Surprisingly, I’m happy, Luke seems happy, and Shade is happy. I don’t feel like we’re a family, but I feel like we know we all found something good.
And that is maybe why Luke turns to me in total shock when I burst into tears on the couch. He’s actually not playing games for once. He’s watching sports, which in my books is worse. Shade went to bed hours ago, and I was reading a book. We sat apart, as we always do, but not uncomfortably apart. The silence between us wasn’t strained, but rather, it was nice. We were doing our own thing but doing it together.
“What’s wrong?” Luke snatches the remote off the coffee table and flicks the TV off. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” I sniffle and brush the hot tears off my cheeks with the back of my hand. I’m more embarrassed than anything, so I hold up the book. “Stupid. It’s dumb, so don’t mind me. Just…this is…”
“You miss your parents, don’t you?”
I nod because my throat is all closed up and thick, and the tears are threatening to keep pouring on. I swipe at my cheeks again, and I’m not surprised to find them freshly wet. I was reading, and the book had some sappy, tender moments between a family, and I can’t say I would have found it particularly touching or engaging if I weren’t already thinking about my parents when I didn’t have time to keep my mind from going there. It’s been nearly a month, and every single day, I think about calling them. Yet, every single day, I don’t. When I was at boarding school, I still called them just about every other day.
Luke shifts on the couch. He’s not coming to hug me, though, or tuck me into his arms, but he does pass his phone over to me with a sorrowful look that says he knows all about loss and missing people. Usually, he tucks it away in his heart, and he never wears it on his face.
“Call them.”
“But I…”
“This isn’t your number. It’s mine. And it’s private anyway. They won’t be able to see who’s calling, so just call. You need to hear their voice. You need to just make small talk if you can’t talk about the other stuff.”
There’s something off about Luke’s expression now, something wary in his tone that I don’t quite understand. Maybe it’s just grief, or maybe he’s thinking about how we don’t always get the chance to tell the people who we love that we love them and how I should take it while I can. If something happened to my mom or dad, and I hadn’t talked to them after leaving the house, I would never forgive myself. Maybe that’s what he’s telling me with the wary glint in his eyes, his lips in a hard line.
My fingers close over the phone. It’s warm from being in Luke’s pocket. Yeah, it might have been pressed against his butt, but he has a nice butt, and it still makes me shiver when I take it.
“I’ll just go outside for a few minutes if that’s okay?”
“That’s fine. Don’t worry. You don’t have to sit here and watch me watching you while you call.”
He’s attempting to be funny, but there’s something wrong, I can tell. Maybe he had a long day, or maybe he doesn’t know what to do with me when I cry. Some people find tears really uncomfortable, so I make a note to break my rule about not talking about our personal lives and make a plan to ask him what might be wrong when I get back.
I head out to the backyard. It’s quiet back here since it’s late. The sky is a wash of black overhead, but there aren’t any stars I can see. I wonder if they’re there or if they aren’t out because it’s sometimes hard to tell with the lights from the city. I think it’s cloudy, but I can’t be sure.
As I perch on the top step of the deck, I have this sense of being super small and insignificant, swallowed up and dwarfed by the sky above. Those stars, when they are out, just look like little pinpricks, but they’re likely huge in the sky. What do I look like to them? Do I even really matter at all?
Okay, I didn’t come out here to have an existential crisis, so I slide my finger along the bottom of the phone. Luke doesn’t have a password on his phone, which is weird. Don’t most people? Maybe this is also his way of showing me he trusts me. A phone is a personal thing, and I wouldn’t let just anyone touch mine.
I let my finger rest on the screen until it goes dark. Then I flick it open and do the same thing again. I repeat it a few times before I get frustrated with myself. Just freaking call them already. Luke probably wants his phone back sometime this century.
I swipe the screen again and go to press the phone icon. I mean to barely look, type in the number, and hit call, all before I can lose my nerve, but stabbing at the screen doesn’t produce good results. The first time, I open some calendar thing right by the phone icon, and the second time, I accidentally open his email. I’m about to exit the app and try again when the title of the third email down the list catches my eye because it’s all in capitals from someone named Ashley Johnson.
MAX, PLEASE READ. IMPORTANT!!!!
I know I’m being snoopy, but I click the email. It still hasn’t hit me yet that the first word in the title was a name, but it becomes more than clear when I read the brief email.
Max,
We’re seriously behind right now, and I have a bunch of problem areas I need you to go over. No, don’t tell me to pick and choose. You’re the head of things and the one running the show, so you make the decisions. The last time I tried to delegate, it was a disaster. I booked a meeting for you tomorrow afternoon. Please be there, or I’m going to lose my mind. You don’t want me to lose my mind, do you? That would be really bad for you because you’d be down a secretary. So please. Show up.
Thanks,
Ashley.
Her signature is underneath. Why the heck did Luke end up with an email for someone named Max? Where have I heard that name before? And why is my shirt suddenly damp under the armpits?
I should just close the email and call my parents, but something else comes to mind. Something that just doesn’t make sense. I exit out of the inbox on the phone and scroll down the list into the sent messages. I click one and bring up the first one I find before scrolling down to the end of it, and yes, sure enough, there’s a signature at the bottom of the email.
Max Stone.
As in Maxwell Stone.
As in the Maxwell Stone that my parents wanted me to freaking marry?
I drop the phone like it’s a tarantula that just fell from the sky in all its hairy, spidery glory. This doesn’t make sense. This doesn’t make any freaking sense. How did Luke get Max’s phone? Does he know him? Is that even his email? What the heck is going on?
I’m breathing so shallowly that in just a second, bright spots blur my vision. I blink hard and force myself to inhale and exhale, then do it all over again. Calm. I have to stay calm. I have to go back into the house and ask Luke what the heck is going on because it doesn’t make any sense.
But then he’ll know I looked at his phone. Then again, who gives a shit if he knows? Get in there and ask him!
Right, I don’t have a choice. I’m so distracted that I leave the phone where it fell. I don’t even think about it. I gather steam with every step I take, and by the time I’m back in the living room, I plant myself in front of Luke. He’s back to watching sports again, so I block the TV and cross my arms. I don’t try and calm down because there’s no calming down now. I’m so mad that my voice comes out like a shuddery hiss that sounds ghostly and far away, even to me.