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Cassie
Itexted Jake when I got close to Buda. That way I couldn’t back out.
I sped, making the twenty-minute journey in fifteen, and each time I thought about turning around, I pressed the gas more.
What was I going to do, run into his dad’s backyard and give him a Hollywood kiss?
Here’s looking at you, kid.
God, they were going to think I was crazy. I was going to solidify every stereotype about emotional women that ever existed. Crazed, illogical, blind to the rules of society. Rules like speed limits and whether a relatively random woman could just waltz into someone’s private property and declare love.
I was just a woman with something to say.
I just wanted him to know. That’s all. He could do whatever he wanted with it. I fucking helped him take a bath, for God’s sake. The least he could do was hear me out.
I slowed down as I approached, and parked in the driveway. I took a deep breath, and got out. As I came around the house, my hands were shaking.
“Hey,” I called when the backyard came into view, shielding my eyes from the sun.
Luke’s mouth was hanging open. He was wearing his dress blues, looking handsome and distinguished and unapologetically happy. Jake was covering his face, trying not to laugh. Luke’s dad was looking at me like I was a crazy woman.
Fuck ’em.
I approached Luke. He was still smiling. That was a good sign. I could hear Jake and his wife muttering to each other.
“Hi,” I said, stuffing my hands firmly in my pockets.
“Hi,” he said.
Well, this was it, the fuck it moment. I motioned to a corner of the yard. Luke met me near a patch of bushes.
“I’m sorry I missed the ceremony,” I started. “I just needed to come anyway. Because after we talked, I thought a lot.”
“Yeah, me, too,” he said.
My heart lifted. “Really?”
“Really.” He swallowed. “But go ahead.”
I pressed tighter into my pockets. Holding myself together. I stared at the grass below my feet. “I know it doesn’t make a lot of sense for us to, you know, be involved after everything that’s happened. But I need you to know that—” It felt wrong to say this to the ground. I looked up at him. “I love you.”
His eyebrows raised, those long lashes blinking in surprise over the blue-gray eyes. He wasn’t responding. That’s okay. At least I said it. And yet.
“And I don’t mean it in a shallow way, you know, like, in love, like what someone would say in a Disney movie, or what teenagers say to each other so they can have sex.”
He laughed.
“I mean it without a doubt, like the old people who hold hands on the street. I care for you, I will always care for you, I love you, and I will wait for you, if that’s what we need to do.”
“Cassie, I—” he began, taking a deep breath, and looking past me.
Just say something.I looked back down at the lawn. My old friend, the lawn.
“I love you, too.”
My eyes snapped upward.
He reached out his hands, hesitant, and put them on my shoulders. “I love you.”
