Page 107 of The Matchmaker Club
20
Truth
When I got home from work, three black suitcases sat by the door. I walked into the parlor to find my grandmother sewing and Lainey carving another insect. A dragonfly this time.
“What’s going on?”
My grandmother set the needle and fabric on her lap and let out a sigh. “Lucas is leaving tomorrow.”
“What?”
“He said he had some things to take care of back home,” Lainey said as she dug her knife into the wood.
If I had known this would be the outcome of that stupid fight, I would’ve stopped it.
“But he can’t leave now. He didn’t…”
Finish his list.
Hear my confession.
My grandmother slid her glasses to the end of her nose. “You’re telling the wrong people.”
Lainey looked up at me as if I was the last hope to save our home. “The garden’s almost done. I was hoping he would be here to see it.”
I swallowed back the acid coming up my throat. “I’ll talk to him.” I made my way up the stairs and stopped in front of Lucas’s door, but decided to shower first. Then I even put on the pink dress from the first night we’d met. With the smell of burgers and fried food off my body, I knocked on Lucas’s door.
No answer.
I knocked again. “Lucas, it’s me. If you don’t answer in five seconds, I’m opening this door.”
“Just a minute,” he finally said.
He opened the door in a T-shirt and jeans. He looked down at my dress and then instantly set his eyes to mine. “What is it?”
“You’re leaving?”
“I have to help prepare for what’s inevitably coming.”
“You can’t do that from here?”
He didn’t answer.
“Why are you really leaving?”
“Because I need to go.”
“What about Heidi?”
His jaw clenched, and his intensity deepened. “What do you want, Taylor?”
I folded my arms across my chest. “I want you to stay and finish the list like you said you would.”
“Circumstances have changed.”
“And here I thought you were a man of your word.” I headed to my room and slammed the door behind me.
Within seconds, he flung it back open, a letter in his hand. “You want to know the real reason I’m leaving?”
