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“Yeah. I told her I’d be out late, that I was going to a friend’s house, but I guess she forgot. She was panicking.”
“I bet. Did you get her calmed down?”
“I guess so.”
Lucy never talks about her mom much. I don’t think they have a bad relationship, but I think they are both handling her father’s death differently. Grief is different for every person, and it comes in all shapes and sizes. Grieving a father and grieving a husband are two totally different kinds of grief.
“You should really talk to her, Lucy,” I say softly.
Lucy purses her lips. “I do talk to her. Every day. We live in the same house.”
“I mean talk to her about your dad, and about how you’re feeling.”
Somehow, Lucy purses her lips even tighter. They are a thin line now, and when her eyes meet mine, they’re dark. I may have overstepped.
“I know what you meant. I was just trying to give you an out of that conversation, because it’s one you don’t want to engage me in right now.”
Okay, now she is mildly pissed at me. I cross my arms over my chest and raise my eyebrows.
“Maybe it’s a conversation you need to have. And since you won’t have it with your mom, I am volunteering to be your verbal punching bag. Go ahead, Luce, hit me with your best shot. I can take it.”
Lucy stands until she’s mere inches from my face, her cheeks red. Yeah, I have succeeded in pissing her off.
“I get that you’re trying to help me. And I also get that you’re trying to fix my relationship with my mother. But I am not asking you to do that. I don’t want you to do that. My mom and I will handle our own issues in our own time. And, quite frankly, they’re none of your business. My life does not need fixing, Wyatt.Idon’t need fixing—not by you or by anyone. I thought you understood that, but clearly, I was wrong. Thanks for the movie night, I had a really great time.”
She grabs her bag and turns on her heels and heads for my front door. I’m breathing heavily and I wait until I hear the door shut—noslam—before I feel calm enough to follow her.
“Lucy!” I call from the porch.
She’s a fast walker when she’s angry. She’s almost to her car, so I jog after her.
“Lucy! Geez, give me a second to explain.” I reach out and gently grab her arm.
She whirls around on me so fast I almost trip. She yanks her arm free and glares at me, she’s positively seething. I didn’t realize I’d made her that mad.
“Hey, I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to . . .”
“Yes, you were. All I wanted was one, justone, person in my life who wasn’t trying to swoop in and fix everything—fixme. I just want one person to look at me, look at the mess that I have become, and be okay with it. I have spent my entire freaking life pretending to be this perfect girl with perfect grades and perfect parents and the perfect life, and in a second all of that blew up. And now it’s just all . . . all shrapnel imbedded in me. I don’t want to be fixed. Because it can’t be fixed, don’t you get that?” She’s crying now, tears steadily streaming down her face, and I feel awful.
“Lucy . . .”
She shakes her head. “I wanted one person to accept me as I am right now. One person to look at my mess and sit here with me. And I thought . . . I thought . . . forget it.”
“You thought what, Lucy?” I step closer to her, slowly, and she lets me.
“I thought maybe you could be that one person,” she whispers through her tears. “You didn’t know Before Lucy. You didn’t know Perfect Lucy. You only know After Lucy—BrokenLucy. And I thought maybe you liked her.”
I let out a breath and I suddenly remember Willa’s words,be her one good thing. I step a little closer to her and slide my hands up to her cheeks, wiping her tears with my thumbs. She looks at me with those helpless green eyes, and I melt. I pull her to my chest and wrap one arm around her back, the other cradles her head. She wraps her arms tight around my waist, and I hold her.
I feel her shoulders shake a little, so I hold her tighter. If there was a way I could physically fight off every bad thing, every bad thought, for her I would. I rest my chin on top of her head and we stay that way for a while, just holding each other in my front yard.
When I finally feel her shoulders stop shaking, I tilt her chin up with my finger until she’s looking at me.
“You don’t need fixing, Lucy, that’s not at all what I was trying to do. If anything, I was trying to protect you. I don’t want you to hurt any more than you already have, and I thought maybe, if you talked to your mom, you wouldn’t feel so much pain. I thought you’d at least have someone, other than me, to share it with. But I see the error in my ways now, and I’m sorry. Really, really sorry,” I whisper.
She smiles a little and blinks a few stray tears away. “I don’t need protecting either, Wyatt. All I need—all I will ever need—is someone to listen and hold me when I need them to.”
I can’t help but smile down at her, my thumb lightly brushing under her eyes, even though there are no more tears to wipe away.
