” I can hear the hairline cracks in his voice. “Five minutes in the cafeteria, or at the restaurant, or on fucking Mars. Wherever you want.” As pissed as I am, I hate seeing him this way. I hate feeling this way, myself. Like I’m drowning, and pride is keeping me from swimming for dry land.

“Give me a reason, Luke.” I want him to give me a damn good reason, something to justify what I need. I need to say yes. All morning, I’ve been hanging on to the tiniest thread of hope that there’s some acceptable explanation for what I saw yesterday. Even though deep down, I know it’s impossible.

Our daughter,
she’d said.

“Listen.” Luke takes a deep breath. “Haven’t you ever had something happen in your life, and it looks one way from the outside, but you know that if only people could step into your life for a second, if they could see things the way you do—”

“Okay. Shut up. Okay.” My throat closes over my words.

I’m not hungry, so we drive in silence to the beach. I kick off my heels and Luke unlaces his work shoes and we leave them on Betty’s backseat. We walk north. Luke has to power walk to keep up with me. Which he deserves.

“You have four minutes and fifty-nine seconds,” I tell him.

“Okay. So, Ashley was the woman you met yesterday.”

“Oh, you mean your wife?” My tone is casual, but slices deep. The tone my mother uses when she wants to do real damage.
No. I will not be her.
I pick up the pace, sand squeaking beneath my indignant step. “Yeah. I met your
wife
.” I can’t stop. The memory of yesterday afternoon comes flooding back, filling me with shock and humiliation all over again.

“My what? Ashley’s not my—would you hold up a second? Can we sit, please?” he yells after me.

“Fine.” I drop to the sand without looking at him. “Four minutes and forty seconds.”

Luke settles onto his knees directly in front of me. “Listen to me. Ashley’s not my wife. I want to tell you about what you saw yesterday, but I need to know that you’re actually listening. We’re not gonna get anywhere if you’re busy trying to think of ways to hurt me. Got it?”

Silently, I concede. My mother would never give in like this. I am not her.

“Okay. So again, Ashley’s not my wife. She’s a woman I met in college, almost six years ago now. We met in a bar, on the anniversary of my parents’ death.” Luke looks just over my shoulder, toward the ocean. “And I was just so… fucked up that night, and I remember sitting at the bar next to her doing shot after shot after shot, and it’s like, I couldn’t get the images of the accident out of my head, you know?” He rakes his hands through his hair like he’s trying to claw out the memory. “And all I wanted to do was forget.”

“Yeah.” I know what it’s like to have your memory stuck on a torturous loop. To need relief in whatever form it comes.

“I couldn’t forget, though. And if I couldn’t forget, all I wanted that night was a little comfort. And so I did something I’d never done before.” His breath is raspy, thin. Scared. “I had a one-night stand.”

“Oh,” I whisper. I have no idea what else to say. “Okay.”

“I hated myself,” he says, so sharply it almost scares me. “I mean, to be that irresponsible? I never thought I would be that guy.”

“Wait. But she wears a ring. I saw it.”

“It’s not a wedding band. She says she likes the way it looks, but I think she mostly does it for show. I think she hopes that we’ll be together someday, which will never happen. I’ve told her how I feel. I’ve never given her a reason to believe that I’ll change my mind. And that’s all I can do.”

I blink, wondering what I’m supposed to feel. Relieved that he’s not actually married? When he hid a
child
from me? My mind is whirring in a million different directions. I hate him for lying, when I’ve lied myself. And I feel for anyone who carries around this kind of secret shame.

“We’d never met before that night, and we didn’t have contact after,” he continues. “Until she called several months later to tell me she was having a baby.”

“I can’t even imagine.” I’m still angry, but my desire to wound him has fallen away. Neither of us needs any more pain. “You were just a kid.”

“Not an excuse.” He shakes his head, casting his eyes to the sand. “It’s weird to think about it now. I remember feeling so panicked at the time. Knowing I was definitely not ready to be a father. And yet, you just sort of adapt to your new reality.” He closes his eyes and I see the hint of a smile. “After we hung up, I remember pacing back and forth in front of those stained glass windows at my place. Pacing for hours. And then, I just stopped. And I said out loud, ‘Okay. I’m gonna do this the best I know how’.”

“And then they all lived happily ever after?” I quip.
Oops.
“Sorry.”

“Are you kidding?” He rubs his palms together. “This has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. But I love Lilah, and I can’t imagine life without her. I don’t want to imagine it.”

“Which means you can’t imagine life without Ashley.”

“That’s true,” he admits. “We’ll always be in each other’s lives, but only as Lilah’s parents. Nothing more.” He presses his lips together, tight. “Ashley’s had some problems with alcohol, and I’ve tried to get her help a couple times, but… anyway, I like to stay close. Make sure Lilah’s okay.”

I want to protect Aria that way.

“God, Luke, why didn’t you tell me?” The salt stings my eyes, and my throat feels tight.

He leans forward in earnest. “I should have. I know I should have. But not a lot of people know about Lilah, and I guess I was just afraid to tell you this early.”

“Afraid of what?” I ask, even though I already know.

“Afraid that if you knew what I’d done in the past, and the responsibility I have now, you wouldn’t be interested anymore. I wanted to wait until we knew each other better. Until we were sure that this was something we both wanted.” He rests his hand on top of mine. His warmth and weight is reassuring.

“But I… was… sure.” The words stumble awkwardly from my lips.

I watch as he physically braces himself. Watch the tiny muscles in his face and neck and hands tense.

“And you’re not anymore?”

“I don’t know, Luke.” I push myself to standing, sending curtains of sand to my feet. “It’s just a lot to take in.” I have the immediate, vicious desire to confess my sins to him right here. To dump everything on the sand between us and see how he’ll react. But I can’t. My secrets aren’t like Luke’s. My secrets could end my career. And my work is the only thing I have to keep me afloat. I bite my lip until I taste blood.

“I know it is. And you’re being really great, considering.” He reaches for me; presses one hand against my side and the other against the back of my neck. Forcing me to look deep into his eyes. “Elle. I am so, so, sorry that you had to find out about Lilah the way you did.”

I can feel myself softening with want. “It’s okay, I—”

“It’s not okay. After the art reception at my place, I started rehearsing all the different ways I might tell you. That’s why I didn’t want us to get too involved, too quickly. I wanted to tell you first. I can promise you that this was not how I wanted you to find out.”

“Yeah, it was a pretty shitty reveal, I have to say.” There’s an edge to my laugh. “I definitely didn’t expect another woman to be at your house that early.”

“I know. Ashley wanted to visit her mother in Sarasota for a week, so I asked her to drop Lilah by Sunday morning so I could say goodbye before they left. So she got there early and—”

“Yeah. I remember. I was there.” I give him a little shove. “No need to remind me.”

“Sorry,” he says sheepishly.

My eyes flicker out to the endless ocean. There’s so much more I want to ask, but I can’t find the words. “We should get back.”

“Yeah.”

We cross the sand in silence. When we get to the car, he opens Betty’s passenger door. Before I duck inside, he reaches for my hand. “Hey.”

“Hey.” I’ve missed the warmth of his skin on mine. Missed having him this close. I want him to hold me, but I’m feeling so fragile I’m sure I would shatter.

“Do you think maybe there’s a chance, still? For us, I mean?”

“I don’t know.” The thought of caring for a child, when I can barely keep my own life together, is petrifying. And I’m still mad at him for keeping this part of his life from me, which is entirely hypocritical. But it’s how I feel. “I’m not sure.”

“Okay. I get it.” He releases my hand. “Just… keep the door open, okay? Even just a crack. Can you do that?”

“I’ll keep it open. Promise.”

Elle,

It’s only lunch, but things are actually going okay today. The morning started out kind of weird—people would get really quiet and step around me like I had some sort of infectious disease or something—but it’s gotten better, even in just a few periods. Kylie and Liz are being cool about things, and none of the guys are gonna mess with me as long as I’m with David, so… I think today is gonna be okay. Not great, but okay.

Love you for infinity,

A

After releasing my last period prisoners from class, I rush home, tear off my dress, glasses, and heels, and slip into workout clothes and my running shoes. Running used to be my sanctuary, the only space where I could be completely alone with my thoughts. But once the trial started, I couldn’t even run through Central Park without being recognized. I haven’t gone for a jog since.

This afternoon, running isn’t a want; it’s a need. My conversation with Luke during lunch has left me completely directionless. I don’t know what I want with him. I don’t know what his having a daughter means for us. If I decide to accept this, what role am I supposed to have in her life? And if I don’t, are we supposed to go back to being coworkers? I don’t know if I can. And if I don’t know, I’m definitely not ready to explain everything to Waverly and Gwen.

Thanks to a drama club meeting and an upcoming
Allford Gazette
deadline, the girls won’t be home before dinner. I tuck my cell into my sports bra and head toward campus. There’s a bike path just south of the grounds that winds alongside the bay, and I break into a jog once I reach it. Two minutes in, my legs are sore and my lungs feel like they’re going to explode. My body is slick with sweat. The humidity is thick and leaning hard against me with every step.