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Numbly, I made my way to the driver’s side and got in. Lyndi looked up from her book and gave me a small smile before wordlessly going back to it.
I cleared my throat and reached up to put the navigation on my car’s screen, clenching my fist a couple times when I realized my dang hand was shaking.
What was I supposed to do now? I was beyond rattled, sitting beside a woman who I couldn’t seem to fake it with no matter how hard I tried, leaving the home that made me both remember too much that I wanted to forget and forget things I wanted to remember.
Over the course of this weekend, I’d been more real with Lyndi than I’d ever been withanywoman, and despite the fact that my dad thought he would get his way, I knew the truth.
Having feelings for Lyndi would do nothing but make everything worse in the end. Despite how much I might want to get out of my orders to Hawaii, they wereorders. As Marines, we were all cogs in a machine, and you couldn’t just request a change like that when you were only a few months out from leaving.
Yeah, no doubt about it. Someone already had orders to come take my place, and they probably wouldn’t have time to fill the spot I’d leave vacant in Hawaii. This whole thing was completely lose-lose.
My gaze drifted to Lyndi again as I shifted the car into reverse, and my heart squeezed painfully in my chest. All of that may be true, but I’d already screwed up. I’d already fallen for her.
But I wasn’t what she wanted anyway since I was leaving, and honestly, it was probably also because she was too scared to let anyone see the real her, just like she always accused me of. I could tell by her expression and body language when she let her perfect mask slip. I was good at reading people, and Lyndi didn’t want to be read. Not really.
So, as much as it killed me to know I had to pull back, I had to do it for both of us. “All right, that’s that, then,” I said, backing out of the driveway where I’d played basketball as a kid without sparing the house another glance.
She didn’t look up from her book. “What’s what?”
“Well, mission accomplished here. My dad’s happy he got his way,” I said carefully, knowing I was leaving out a key detail about thehow,“so I’m in the clear. All we have to do now is put on a good show for your family and we’ll be good. We’re pretty great at this faking-it-for-family thing, don’t you think?”
Please believe it’s all for show, please believe it’s all for show.
This time, she did look up. But it was to stare out the windshield for a second before looking back down again. “Yep.Supergood at faking it. Oscar-level, for sure.”
Okay, yeah. This sucked. But instead of poking the bear, I simply put in my earbud and started my playlist. She continued to read, still not looking at me. And with that, we started the longest drive of our entire lives.
