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“Do you?—”
“How is?—”
I wince.
He laughs. “Go ahead,” he says.
“How’s Michelle doing?”
“Good, really good. She’s a successful architect.”
“Do you see her often?”
“Yep. She’s only about twenty minutes from Seattle.”
“Your aunts and uncle are out there, too, right?”
Lucas nods, lips quirking. “You’re wondering why my mom stays here when the rest of her family is in Seattle.”
“Kinda,” I admit. “Sorry. I guess I worry about her sometimes. She seems lonely. Mom has tried to engage with her more, especially after—” I falter, heat rising to my face.
“After my dad died,” he finishes, then sighs. “She won’t leave. We’ve tried, believe me. Everyone has. But she’s okay. She has a grocery delivery set up, and we FaceTime a few times a week to check on her. She just… can’t let go, I guess.”
I study his profile, the furrowed brow. “Do you want to talk about it? About your dad?”
He glances at me, a dry smile there and gone. “There’s nothing to tell that you probably haven’t already figured out. Or heard from gossips in the neighborhood.”
I snort. “Like my parents are on the gossip circuit.”
“Good point.” He gives me a searching look, then his gaze falls to his hands. “I know you think I ran away when I left. But I didn’t. Or at least, I didn’t leave because of you and Jeremy.” He takes a long swallow of beer. “Do you remember when my mom broke her leg? About a month before I left?”
“Yeah,” I say softly.
I remember it well. Jeremy and I were in my living room and had watched Mrs. Adler being whisked off in an ambulance. The story was she’d tripped carrying a load of laundry to the basement and fallen down the stairs. Although I suspected another cause, when Jeremy questioned Lucas, he hadn’t wanted to talk about it.
“It was your dad, wasn’t it?” I ask, my voice thick with regret. I hadn’t been there for him.
He nods. “Bastard pushed her down the stairs. A few nights later, he was drunk as usual and was laughing at my mom’s cast and called her a klutz. I freaking lost it. We got into it. Bad. For the first time in years, he tried to hit me. But I hit him instead.”
My chest squeezes. I instinctively reach out, curling my fingers around his tense forearm. “Lucas,” I whisper.
His gaze finds mine. “I hit him in all the places he used to hit me. The places clothing hides. I beat the ever-loving shit out of him. My mom’s screaming finally snapped me out of it. After all was said and done, he did his usual remorseful routine. She forgave him and took his side when he called me a loose cannon and a psychopath. I couldn’t do it anymore. I had to get out.”
I count my heartbeats. One. Two. Three.
“I have no idea what to say. I’m so sorry.”
He shrugs a shoulder. “You didn’t know.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, my voice raw.
“A lot of reasons. Things had changed, remember?” Before I can respond, he continues, “Honestly, I think I was ashamed to tell you. I did to him what he’d done to me—I was just like him.”
“Bullshit,” I say vehemently.
I’m rewarded with a slight smile. “I know. It took a few years to figure out, but eventually I did.”
“Good.”
