Luke doesn’t say anything right away, probably because he can’t relate. He’s loved his job from the moment he started. It makes me feel like a failure to be thinking about quitting my first job out of college. If this job doesn’t work, will the next?
I bite my lip to stop it from trembling. The emotion comes like a wave, hitting me all at once. Perhaps it’s the lack of sleep, but I have to fight back the tears forming.
“What kind of job would you want to look for instead? What do you think would be fun?” Luke’s words fall so gently, I want to crumble to pieces.
I laugh, but it comes out sad and pathetic. “Well, traveling to Iceland has been fun.” When I say it, the words sound sarcastic, which I don’t mean.
When I glance over at Luke, he smiles, which makes me feellike he knows something I don’t.
He opens his mouth to say something but looks down instead.
“Sorry.” I run my hands over my face. “Lack of sleep makes me freak out about my quarter-life crisis.”
Luke laughs. “I was going to tell you how your face has lit up since we landed and that you should figure out how to find that feeling in a job, but now I need to ask about your quarter-life crisis.”
We both start laughing, and it feels like we’re our old selves again as we launch into a debate of whether my crisis is worthy of being deemed a quarter-life crisis.
As the day goes on, we end up at Café Loki, a place I read about online during trip planning. Everyone recommends going there, mainly because it’s across the street from Hallgrímskirkja, a church with a soaring tower that peeks over everything in the city. The building is tall, long, and wide with a single steeple that reaches high into the sky, the rest of the building gathering around and ascending to the top. There’s a large set of wooden doors to the church with a long, narrow stained glass window. Other than that, the church mostly has an off-white modern look—you’d never know it was actually built in 1787.
Café Loki’s second floor has a wall of windows looking out on the church, and we’re able to get one of the tables sitting in front. The waiter hands us menus.
We sit in silence that I’m not sure is comfortable. We’ve sat without talking plenty of times, but after reading Wes’s text, millions of thoughts churn through my head. Most of the thoughts wander around the idea of doing something to stopLuke from making a move. I know he wants to talk to me at some point on this trip, but I’d rather live my entire life without having that conversation.
Rather than wait for Luke to ambush me, I’d rather ambush him.
“So, whatever happened to Jessa?” The question is bold. Luke practically chokes on his water. He’s never told me why they broke up, and perhaps it doesn’t matter anymore since it’s been almost two years, but if Luke has feelings for me, it matters.
“We broke up?” Luke says, more as a question than an answer.
I roll my eyes. “No kidding. But you didn’t tell me why.”
He shrugs, looking like he would like to dismiss the subject. “Going two different directions, I guess. She’s living in Chicago these days, I think.”
It’s about as vague as the answer he gave when I asked shortly after they broke up. Luke never seemed heartbroken about it, but he kept his distance after their breakup, like he was afraid of me. I wasn’t sure if his distance was just him getting over the loss or if I had done something wrong, but now it feels significant. It makes me wonder if I had been the catalyst to something. The thought puts a deep pit in my stomach.
“You haven’t dated anyone since?” I ask.
I’m prying. I know I am. Luke and I never talk about our dating life. It’s an unspoken rule. I don’t tell him about my boyfriends, and he doesn’t tell me about his girlfriends. We always know when the other person is dating, but never thedetails. Most of all, never the feelings. I don’t know how Luke felt about any of the girls, and Luke never knew how I felt about the guys. Was it something we avoided automatically out of jealousy?
Either way, it’s a Band-Aid I’m willing to rip off.
“No,” Luke says, offering no other details.
The waiter comes over, which stops me from asking more questions. We tell him our orders and then we’re left alone again. Luke’s staring out the window when I speak up again.
“Why haven’t you dated anyone since then?” It’s like I’m trying to make this conversation as uncomfortable as possible. But if Luke has a confession to make, the time is now. Or maybe if he doesn’t, this conversation can at least show him how I feel.
Luke’s eyes scan my face. Does he know I read the text message?
The longer he looks at me, the more I feel like we’re playing a game of chicken, waiting to see who will ‘fess up first.
“I guess I just haven’t met the right person.”
I bite my lip, wondering just how much further I should push the conversation.
Before I can say anything else, Luke speaks up. “What about you? What happened with Dustin?”
I feel like a deer in headlights. Do I tell him the truth, or hedge the question? I open my mouth to skirt around the subject before deciding against it. If this week is about honesty and showing Luke that we won’t work as a couple, then we might as well get it over with.
