Page 35 of Finding Our Reality

She’s lying. “Lulu,” I warn. My growl comes out harsher than I intend.

“We talked.”

“Who talked?”

“Me and Harlan.”

“You and Harlan talked?”

“I called him every Sunday night.”

I feel dizzy. Like I just got off a spinning roller coaster. “You’re telling me that you and Harlan talked once a week, every week, after you moved away?”

She nods.

“But you weren’t even at his funeral,” I say.

The mention of Harlan’s death has tears brimming in her eyes, but she keeps them in check, rapidly blinking and sniffling. “I talked to his son. He told me they were postponing the funeral a couple of days because you were granted leave to come home. So, I didn’t come back for it.”

“You didn’t come to Harlan’s funeral because you knew I would be there?”

She nods, just once, biting her lip.

She hated me that much. She would miss the funeral of a man she loved, a man she apparently kept in touch with even after I left her, simply because my ugly asshole self would be present. Harlan died during my third year of service, about eight months before my injury. Massive heart attack. I was terrified I wouldn’t be granted leave. My commanding officer was very understanding when I explained my relationship to Harlan. Plus, I didn’t take my ten-day leave in between MCRT and SOI, so I still had that. I came home and helped bury the man I loved like my own blood.

I drag my hand across my stubble. I should’ve shaved this morning, but I didn’t. “I’m sorry, Lulu. I would’ve stayed away if I knew you wanted to be there.”

“No. He was like a grandfather to you. Like a father. It was only right for you to be there.” Her hand slides across the table, reaching out to mine, but she quickly pulls it back.

I wish she would touch me.

I cough, trying not to choke on emotion. “No, he didn’t tell me that you guys talked. He didn’t tell me anything about you.”

She smiles, thinking fondly of Harlan. “Good. He was a man of his word.”

“He loved you.” I stare into her caramel-colored eyes. She nervously dabs at the edge of her eye with her pinky finger, making sure her perfectly applied eye makeup hasn’t smudged.

He loved you.

I loved you.

She clears her throat. Picking up her ink pen, she pretends to read through her notes. “What about your safety? Weren’t you worried about Trey?”

“I knew I would most likely be on a different continent by the time he figured out it was me. Trey had connections, but notthosekinds of connections. I mean, we aren’t talking about a Mexican drug cartel or anything.”

“And then he died.”

“Yep. Pissed off the wrong people in prison. He was stabbed in the cafeteria one day about four years ago. It was before I made investigator, so I never got to interview him. Marcum went out there a couple of times but never got anywhere with specifically tying him to Carrie’s disappearance.”

“Yeah, I read the transcripts.” She licks her lips in thought. “If only we had the pictures back then. Everything could’ve gone so differently.”

Yes, but if the police had found the pictures in the beginning, then Lulu might not have ever come searching for answers at the gas station on her own. Might never have gone to the party my brother invited her to. Might never have met me. She’s probably wishing she never met me. But meeting her was the highlight of my damn life. Being with her, loving her, it gave me purpose and strength. Strength to make the hardest decision of my existence—to leave her. I wasn’t lying when I said there would be no one after her. All these years later, she’s still the love of my life.

And that thought scares me shitless.

Her cell phone beeps with an incoming text message. “Ry, I just got notice that I need to do a web call meeting with an attorney’s office in Macon, Georgia.” She waves her phone in the air. “I’m doing some work for them, and it looks like they just came across a ton of other paperwork they need me to sort through. Do you mind if I use the conference room in private for a little bit?”

I close the lid on my laptop and grab my phone. “No, I have some other work I need to do. I also have to walk over to the courthouse for something.” I glance at the watch on my wrist. “It’s one now. What do you say we just meet in the parking lot at two-thirty?”

---