saw how the world destroyed my best friend, using her own feelings to grind her into nothing. She killed herself to escape from that. To finally make it stop. She died and left me alone, and now Luke is all I have, and that can’t last forever. It can’t. I don’t have enough emotion inside me to cloud out the stark reality of our chances.
“This obviously isn’t going to work out,” I mutter.
“Why would you say that? Jane, come on. We get along great. We get along so damn well, I want to spend more time with you. Why does that scare you?”
“It doesn’t scare me!” I shove his hand away and stand up. “I’m not good at relationships, and I’ve told you that. I’ve been very clear about it. You said that was what you liked about me, and now you’re asking me to”—I wave a frantic hand in the air—“do this?”
“Yes. I’m asking you to do this. Move in with me, Jane. It’ll just get better.”
“Who says it will get better? That’s ridiculous. We both agreed that we have issues, thanks to our shitty families, but everything has been working really well, and now you’ve screwed it up. I can’t do this. I can’t be that.”
“Be what?” Now he’s standing too, his voice rising along with his body.
“Some kind of . . .” I growl in frustration and pace to the fridge to pour more wine. “I don’t know. Some kind of constant fucking companion. A stupid, nurturing idiot.”
“Jane, listen to yourself. There’s nothing stupid about loving someone.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. “Really? Tell that to Meg.”
I loved her. I didn’t recognize it at the time, but I loved her, and she left. Loving her brought me pain, and I don’t accept pain. I put it behind me and I won’t ever accept it again. I have to get out of this.
“Jane—” he starts, but I shake my head.
“You should go. I need to make travel arrangements.”
“I get it, okay? I know what your family was like. And I know it hurt you so much when Meg died. But can’t we just try?”
“Try what? Settling down? Fuck up a little family together, just like both our parents did? What’s the point, Luke?”
He knows better than this. His own mother focused so much manic, destructive energy on him in childhood that he didn’t speak to her for most of his adult years and has always sworn he doesn’t want a traditional life. That was why he liked me.
“The point is that I love you,” Luke says, “and I’ve never wanted to live with anyone before either. Never. But I want to live with you, so you take that however you want. Just . . .” He throws up his hands in exasperation. “Go on your trip. Think about it. Really think about it. And decide what you want to do when you get back.”
He dons his jacket in quick tugs, telegraphing his anger, wanting me to feel it and respond. But I can’t feel it, just like I can’t feel much of anything. He grabs his wallet and keys and jerks the door open, wanting some words from me that I don’t know; but just as he’s stepping out and closing the door behind him, he stops.
I stand there staring. I have techniques for making people like me, but I have no tools for smoothing things like this over, because I usually don’t care. This time I do care, but all I can feel is outrage that he’s doing this to me. Making me hurt when he’s supposed to love me.
The tight expectation in his face sags to disappointment. “Call me, okay? Let me know what’s going on with your niece?”
“Sure,” I say, “whatever.”
Luke waits for another heartbeat before closing the door. He’s finally done talking, at least. I take the bottle of wine to the couch and sulk, waiting for my cat to pay attention to me. I’ll look into plane tickets tomorrow. I’m too exhausted to bother tonight.
CHAPTER 5
The Oklahoma City airport has changed. It’s beautiful now, buffed to a shine by energy-industry money into a very modern facility. I rent a car and tell Siri to find me a good barbecue restaurant on my way out of town. Home is still two hours away.
Home. It doesn’t mean to me what it means to other people. I scowl at the very idea of nostalgia. Even if someone had a great childhood, it was still childhood, full