Page 95 of The Last Thing You Said

I slam on the brakes, pull over.

I never should have let her go.

50 · Lucy

I’m about a half mile past the Gas-n-Go when I hear the crunch of tires on the gravel of the shoulder behind me. The car stops but I do not.

“Lucy!”

I stop walking.

It’s Ben.

Ben.

He’s here.

“Lucy,” he says again. He reaches me in an instant, turns me toward him, his hand on my arm. “Let me drive you home. You’ll get yourself killed.”

I can’t look at him. I look down at my sandals, the gravel.

“I’m fine.” I’m so tired of this. “I don’t need a ride. I told you that.”

“Please get in the car,” he says.

“No, I can’t go with you.”

“Get in the fucking car.” He sounds frustrated. “Stop playing this game.”

“What game?”

He doesn’t answer my question. “Just get in the car!”

I wrench my arm away from him. Now I’m angry. I’m so mad at him for everything he’s done and hasn’t done since Trixie died.

“How about your game?” I snap. “The game where you’re so nice to me one minute and the next, you’re a complete dick? Or how about the one where you sleep with every girl who thinks she can save you? Fuck you.”

That shuts him up. His mouth drops open.

“What?” I say. “Why do you seem so surprised? I’ve watched you, Ben. You eat up their sympathy.”

His mouth closes, then opens again like he’s going to say something.

I want him to say something. I want him to tell me that he’s sorry, that he misses me, that he loves me. I want him to take back every terrible thing he said to me after Trixie’s funeral.

He knew. He knew how much I liked him, that I had for years, and he pushed me away. He knew. He knew when we were in Duluth last summer—how could he not have known?

I screw up my courage. “How long have you known how much I liked you, Ben?” Loved you. I have always loved you. “A long time?”

There’s a flicker in his eyes. He nods.

“And you—did you like me, too? What were you going to say to me just before—”

“Lulu.” He cuts me off, his voice low and certain. He moves toward me, and his mouth is on mine and his arms circle around my back and he pulls me close. We stand in the gravel on the side of the road and cars whoosh past us and he kisses me, urgent and seeking, and his tongue slips into my mouth and oh, God, it’s so much. Everything.

I reach my arms up around his neck, twist my fingers into his curls, and pull him closer to me. I press my body up against his. I can never be close enough to him. Everywhere we touch, electricity and warmth course through me. I’m alive, I’m living.

This is what I’ve waited for since that day, the day of Trixie’s funeral. I’ve waited for him to come back to me. Waited for the impossible.