Page 116 of After We Fall

This? There’s so much more at stake. It’s not infuriating. It’s terrifying. Why can’t I try harder to make everything okay with Luke?

“The only thing you can do is lean in,” she says. “Be honest with him.”

“I am honest with him.”

“So you’ve told him you’re in love with him?”

I draw a hand to my chest. “I’m not . . .”

Am I in love with Luke?

Dr. Ridding continues to work with me, identifying pain and feelings. Categorizing my pain into numbers can be challenging simply because the triggers and the kinds of pain vary. But I can chart that kind of concrete information.

Categorizing my emotions into numbers can be exasperating. It’s not linear. I never knew there was such a variety, or that my emotions could overlap with each other or switch on a dime. I’ve never been given the awareness. Never been afforded, or allowed myself, time to stop and feel.

In love with Luke? How would I know that information? I don’t have any comparison. What I have is a giddiness that reminds me of a teenager. Factually speaking, giddiness doesn’t equate to love. And I can’t base my relationship with Luke on feelings I can’t understand or define. Can I?

Meredith squeezes my arm before she joins her husband and the girls to say their goodbyes to Luke.

I glance around the room. Only a few of us left. There must be something to do. There’s always something to do. A woman from the church staff is already consolidating the leftover food. I walk the room, gather abandoned cups and napkins along the way, and deposit them in the trash.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watch Luke say goodbye to the mystery family. The woman embraces him, and his body locks tight, his arms barely responding to her hug. She hands him what appears to be a business card. He slips it in his wallet and nods to her. She pauses, raising a hand, looking like she wants to say more, but then exits with her family.

The staff woman carries the last of the food out of the room, leaving Luke and me alone.

He turns toward me, takes one step, then stops and shoves his hands in his pockets.

“How are you?” I ask.

He aims his lifeless eyes at me, and I almost don’t recognize him. Luke’s energy usually hits a room before he even steps through the door. Today a different man stands before me, in the body of Luke Granger.

“Fine,” he says, his voice gruff.

I take two steps in his direction but stop abruptly when he takes one heavy booted step back, holding out his hand as if to fend me off.

I fold my hands in front of me. “I don’t know what to do for you.”

“There’s nothing to be done.”

“I would like to—I would like to help you. Comfort you somehow.”

“I appreciate that. But he’s gone. Like I said, there’s nothing to be done about it. I’ve got to refocus my life. It’s time to move on.”

His words trickle fear down my spine.

Lean in.

I clear my throat. “What does that mean? Refocus your life. Time to move on.”

“This was a mistake.”

The fear travels down my limbs into the tips of my fingers and toes.

Lean in.

I swallow. “What was a mistake?”

“This.” He throws an arm between us. “You. Me. This.” He doesn’t look the least bit tortured. He looks . . . he looks blank.