Page 183 of The Spider & the Storm

She's scared of you. You're a killer now.

Yeah, well, she married one too.

I shook my head, unable to stop my incredulous chuckle at the thought. God, I couldn't believe she and Luke had been married. After all this time, after everything …

“What?” Stormy asked softly, taking a step toward me.

“I just can't believe any of this is happening,” I said, unsure I ever would.

Melanie nodded. “You know, why don't we sit down, and I'll just … start from the beginning?”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “That's a good idea.”

I turned first and headed toward the dining room because as much of a stranger as I might've been to this house, it had been mine once. The table—the exact one—stood exactly where it always had, and from behind me, I heard Melanie and Stormy quietly introducing themselves to each other as I envisioned countless dinners, countless birthdays, countless hours of homework and conversation and arguments. I envisioned Luke and me, alone. Envisioned that last time he'd asked me to do something with him, to go to the movies, and I swallowed down the pain of wishing I had just gone. It wouldn't have killed me to just go, so why hadn't I? I couldn't remember, and that was the worst part of all.

I took a seat in the chair Luke had always sat in, somehow feeling closer to him by doing so. Stormy sat beside me, where Melanie always had, and Melanie sat across from us, in the exact chair I'd always chosen as mine. Our roles had been oddly reversed; Melanie was suddenly the third wheel, and it seemed both right and unnatural at the same time.

“So, did you meet each other in Salem?” Melanie asked, pouring three glasses of iced tea from the pitcher in the middle of the table.

I realized that the only way Melanie would've known where I'd been was if Luke had told her, and I wondered how often he'd talked about me. Had he thought of me as often as I'd thought of him? Had he missed me?

“Yeah,” Stormy replied, accepting one of the full glasses. “He had saved me, so I repaid him by giving him no choice but to go out with me.”

Melanie flashed me a pair of teasing eyes as she passed a glass to me. “So, still as antisocial as always, I take it?”

“Honestly, worse,” I said with a gruff, self-deprecating chuckle. “But I'm getting a little better with it, I think.”

Stormy bumped her arm against mine. “You are.”

Melanie lifted her chin as she watched us, took in the way Stormy looked at me and the way I looked at her, and said, “This is all he ever wanted, you know.”

I turned to her and furrowed my brow. “What?”

She shrugged as her eyes flooded. “Luke. All he ever wanted was for you to find someone. That's all. He never cared about himself. He figured he’d get out in a couple of decades or so, and he knew we'd be okay one day … or, you know, as okay as we could be. But you …” She bit her lip to stop it from trembling as she wiped at a tear before it could slide down her cheek. “He was so afraid of you being left alone, Charlie. He didn't want you to be alone. He'd talk about it all the time, about how he hoped you had finally found someone up there and that you weren't just … holing up wherever you were.”

My lungs fought for air as Melanie spoke, and my gaze dropped to the table, to where Stormy's hand was holding mine. Quietly, gently, like a hushed winter's snowfall, pieces fell into place, ones I dared not speak out loud. Ones I dared not acknowledge to anyone. But my heart thudded, and my leg jounced beneath the table, and I wondered … I couldn't stop myself from wondering …

I cleared my throat and blinked the thoughts away as I said, “So, um … what happened? How did you and Luke get back together? I'm guessing it was after—”

“Actually,” Melanie interjected with a nervous laugh, “we had started writing letters shortly after he was convicted.”

And just like that, I was angry. “Are you serious? And he didn't tell me?”

Her eyes reflected her apology as she said, “I guess he didn't think he could. You were so …” She sighed and looked away. “You were having such a hard time, and Luke never wanted to rub it in your face that, despite everything, things weren't so bad for him. He didn't blame you for it or anything, and he wasn't really intentionally hiding things from you. In both of our defense, we didn't know what was going to come from being pen pals.”

I wanted to find it in me to stay mad, but she was right. I'd been focused on nothing but myself and the circumstances of my everyday life. There were times I hardly allowed Luke to get in a word during our brief visits, and when he did speak, I barely listened. I guessed I’d just assumed nothing of note would be happening to him. After all, he was the one behind bars. But little had I known, it was when he’d been made a prisoner that he was finally set free.

“So, then …” I wiped my hand over my mouth, working the timeline out. “When did you get back together?”

“Right before you left,” she replied without a second thought. There was a hint of regret in her tone. “We had arranged a private visit. I didn't want the first time I saw him after all those years to be in the visitor center, surrounded by so many people. I needed time to get used to things, you know, seeing him like that. But then … the rest was history.”

From the corner of my eye, I watched Stormy's lips spread into a smile. “And just like that, you took him back.”

Melanie laughed and rolled her eyes. “I guess Charlie's told you about us.”

Stormy nodded regretfully, and Melanie dismissed the apology.

“We were so messed up back then.Hewas so messed up.”

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