Page 43 of The Long Way Found

Suze watched him carefully. “Any fear?”

Luke was quiet for a moment. The chickadees kept coming and going. He could hear Suze’s clock ticking from the mantle.

“Yeah, a little. He gets close, then pulls back, and it makes me think he’s going to ghost me again.”

“He’s not eighteen anymore.”

“I know, and I’m not living in the past, except… except for this loop I’ve been on my whole life: Meet someone and like him, get left in the dust… Now, Jack’s job is temporary. His focus on me comes and goes…”

“So, what’s your part in this pattern?”

“Ugh! Can’t it be something that keeps happening TO me?” Luke said.

Suze raised her eyebrows, as if to say, “Uh, no. You know that’s not how it works.”

“I know. You’re right. I let them do it. Heck, I probably make them do it so the story repeats.”

“And now with Jack, you’re all in?”

“I know. It’s crazy.”

“Have you told him this?”

“Not yet. I don’t want to seem needy.”

“Did I ever tell you about Jenna, my first real girlfriend?”

Luke shrugged.

“She dumped me. Broke my heart. Oh! I thought that was it. We had this big blowout because she didn’t do something I wanted her to do. And when I chewed her out for it, she had no idea. ‘You never said anything about that, so how was I supposed to know?’”

“What was it?”

“You know, I don’t even remember. But the point is, she was right. She didn’t have a chance because I was waiting for her to figure it out. So selfish.”

“I’m being selfish?” Luke said. “For not nagging him… because I’m so important already that he should read my mind and cater to my every need…? Something like that?”

They sat in easy silence for a while, the midday light shifting across Suze’s living room.

“Was Jenna the one who almost made the Olympics?” Luke asked eventually.

“Yes!” Suze said, happy that Luke remembered. “What legs on her. Mean, though.”

“Molls is better.”

“Molls is better.”

They recited the Serenity Prayer together.

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change / Courage to change the things I can / And wisdom to know the difference.”

When he left, Luke was hopeful, without expectations. This wasn’t his to control, and neither was Jack. But Luke understood that he still needed to find the strength to be honest about his own wants and that he wasn’t helping himself by suffering in silence.

And for now, that was enough.

CHAPTER 14

LUKE