Page 81 of I Still Love You

“Those are never good.”

“No,” I say, playing with the dog ear in the book that marks my page. “He’s upset that I didn’t communicate with him about something. I see where I went wrong, but he wants his space now.”

“Well, you know what you have to do, don’t you?”

“I need him to listen to my apology, but that’s hard when he doesn’t want to listen to a word I have to say currently.”

“Your dad and I have been through times like that,” she admits. “It’s not always a fairytale when you’re with the person you love. Things happen, sometimes words are said, and it makes you or your partner feel a certain way about it.”

Smiling over her mention of the love she and my dad shared, I ask, “How did you two work through it?”

“We vowed to talk through our feelings. It was hard in the beginning, but the more we worked at it, the easier it got to work through differences that came up.”

I want to tell her that this is bigger than a little difference. This is Luke thinking that I deceived him. “What did that look like?”

“It varied. No argument is the same. Sometimes your dad needed space, and he’d voice that. Sometimes I needed the same. Sometimes we both just needed to voice our concerns. The most important thing is the follow-up. It’s the action after that counts, honey.”

The action after. My stomach rolls at the thought, taking me back to leaving after my dad’s accident. Even more than before, it hits me how badly I must’ve hurt him. I never followed up.

“Have you tried showing him with your words that you’re willing to move through the rough waters?”

Have I tried? Yes.

But maybe I haven’t tried hard enough.

He wanted to spend his life with me as an equal, a partner. I bailed at the first challenge instead of turning to my teammate and tapping him in. I can’t let him think that I don’t also want that. Just like earlier today, the need to get him to listen to my explanation consumes me.

Maybe all it takes is a conversation.

Or at least, that’s the start.

“Thank you for talking, Mom. I think I know what I have to do.”

“Of course, honey. I hope you two can work it out. There’s nothing more that I want than to see you happy. I know things have been hard the past couple of years, but I want to see that smile on your face. Dad would want the same.”

“I know he would.”

And so would I.

My heart aches. How badly I wish my dad could be here. The sting of his absence will always be there, but I know he’d want me to try and fix this with Luke. Hell, I want the same thing, but it’s an extra boost knowing how much he cared for Luke and supported us.

Thanks to my mom, I know what my next step should be.

34

Luke

My anger management therapist recommends I refrain from alcohol and commit to a period of sobriety until further notice. Considering I plowed my fist into that man at the bar in Austin while I was intoxicated, it’s clear that alcohol may be one of my triggers. I don’t disagree. It probably didn’t help that night, but it doesn’t explain why I unleashed an otherworldly wrath on Andrew—something my therapist wants me to think about.

I order a coke when I join Jett and Tilly at the bar. Mostly because I’m committed to getting through my sentence from the judge so I can be the free man I was before Andrew came into my life. I nod at the two of them. “Where’s Henderson?”

“Probably at home with a tissue box, and not in the way you’re thinking, either. The dude is still in his head about his shoulder.” Tilly gulps a mouthful of his beer. “Aren’t you supposed to be fixing him?”

“It’s a process,” I tell him. “Have some compassion.” I hook my feet on the ledge of the stool when I sit, the bartender sliding an ice-cold glass of soda in front of me. “Thanks, man.”

“Compassion,” Jett says with a snicker. “Tilly doesn’t know what a big word like that means, Luke.”

“No, shit,” I mumble.

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