The Next Chapter of Luke Page 3

  I could have said Luke’s name or made a noise as I stood in the doorway, but instead I just stayed there.

  There were times, like this, when it still seemed unreal, the absolute improbability that Luke and I would end up together. We could be doing something completely normal, like driving in the car or sitting together at lunch, and I’d look over at him and be struck by the reality that Luke Preston had fallen in love with me. And even though I’d tried really hard to avoid it, and even harder to deny it, it had been impossible for me not to fall in love with him in return. After months of stringing him along for the sake of my senior time capsule project, after he found out the truth, even after he hated me for lying to him, Luke still found a way to love me. And forgive me. I can’t say I’d be that understanding under the same circumstances. It made me think that, even with eighteen years of training as Polite Patty’s daughter, Luke had actually turned out to be a better person than me. Which was ironic considering the whole plan had been for me to turn a jerk into a good guy, and I ended up turning myself from a good person into a jerk.

  I tried to put it behind us, I really did, but I found myself thinking about it more than I’d like to admit. It was as if I realized, for the first time, that I was capable of doing something I didn’t think I had in me. And it had been easy. Too easy. So easy that it made me realize that, no matter how nice I thought I was, or how good, I could also be horrible to the people I cared about most. I guess my fear was they’d figured that out, too.

  Luke always slept in boxers and a T-shirt. This morning’s boxers were blue and red plaid, and his pale blue T-shirt had an elephant on the front. Jumbo the elephant, the Tufts University mascot. Not exactly the most menacing or inspirational team mascot ever created, but I knew that Luke was thrilled to be recruited for their lacrosse team. I’ll never forget the day he found out that he’d been accepted and we’d driven to Medford to watch his future teammates practice. It had rained and the ground was muddy and slippery, and it was an all-around sloppy spring day. Still, I barely remembered the cold or the rain. All I remembered was how we’d slipped and fallen in the mud leading to the lacrosse field and, instead of getting up, we’d rolled around until the brown sludge seeped into my ears and I was sure a family of worms had found their way under my shirt. But none of it mattered because Luke’s body was warm against me as we laughed and ignored the sound of the coach’s whistle in the background.

  It was nothing like today, which already felt like summer.

  “You’re watching me.” Luke’s lips moved but his eyes remained shut.

  “How can you tell?” I asked.

  “I can feel your eyes boring into my soul.” He opened one eye and glanced over in my direction before rolling over onto his side and patting the comforter next to him. “Come here.”

  My mom would have freaked, obviously. Still, I walked over and curled up beside him, our bodies fitting together like puzzle pieces that snap into place with little effort. We were spooning, an expression my mother hated. She didn’t understand why anyone would want to refer to a utensil when describing a form of physical affection. TJ had once joked that spooning was innocent when compared to forking. She didn’t laugh.

  I laid my head on the pillow beside Luke’s.

  “I got your text. What’s up?” he asked. “You miss me already?”

  “We graduated less than twenty-four hours ago,” I reminded him, although the thought of leaving him for three weeks made my throat ache. “I think I can survive.”

  “And yet here you are.” Luke pushed my hair aside and kissed the back of my neck.

  The sun poured in through the window and, even with the breeze, it was already making his room too warm. I could feel my arms growing sticky where our skin pressed together. It was actually kind of gross, and was totally undoing the shower-fresh scent I’d gone to great pains to ensure. But I didn’t want to move. I just wanted to savor this feeling until I left with my mom, when Hyatt rooms wouldn’t be nearly as familiar or pleasant as this one. “You know you should get up. It’s gorgeous out.”

  Luke rolled away from me onto his back and stretched his hands over his head as he groaned at my suggestion. He was only about four inches taller than me, but stretched out like that, his bare feet dangled off the foot of the bed.

  “Okay, fine,” he finally gave in. “Give me a reason to get up. What do you want to do?”

  “I don’t know. We could take a ride to Mount Wilder,” I suggested.

  Luke considered my option. “And what will we do when we get there?”

  “We could have a picnic. And then I was thinking, maybe we drive into Boston for the afternoon. And tonight, we could go to that old drive-in movie theater in Duxmont. I checked, and the first show starts at eight,” I rattled off the first three items on our summer To Do list—a list we’d started making a few weeks ago when we realized only had a few weeks before we both went our separate ways in July.

  “It’s the first day of summer vacation. At this rate, we’ll run out of things to do after our first week.” Luke laid his hand on my waist and pulled me closer to him, my back pressing against the warm skin of his exposed stomach. “We can’t do everything the first weekend.”

  I probably should have turned around and faced Luke when I told him my news, but I couldn’t. Instead, I stayed nestled against him as I stared at his bedroom wall.

  “I’m going away with my mom, on her publicity tour for the book.”

  “That’s cool. When?”

  “We leave next Saturday.”

  Luke’s arms went slack around me. “Next Saturday? Like, a week from today?”

  I nodded.

  “How long will you be gone?” he asked, and then put his hand on my shoulder and tried to get me to turn toward him. “Seriously, can you look at me?”

  “Three weeks,” I answered, rolling over and turning my head to face him. “Three very long weeks.”

  “What about everything we were going to do? What about driving to Newport, going to Sachuest beach, and doing the cliff walk?”

  “I tried to tell her I didn’t want to go, believe me I tried. They think it will be a good experience for me, expose me to new stuff, that sort of thing. And, of course, there’s the frequent flier miles.” I wrinkled up my nose, crossed my eyes, and hoped Luke would laugh at my joke. He didn’t.

  Instead he pressed his lips together into a thin line while he thought about my news. “Three weeks?”

  “Yeah, but we can have an amazing time before I leave, and then when I come back, we have another few days before…” I didn’t finish my sentence. Before what? I take off for the Cape and he heads to New Hampshire for lacrosse camp? Before we both leave for freshman orientation?

  “There’s really nothing you can do to get them to change their minds?”

  I shook my head, and Luke fixed his eyes on the ceiling, a plain white plaster with nothing interesting to look at except glow-in-the-dark stars and planets he’d already seen a million times. I knew he wasn’t looking at anything, and he was just staring there to avoid looking at me. “What about the Cape?”

  “What about it?”

  Luke was quiet as he let me fill in the blanks to the sentence he knew I didn’t want him to say out loud.

  “I can’t bail on the Cape, Luke. I have a job. They’re expecting me, I promised.”

  Luke inhaled and held his breath so long I wondered if he’d decided to just stop breathing in protest. Or maybe he was just deciding if what he was about to say would make things better or worse. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer.

  Finally, he exhaled. “It’s Josie’s dad. Do you really think he’d care if you didn’t show up to work until after the Fourth of July weekend? It would at least give us one more week together before I leave.”

  My body stiffened. “Well, I know that he would care, actually, but that’s not exactly the point.” And it wasn’t. Basically, Luke was asking me to just ditch my job until he left for camp, to t
ell my friends they took a backseat to my boyfriend.

  “Why don’t you skip the first week of camp and come down to the Cape for the Fourth?” It wasn’t so much an invitation as a challenge—a dare to see if he was willing to do what he was asking me to do, and I wondered if he could tell.

  An exasperated puff of air escaped from Luke’s lips. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “You’re asking me to change my plans, but you won’t consider changing yours? I mean, you already have a spot on the lacrosse team, they recruited you. So what if you show up at some summer camp a week late? It’s just teaching some kids how to cradle a ball in a net.”

  The way Luke’s face twisted into complete disbelief, you’d think I’d just described lacrosse in a way that was completely incomprehensible to someone who believed it was the most complex and rewarding thing in the world.

  “I’m not saying camp isn’t important,” I started over. “I just don’t get why it’s okay for me to show up late for my job, but you never even considered showing up later for yours.”

  The room fell silent except for the sound of the birds singing their happy morning songs, which only made me realize how unhappy we sounded.

  “Look, I’m sorry, I know it’s not your fault. It’s just that I was really looking forward to having time with you before we both take off for the summer.” Luke was saying the right words, but his voice still sounded like he did think it was my fault. “We had all these plans. Plans that you created.”

  My fear of leaving things to chance was now being used against me, and I didn’t like it. That’s the thing about plans: the person breaking them is always at fault, even if she’s the one who made them in the first place.

  “I know. But there’s no reason we can’t still do those things. We just have to do them faster.”

  Luke looked at me, and even though he didn’t roll his eyes, the tone in his voice rolled them for him. “A fast walk on the cliffs in Newport?”

  “You know what I mean.” I let my hand fall beside Luke’s and waited to see if he’d take it. “We’ll make the best of it.”

  Luke was quiet as he continued staring at the ceiling, both of our hands grazing my thigh but not actually touching. I hesitated before resting my head lightly on his shoulder, watching Jumbo the elephant rise and fall on Luke’s chest. It had almost been easy, or at least easier, before April, before we were really a couple, when I could deny that I was falling for him and pretend he was nothing more than a test subject.

  I’d never ever want to relive the day when the entire school watched the seniors place items in the time capsule—the moment when I saw Luke remove the infamous notebook from behind his back and place it atop the pile of keepsakes that were supposed to commemorate our class for graduates to come. Was it horrifying to have the entire school witness the scene as Luke exposed me, as I realized my best friend had been the one to give him the notebook? More than I could ever explain. But what was worse, what truly made me realize the damage I’d done, was the look of betrayal on Luke’s face as his eyes met mine and I saw the hurt settling in, like a blanket smothering the feelings we’d shared.

  I never wanted to do that to him again—I never wanted to do that to anyone. The thing was, now that we were together, I realized that the experiment had shielded me from the impact of anything Luke did or said. Admitting that I loved Luke had meant I couldn’t hide behind a notebook or a plan.

  “You know if there was any way I could get out of going on the tour, I would,” I explained.

  Luke cast his eyes away from the ceiling and looked at me. “I know.”

  I rested my forehead against his and let my hair fall around our faces until it created a curtain that blocked our view of anything but one another. “Don’t hate me,” I whispered, which finally made him smile.

  “Seriously?” He let out a small laugh and burrowed his head against the pillow we were sharing, which only made his smile wider. “Hate you? I don’t hate you, Emily. I—”

  “I’m back!” The sound of his mom calling to us from downstairs made me sit up. I may have been allowed in his room, but I wasn’t exactly the kind of person who wanted to get caught laying down on her boyfriend’s bed while he was in his boxer shorts.

  “Okay, you win. We’ll do whatever you want today. Let me shower.” Luke kissed my forehead and then playfully pushed me toward the edge of the bed. “I’ll meet you downstairs.”

  I rolled over onto the floor, landing with a soft thud. Luke peered over the edge of the bed, his chin resting on his forearms as he assessed my body sprawled out on the carpet below.

  “All good down there?” he asked. “That wasn’t exactly a graceful dismount.”

  “Not a good score from the Russian judge?” I joked, and Luke reached a hand down toward me and held it open, waiting for me to grab it and pull myself up.

  “Maybe a 6.5, and that’s being kind.”

  I took his hand. “I may not be graceful, but I promise we’re going to have a great week together before leave.”

  “I know.”

  This time, I wouldn’t let him down. I could do this. I could live up to the hype of being Polite Patty’s daughter and plan a week that was so memorable, so filled with amazing moments for him to remember while I was gone, there was no way Luke wouldn’t be counting down to my return. The next week would be a solid ten, even from the tough Russian judge.

  Long-Distance Relationship Tip #5:

  Imagining the worst is productive when you’re preparing for a natural disaster. But all the bottled water and canned soup in the world won’t make you feel better when you’re envisioning him frolicking on the beach with a hot lifeguard in your absence.

  This is not the time to use your imagination.

  “So what was today’s activity?” my mom called out as I passed her office on my way upstairs to my bedroom.

  I stopped and stood in the doorway, my hands resting against the white carved molding outlining the entrance to my mom’s workspace. It was something I’d learned years ago, to make it seem like I was in the room with her while stopping short of actually entering. Most of the time, she hardly looked up when someone passed by, her fingers tapping away at her keyboard as she frantically tried to keep up with her publisher’s deadlines, or the due dates for the columns she wrote for a variety of magazines, newspapers, and websites; my mom was a one-woman cottage industry for the etiquette impaired and manners minded. But once in a while, she’d hear me pass by and I knew that one foot in her office would turn a simple question into a twenty-minute conversation.

  “We played miniature golf and then rode the bumper boats,” I recited, giving the highlights of my day with Luke so far. My mom knew we were trying to fit a month’s worth of plans into the little time I had left before embarking on Polite Patty’s publicity tour.

  “Sounds fun,” she told me, tapping out a few last words before looking up. “Hey, can you come in here a minute?”

  I stepped into her office, crossing the point of no return, and sank down in the leather chair facing her desk. I was still hoping this would really only take a minute, which was unlikely. “What do you need?”

  “Well, I was telling my publicist that you’re joining me on tour and that you were a little sad about leaving your boyfriend and friends behind—”

  “Yeah, just a little,” I interjected. Ever since she’d dropped the bomb on me, I’d been trying to get her to change her mind. I tried guilt. I tried making her feel sorry for me. I tried logic. I tried desperation. So far, I wasn’t having any luck. The woman was a rock.

  “Okay, I get it. Anyway, she had a great idea that may help you feel better about being away.”

  “Luke can come with us?” I guessed, a suggestion I’d made a few days ago and which was resoundingly rejected without any further consideration.

  My mom ignored me. “She thought that it might be nice if you wrote a little how-to journal—something that could help other young women who are balancing long-di
stance relationships.” My mom removed her glasses and placed them on her desk. “Did you know that more than ten million girls head off to college each year? There have to be at least two million leaving boyfriends—or girlfriends—behind, I’d think.”

  I almost laughed. For someone who was all about teaching people time-honored rules like how to excuse yourself from the dinner table and writing thank-you notes on crisp white monogrammed stationary, my mother had no problem embracing the idea that girls could have girlfriends. That was the thing about my mom, she could totally surprise you.

  Of course, what didn’t surprise me was that she’d already spoken with her editor about my situation. I should have known she’d turn my misfortune into a new book idea. My mom believed that every situation brought with it an opportunity to find the bright side. In January, when I’d told her that Luke broke up with Josie in an email, she’d come back to me a few days later and told me that 2.5 billion people used email. And her latest book was born. It wasn’t lost on me that Josie’s breakup not only resulted in my relationship with Luke, but a publicity tour for the book that was now taking me away from him.

  “I think my how-to writing days are over,” I said, without reminding her of the problems my first advice-dispensing attempt had created. “Lesson learned.”

  “It would be a great resume builder. I could show my editor your work. You never know, it might actually turn into something.”

  Again with the resume building. I was beginning to get the feeling that my parents were either counting the days until I graduated from college and became an independently functioning member of society, or they were deeply concerned that my plan was to move back and permanently install myself on their couch for years to come. I’d heard stories of kids who went off to college and returned home to discover that their parents had turned their bedroom into a scrapbooking room or yoga studio. I was beginning to doubt that my bedroom would survive in its current form for very long.