I stop and look at him. He’s still crouched on the floor, his hand running over the top of his head. "Do you want to talk about it?" I surprise myself by asking, wondering why I keep doing this with him.
He looks at me now, his hand reaching out to collect the phone pieces I’m holding. I drop them into his outstretched palm and watch as he throws them into the trash with the others. We are both crouched down, opposite each other. Neither of us says anything for what seems like ages and we are both now looking anywhere but at each other. Finally it’s Luke who speaks. "It’s okay Ash, it’s a long story, but thanks anyway."
"You sure," I ask again, surprised that I’m pushing this.
He stands up now and reaches out his hand for me. Without thinking I take it and let him pull me up. He doesn’t drop my hand straight away and I find myself holding my breath standing there waiting. My hand feels warm in his. His skin feels soft and smooth. Our fingers are almost laced together.
It hurts; this connection. It hurts how much I want it.
Luke smiles at me as he says, "I think I need to get a new phone."
I turn to look at the trash, slowly pulling my hand from his. "Yeah I think so," I answer quietly without looking back at him.
Before he leaves, Luke comes over to me on his way out of the shop. We are closed, but I’m busy counting the money in the till. I look up as he stands in front of me.
"Hey," he says quietly.
"Hey."
"Thanks for earlier," he says running his hand over his head again. "I’m sorry you had to hear that, see that."
I swallow before looking around. Neither Sarah nor Liam is nearby. I turn back to Luke. "I actually didn’t mean to hear anything," I say.
He smiles at me now. "Yeah I know you didn’t. It’s just, well I’m not normally like that. So sorry you had to see it and well, thanks."
I shrug and smile back at him. "It’s okay, sometimes phones need to be thrown."
He laughs a little now. "Yeah I guess sometimes they do"
"I have a spare one at home. You can have it if you want?" I’m not sure why I just said that, but it’s too late to take it back now, and it’s not like Sam’s ever going to need his phone again.
Luke says nothing at first, just smiles at me. Finally when I’m about to tell him not to worry about it, he responds. "Thanks Ash, but it’s okay. Goodnight, I’ll see you tomorrow," before walking out the door.
"Goodnight," I whisper too late.
I wonder what any of that was about.
∞
I wasn’t going to go to Adam’s funeral. I just couldn’t face the prospect of saying goodbye to my first real boyfriend, especially after everything that had happened, after that night with him. In the end Dad convinced me I should go, said it was a chance to say goodbye, get some closure or something. I’m sure deep down a part of him knew what had really happened that night. Why else would Adam have been where he was when he died. There was only one place he could have been coming from, only one person he would have been seeing. Dad had to have known, but he never said anything and I never could bring myself to admit it out loud either.
It was Dad who had found out what happened first. It was the following day when Adam’s Mom rang our house. Dad answered because I was still in bed, trying to hang on to the smell of Adam as he lingered on my sheets. She told Dad what’d happened and then Dad told me. It didn’t make the pain any less having Dad tell me, but at least someone was there to hold me when I found out.
They said Adam was walking home really early Sunday morning when he’d been hit by a car. Whoever hit him hadn’t stopped and it was the driver in the car behind who saw the whole thing. They aren’t sure if the driver who hit him was drunk, but they were definitely speeding.
Adam was left lying on the side of the road. Massive internal injuries apparently. Dead before the ambulance even got there. There was a witness, who stopped, called the police. They waited with him while he slowly died on the side of the road. It was the emergency room doctors who called his parents. They came and identified the body. The police were still investigating, trying to find the driver. They had a partial plate number, but it had been dark and it had all happened so quickly. Of course he never should have been walking home at that time. Never should have been walking home at all.
All through the funeral, as the priest droned on and on, all I could see were images of that last night with him. The moment when he came upstairs and into my room. My racing heart, my open curtains and the moonlight streaming in. His skin, the feel of it against mine. His kisses. And his touch, the touch of his fingers on my body, how much I wanted it, how much I wanted more of it.