Page 96 of Keepsake
“How do you know she won’t come to love you?” Isaac asked in a quiet voice. “You’ve only known her a little while. Maybe things don’t have to go fast.”
I snorted. “They went plenty fast. And then there was a sudden squeal of brakes.”
“Ouch.” There was a pause, and then Isaac said, “So… While we’re on the topic, is there anything you’re unclear about, sexually? If you have any questions…”
I let out a frustrated grunt. “Nope. No problems there.” I couldn’t even think about sex with Lark without feeling sad. I hadn’t known that holding her in my arms was a privilege I’d soon have to give up.
“Okay.” Isaac sighed. “I just wonder…”
“You wonder what?”
“She just came back from some terrible trip, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Tell me this—if you’d met the perfect girl just a month or two after you got shot out of Paradise Ranch, do you think you would have been ready for her?”
“I dunno,” I said, hoping to get off the topic.
“Think about it. Maybe she just needs time.”
That sounded like the kind of thing you say to someone who’s all out of hope.
We drove on in silence for a minute, and I thought the conversation was over. But then Issac said, “Sometimes you have to take a step back before you can move forward. A month from now, she might realize her error and come back to you.”
I wanted to believe him. But I just couldn’t summon the optimism. “Not everybody gets what you have. Not everyone finds their Leah.”
“You’re too young to call off the search, man. Trust me.”
I didn’t answer. I stared down the double yellow line of the little two-lane highway and tried to think of nothing at all.
The next nightwas Thursday Dinner, this one at Isaac’s place. Hemmed in between Kyle and Dylan at Leah’s dining table, I drank more wine than usual. But it didn’t bring on the sort of pleasant fuzziness I’d been hoping for. Instead, it only made my sad thoughts more muddled.
Lark hadn’t come to dinner at all. In fact, she’d made herself so scarce these past twenty-four hours that I had barely glimpsed her. Griff sent her to the market today with Kieran, keeping me on the farm to press cider.
Tonight on my way out, I’d wanted to knock on her bedroom door. But what would I even say if she opened the door? Griff had told me she was leaving tomorrow, and I’d already told her I loved her. There were no more confusions to clear up; there were no new questions to ask.
Except for “please?” and “why?” Those two questions were burned on my heart. I’d told her I loved her, and that hadn’t been enough.
She hadn’t even needed me to chase off her dreams last night.
So here I sat, drowning in my wine glass. Since I wasn’t known as a talker, my silence wouldn’t be noticed. Chastity sat down at the other end of the table, happily planted in a chair with Maeve on her lap.
Hell. Even Maeve had abandoned me.
“I’ve never been further from home than Casper. So when I saw the lights of Omaha, I thought, wow! The big city! But then came Chicago.” She laughed.
Funny. I’d had that exact same experience four years ago.
Sitting there surrounded by the people I knew best in the world, I got a strange chill. Chastity’s storytelling brought me back to those early days, and not in a good way. I was beaten and alone. Didn’t have any money for a bus ticket like Chastity did. All I had was the name of a town in Vermont, and I was going to walk there if nobody would stop for me. On the worst days I froze alone in the rain. Some nights I lay awake on park benches, too afraid to fall asleep.
One time I watched a group of teenage boys eat McDonald’s hamburgers in the park. They saw me watching. Eventually one of them held up half a burger. “You want this?” he asked.
My stomach was so empty and I nodded.
Then the boy threw the burger to his dog, and all his friends laughed.
It had been a really long time since I’d thought about those days. The wine made a left turn in my stomach just remembering this.
