and not at me. “Come on, I’ll take you home.” He turned away and went back into the hallway.
The tears fell, unhindered and unbidden.
FOUR
Luke
I didn’t bother looking back to see whether she followed me. If I were honest with myself, for even a second, I would admit that I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to push her against that wall and kiss the breath right out of her. It was out of the question, though, no matter how much I wanted to. Not only was she the girl who’d broken my heart three years ago, she was the daughter of the man I’d come to think of as a father.
Joe Wells had been my rock when Mallory went to college. I had been beyond lonely and Joe reached out, inviting me to dinner and out to batting cages.
Joe was gone for the weekend to take Mallory to college. I felt nothing but emptiness in the cavity my heart used to occupy. My apartment was on the second floor of the building and full of treasures from my relationship with Mal. She’d been an expert at helping me make the place feel more like a home. There wasn’t a single thing inside that didn’t remind me of her.
She’d convinced her dad to buy new living room furniture last fall so I could have their current set. The dishes were a mismatched set she found at a yard sale last summer. The rug in my bedroom was found when we went into a second-hand store downtown. The place was full of her.
I couldn’t escape her presence in my life. Everywhere I went, I saw her, a smile plastered on her face. She seemed genuinely happy about going to Boston and leaving our relationship in the dust. It tore my heart to pieces every time she pretended not to see me. Eventually, I just started getting up at six so I could get my errands in town done first thing in the morning and have less of a chance to have a run-in with her.
But news in a small town spread fast, and Baker had come over that morning to fill me in.
“She’s on her way to Boston, dude,” he said, taking a long drag off his cigarette. “Her dad drove her down himself.”
No matter how many times I told him I didn’t want him smoking in my apartment, he ignored me and did whatever he felt like doing.
I hadn’t said much and eventually Baker left me alone with my thoughts. She was really gone. For the first time in my life, I cried. I welcomed the release of tears, vowing never to tell a soul about it. I needed to mourn her and our relationship.
It was about a week later when my phone rang and her familiar number flashed on the screen of my cell phone. My heart stuttered.
“Hello?”
“Hey Luke, its Joe Wells. Do you have some free time this afternoon?” he asked.
I agreed to meet him but never had any suspicion that he was about to change my life.
I stopped at the main entrance of the hospital and turned around, expecting Mallory to be right behind me. She was nowhere to be found. I walked back to the room I’d almost kissed her in and found it empty. I thought maybe we’d missed each other, so I went back to the main entrance.
I barely made it to the wide glass doors when I saw her car tear through the parking lot. She must have snuck out a side entrance and gone straight to her car, hoping to avoid me. She wasn’t getting away that easily. I ran to my truck and turned the key. The engine roared to life and I was out of the parking lot in seconds.
There was a trail of dust down the road to her house, so I knew I was on the right track. I whipped into the driveway and turned the wheel, coming to a stop just a few feet away from the porch where she stood. A cloud of dusted erupted as I slammed on the brakes. I jerked my door open, climbed out, and slammed it shut.
“What the hell are you doing?” she shouted, her hands balled into fists at her sides.
The dust flew around her. Her eyes were fiery and narrowed at me. I stopped at the hood of my truck, not wanting to get too close. I wasn’t sure I could trust myself where she was concerned.
“Me? Am I the