Page 71 of The Rebound
“Abby—”
“Do you know what happened on my first day at MacFarlane?” I ask abruptly.
Luke shakes his head.
“I got on the wrong subway. Like an-hour-late-to-orientation wrong. My apartment was only a couple of blocks from the office, but I’d bought these cheap heels that I couldn’t walk in and I didn’t know if there would be a place to change into them once I got there, so I thought I’d get the subway and save my toes. An hour late.”
“Not a good first day.”
“Not a goodyear,” I say. “I thought about quitting every week those first few months. It’s not like they don’t tell you what it’s going to be like. All you ever hear about is the hours you’ll need to work and the pressure you’ll be under but experiencing it is next level. Just…” I twist in my seat to face him again, needing him to understand. “What you said about being a step behind? I get it. Everyone worth anything thinks they’re too old or too young or too whatever at some point but they’re not.You’renot. You shouldn’t doubt yourself like that.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes. I mean, I couldn’t do it. Starting something new now? Trying to figure out what else I want to do with my life? If you found what you want then you need to go for it. Both hands. Full throttle. Similar saying.”
He grins at the last bit, tilting his head back against the seat. “An hour late?”
“I almost threw up in the ladies’ room, I was so scared.” I gesture at my face. “Sweat everywhere.”
“If it helps, you looked very impressive whenever I pictured you in New York. No sweat. Just you walking around a skyscraper. Usually in a power suit.”
“A power suit?”
“For some reason it was always the eighties in my head.”
I laugh. “Thought about me a lot, did you?”
I mean it as a joke but he just nods. “I used to.”
“You did?”
“Sure I did.”
He used to have that silly little crush on you.
Louise’s words from Easter echo through my mind as my heart gives an uncomfortable thump and it’s at that moment the automatic light switches off overhead. The headlights are still on though, only heightening the darkness on either side. It’s the kind of night you never get in the city, even with the expensive blackout blinds Tyler had. It should be spooky, a little scary. But I don’t feel scared.
“Why weren’t we friends?” I ask.
“What?”
“When we were younger. Not when we were kids but when we got older. We lived next door to each other but we weren’t friends.”
“We were very different,” he says like it’s nothing. “You were this scarily focused, confident cool kid—”
“There are no cool kids in Clonard,” I interrupt.
“True. But you were as close as we were going to get.”
“I’ll accept that.”
“That was you,” he continues. “And me… I was quiet,painfullyshy, a late bloomer—”
“Come on.”
“Hey, you grew at a normal pace. You don’t understand what it’s like to look like you’re twelve until your late teens. I took it very personally. Real sullen, ‘life isn’t fair’ stuff. I kept a journal.”
“You didn’t.”
