“Hey,” I say, moving toward him.
“Hey.” He nods at the flash of headlights pulling away from camp. “Was that your mom?”
I nod. How strange. He and my mom live in two different parts of my world, but they were just yards away.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah. Listen, I—”
“Rhea told me. I’m glad you’re both okay.” He nods, businesslike, and stands up.
When he starts off toward his cabin, I follow stupidly—surprised by his terseness. I would have expected a bear hug.
“Are you mad at me?” When I catch up and touch his back, the look he gives me over his shoulder is hurt. Raw, undisguised hurt.
“I just need a minute, Luce. And you should get some sleep.”
“Oh, yeah. Like that’s going to happen when you’re clearly pissed at me.”
“I don’t want to do this right now. We can talk in the morning. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Well, I’m not okay! Not if you’re mad at me!”
“Let’s just sleep on it, Luce, okay?” He sounds wearied.
We’re near the spot where he first kissed me, and this feeling has to be the opposite of that. My voice is graveled with uncertainty. “Let me make sure I’m clear here. My mom has cancer, and you’re mad at me? That sucks.”
At this, he turns fully. “No. Your mom has cancer, you see her once a week a mile away, ??you didn’t tell me. That’s what sucks.”
I swallow. Oh. Right.
“I’ve told you everything. But you hide this major thing from me? After I ask you for honesty?” He crosses his arms like he’s protecting himself from me, and I’m crushed—I am crushed—that he has reason to. “I mean, how do you want me to feel about that?”
“What do you want to know?” My lip trembles, betraying me.
“I don’t know, Luce! I just wish you’d talked to me! Even if we weren’t . . . whatever. You’re my friend. Do you not trust me?”
“I wanted to pretend it wasn’t happening, okay?” My hands fly out, as if I can push away the pain of it. “Like, when I was here, if no one asked me about it, life could feel normal for a split second.”
“Well, that’s not a healthy coping mechanism.”
My jaw drops before I can hide my shock. “Don’t you psychiatrist-mom me!”
“Well, I’m sorry! I told you I wanted to sleep on it so I could get my thoughts together! I’m not—” He pauses to take a few measured breaths, hands on his hips. “Damn, Luce. I just . . . You may have been able to pretend, when I didn’t know. But that meant I couldn’t support you.”
“You have been supporting me! By having fun with me. Letting me be free from it.”
This seems like a perfect explanation to me, but he looks even more hurt. Disappointed, even. “I don’t want to be comic relief, Luce.”
This pulls tears to my eyes immediately. “Well, maybe I do want that. Maybe being with you is the only time I can escape all the worries. Because those worries? They invade nearly all my thoughts—every good thought catches on something sad.”
“Like what?”
“Like what sad thoughts do I have?” Now my arms are crossed, and here we are—facing off.
“Yeah.”
“You really want to do this? Fine!” I throw my hands up, flinging my frustration outward. “When I was just over there, and she made tea, I was thinking about how she talks back to the kettle. When it starts to steam, she says, ‘Hold on a minute!’ or ‘Just a second!’ like it’s an impatient child.”
His anger falls away, hunched shoulders drooping. But I’m just getting started, and it feels good. To be ranting about it. Not because I’m mad at myself or at him, but because I’m just mad.
“She signs her text messages ‘xoxo’ like it’s a handwritten letter. She is doggedly kind except when it comes to red carpet fashion. She can eat a large movie theater popcorn before the movie is even halfway over.” I come up for air, panting as my mind plays the tiny details of my mother like a highlight reel. “And these things don’t even matter in the big scheme of who she is. But I don’t think I can live without them.”
“Luce,” he says quietly, but it’s too late for that now.
“And it feels like anything could hurt me. My mom’s own cells are trying to kill her.” My laugh pierces the air between us, jagged and unkind. I’m gesturing passionately, helplessly, like a fire-and-brimstone pastor. “Bones can snap. Skin is like paper. And I just want to go back. I want to go back to when it felt like nothing could hurt me.”
His wince isn’t quick. It stays, a pained expression of true understanding. “I know, Luce. I really do. And I wish I could fix it.”
He does know. He has known for years. The world that is safe—full of bedtime lullabies and solid ground—was gone for him at age ten. In the most horrible way imaginable.
“I’m so sorry that I didn’t tell you,” I whisper. I step forward, taking a chance as I wrap my arms around his waist. My hands barely touch, and I feel comforted by the warmth and solidness of him.
“No, don’t apologize. You told me when you were ready.” He rests his chin on top of my head. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have made you feel bad that it wasn’t sooner.”
“So, we’re okay?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Can I still go to the wedding with you?”
“I guess.” He smiles, to prove he’s joking, and I lean up to kiss him.
I never fought with Lukas like that. Not once. And only now do I wonder if maybe we just weren’t feeling enough. Or expressing enough. I don’t want to compare everything, but he’s the only other relationship I’ve had.
And this one? This one feels easy, even with voices raised as we try to understand each other. It occurs to me, not for the first time, that maybe I was always supposed to end up right here.
Back at the cabin, I find Keely sitting on the step, arms curled around her knees in the weak porch light.
“You waited up for me?” I ask, with embarrassingly transparent hope.
She shrugs, brushing off her shorts as she stands. “Just in case.”
Just in case. Just in case I came back to a dark, quiet cabin and it felt like the sadness would consume me. Keely startles awake if a camper so much as whimpers in the midst of a dream. If I came home upset, she’d sense it from the top bunk. And that means she’s sitting out here just in case I needed to be sure someone was with me.
“You could have told me,” she says. “You could tell me now.”
I knew that. I know that. It just seemed unfair to take my pain to Keely, who lost her mom even younger. “Could you tell me about your mom too?”
She sits back down, patting the space beside her, and I settle in.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR