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My hand flew to my mouth, which hung wide open. “When you were twenty? Twenty years old?”
“Yes.”
I blinked several times to process it. “God. When I was twenty I was a part-time college student.”
“And you were taking care of your ex’s mom.”
“True. But you were taking care of two people and you were in school… full-time?”
“Yes. Full-time. Thankfully, I worked nights as a bartender and got some help from the government, so we were able to rent a two-bedroom apartment in Philly.”
“Two bedrooms? So you slept…”
“On the couch. Passed out hard every night so it was no problem for me.”
“Wow.” I was floored. I hadn’t imagined any of this – not that anyone really could imagine a story like Lukas’s. “So if you were twenty, Tess was sixteen. And Wyatt was…”
“Eight.”
I exhaled, my heart breaking yet again as I thought about twenty-year-old Lukas raising a high school junior and a second grader, going to school probably six or seven hours a day and then working at least eight hours at night. “So Tess took care of Wyatt while you were at class and work?”
“Yes. I bought her a used car so she could drive straight from school to pick up Wyatt. Poor kid – she barely had a social life. But she was still smiley and happy every day because Wyatt was actually making friends at this school. He was starting to come out of his shell with people besides us and it was so fucking rewarding. It made everything worth it – to study all night, crush my exams in the morning, work a ten-hour shift at the bar and come home to find Wyatt sleeping, his room all clean and all his homework laid out for me to check.” Lukas laughed to himself. “God, he was such a good kid.”
“You raised him,” I pointed out gently.
“But it wasn’t me, he was just born good,” he murmured, frowning in what looked like awe for Wyatt. “He was just such a perfect kid.”
I watched him get lost in a memory. My heart twisted suddenly when I thought about why Lukas might be against having kids. I wasn’t sure if I was right and I wasn’t about to ask for confirmation, but the thought alone made me so sad I needed to hug myself.
“So you graduated college the same time that Tess graduated high school, right?”
A smile touched Lukas’s lips. “Yeah, that was great. Cam and Emmett threw us a joint graduation party and they, uh – ” He winced, as if his good memory of Cam was fighting the impression he had of him now. “They planned us a surprise with Wyatt,” he finished, letting himself laugh. He thanked Dot as she came by with our food, but he didn’t lose his train of thought. “It was Emmett’s idea, but apparently, they spent a good two weeks memorizing the dance from Napoleon Dynamite because that was Tess’s favorite movie for… a long fucking time.”
I giggled as I scooted closer to him, loving all the little details about Emmett and Tess that honestly didn’t surprise me at all.
“I still have the video, actually,” Lukas muttered, popping a fry in his mouth. “All three of them were so into the choreography and they fucking nailed every beat. It was such a stupid looking dance, but they took is so seriously that it was the best thing I’d ever seen in my life. Especially since I’d never seen Wyatt happier. His friends from school were there and they loved it. They were all running around playing, being loud. Wyatt was introducing them to me and Tess’s friends. He didn’t have any friends in Miami and he was always so quiet, so it was huge for me to see him be a hundred percent himself for once.”
“Sounds like you guys did an amazing job. You were kids raising a kid. You have to know that that’s amazing and impressive. You were in college and you were providing for them at the same time,” I said. I felt the need to point out the positive because I knew where the story was heading. I knew the ending wasn’t a happy one and my heart was beating fast because unless I was mistaken, there was a shine to Lukas’s eyes. And I wasn’t sure how I’d fare if I saw him shed even one tear. I wanted to be strong for him, but I knew I’d cry, too. That was just the way I was. If someone I cared for was crying, my body gave me no choice but to follow suit. “Lukas?” I hugged his arm to my chest when he was quiet for awhile. “Can I just tell you that I think you’re incredible?”
He glanced at me with a brief smile. Then he brought the back of my hand to his lips, pressing the lightest kiss to it before holding it in his lap and staring down at our interlocked fingers.
“I shouldn’t have moved him away from Philly.”
“Lukas, you had to do what you – ”
“No. I didn’t have to. I commuted from Philly to New York for the first year. I had an offer from the biggest real estate group in the city and I had to take it. I was drowning in student debt, credit card debt, back rent. But I didn’t want to take Wyatt out of school. He was finally having a great time. So I chose to commute two hours each way.”
“Was Cam working in New York, too?”
Lukas shook his head. “No, he took awhile to graduate. Failed some courses, needed extra credits. For the first year of the company, I took his connections and built them into something big while he fucked around at school and apparently started… some sort of relationship with Tess.” His jaw clenched tight and his hand on the table formed a fist. “I didn’t realize it because I was working so much, but apparently he was trying to sleep with her so he’d swing by the apartment, pressure her to drink with him. He got her so drunk a few times she forgot to pick up Wyatt from school. And those mistakes always triggered her depression. She’d beat herself up, convince herself she was a bad person, and when she was in one of those moods, Cam would always swoop in and ‘take care’ of her, but really, he was just molding her to do whatever he wanted because he knew she was at her most vulnerable. I didn’t realize he was stringing her along for years until a few months ago, when she broke and told me everything.”
I cursed under my breath, feeling sick to my stomach. I hated Cam for taking advantage of a girl who was doing her best to be unbroken. She was a teenager who’d spent most of her life raising and worrying for her little brother. She’d sacrificed a normal life so Wyatt would have a fighting chance at one. If I were in her place, I could imagine feeling weak sometimes, lonely and in need of support. The fact that Cam offered it just to mask his shitty intentions made my blood boil.
“Long story short, I made the mistake of uprooting everyone,” Lukas murmured, letting go of a heavy breath. “My grandma always used to say, ‘The way we start doesn’t have to be the way we end,’ and I hung onto that the entire time I was saving up for this new life for us. I was so fucking excited to have a brand new slate and a fresh start where we were financially stable, where I could give Wyatt a birthday party and a big Christmas. I thought all that was worth
taking him out of school in Philly, and I really believed he’d eventually love it. But he just didn’t adjust.
“When he was twelve, I started to realize he had the same tendencies as Tess, in terms of falling into depression. When he was thirteen, he started therapy. He switched schools. But I knew from the teachers that he was getting bullied again at this one, and I was ready to beat the parents of those kids into the fucking ground, but Cam told me that’d only make it worse for Wyatt. But I felt helpless.” Pain twisted his handsome face as he stared forward, his hands grasping at something at something intangible in the air. “I felt so fucking helpless and he wouldn’t talk to me anymore, so I didn’t know what – ” He cut off and shook his head, dropping his hands helplessly into my lap. His eyes were wet as he gave a bitter laugh toward the ceiling. “The best part is I went to work happy that morning because I thought he was in a good mood. It was his birthday and he said he was four years away from the age I was when I sued for custody of them. He said thank you, he said he was proud of me. And he hugged me so hard.” His voice fell to a whisper I could hear the agony in as he went on. “He just seemed so happy. He was smiling at breakfast, but by lunch he was gone. He cut his wrists in his room.”
