Page 98 of Lost Love on 6th Street

“You knew her name! We went to bars and houses and made phone calls to people to figure out who she was!”

Luke shuts his eyes tight. “I know, I know. I just didn’t think you’d want to keep seeing me afterward. You barely wanted me to get involved at first. I thought if I let you go before you understood who I really was, you know, not just some playboy because I know that’s what you thought. I know it was, then I would—”

“I feel like a fucking child who was taken on a scavenger hunt. Oh my god.” I cover my face. “Oh my god, I feel so stupid.”

“You couldn’t have known.”

I snap. “Obviously!”

Luke is smaller than he’s ever been before me. As he fucking should be. “You tried to push me away at every turn. You tried to—”

“So instead, you controlled my reactions. You manipulated me into thinking—”

“I didn’t manipulate you!”

“Yes, you did!”

Luke’s face darkens. “I wish I regretted it, but I don’t think I can. I don’t think we would have gotten here if I hadn’t lied to you.”

Maybe he’s right. Maybe I wouldn’t have let myself be enjoyed by him. I probably would have gotten in my own way.

“You would never have seen Austin, and you’d never have fallen in love with it. With me.”

I let out a shaky breath.

“And you love me, Eleanor,” he says, desperation creeping into his voice. “You love me, right? Because I love you. I love you so much. And I’m telling you now because . . . because . . .”

“Of course, I love you. That’s why I’m so fucking angry at you.”

The corner of Luke’s mouth perks up and I understand why.

I have not felt this hollowness since I walked in on my ex fucking another woman in our home. This wrong shouldn’t feel comparable, and yet it does. “You know why cheating hurts?” I ask.

“Nor, I would never—”

“Listen to me.”

Luke’s nostrils flare, but he clamps his mouth shut.

“You’d think it’s because you don’t feel like you’re enough. Your partner needed something else from someone else. You’d think that would be the worst part of it.” My lower lip trembles. I’m not going to cry. Not over this. Not again. “But it’s not. The worst part is having to look back at the past however much time, and having to reconcile that the safety and security you thought you had, wasn’t there at all. That they had an entirely alternate history in the making that they tried to hide from you.”

We stare at each other.

I lick my lower lip. “This. What you’ve done. It’s not that different.”

Luke’s head drops forward. “Fuck,” he says. Then his body jerks up straight. “Fuck!”

The violence in the word hurts my ears. “You should go,” I say.

Luke, in his cute suspenders, pushes himself up from the couch, clinging to the arm of it like he might collapse if he lets go. “So, what does this mean? For us?”

“I don’t know. I just need to be alone right now, okay?”

I want to look away, but his gaze is on me, bidding me to look toward him. And when I do, the tears begin to lay siege on my eyes.

He hangs off his own body—a broken man in adorable suspenders. Screw him for still looking so good, even when he’s bereft. “Please, just don’t—” His voice catches, and he touches his chest. “Please don’t decide we’re done. Not yet.”

“Luke . . .” If I say anything else, I’ll start to sob.

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