Page 79 of The Friend Game

This time Luke’s laugh is real. But then he shakes his head and scrubs a hand over his face. “Nah, I really need to just say it,” he tells me. His eyes rise to meet mine and despite us being on screens, I still feel a jolt of electricity. I really like Luke. Even as wild as my imagination can be,there’s not anything I could truly imagine him doing that would be a dealbreaker.

“So this all goes back to my freshman year of college,” he begins. “As you know, I played college football. We had a great season, made it to a bowl game with 10 wins. As a freshman starter, I got a fair amount of attention for my performance on the field. Like most college freshmen, it was my first time living away from home. The first real test of my beliefs and morals.” He clears his throat before continuing.

“And I had an inflated sense of pride about how well I was doing with that. I was going to church every Sunday, not partying on the weekends, keeping my grades up. Checking all of the boxes in my head. But then came the bowl game. I went down hard in the fourth quarter and had to be stretchered off the field. It turned out that I’d torn my ACL. I had to have surgery and the doctors told me it would likely be at least nine months before I could play again. I was completely freaked out. Thought for sure my college career was over. And I’d always imagined myself going to the NFL.” Luke’s voice is distant as he shares these memories with me, like he’s actually revisiting that time period in his head. I keep my gaze focused on him, my heart hurting for that younger version of him. I know a thing or two about your dreams taking a hit.

“Anyway, I was in a dark place. I stopped going to church. Stopped praying. My grades tanked. I started partying. A lot. I’d wake up in strange places. Not remembering anything from the night before.”

A tremor of dread shakes my body. Suddenly I think I know where this story is headed, and the ache in my heart grows.

“Then one day I woke up and there was a girl in my bed next to me.” Luke stops talking and I see his Adam's apple bob as he swallows hard. He’s not looking at me anymore; his gaze is tilted upward, like he’s also confessing this to God. “I had no idea who she was, or how I’d gotten into bed next to her. But there she was. She didn’t seem to remember much either–nor was she bothered by that fact. She told me she’d had a good time, then grabbed her clothes and left. To this day I have only bits and pieces of memory from that night, but…” Another hard swallow. “Given our…lack of attire, I assume we had sex.” His voice breaks with emotion and, stunned as I am, I still wish I was with him so I could put a hand on his arm, offering him the comfort that only another person’s presence can really provide.

On a personal level, I’m shocked to find that this revelation of his is less upsetting than I would have thought. I mean, I’ve had some points in my life where my relationship with God was not mypriority. As I told Luke, I stopped going to church for a while too. But even in those low points where I kept God at a distance, I felt a strange conviction to adhere to some of the Christian values my parents instilled in me. One such value being to save sex for marriage, as God designed.

When I was with Marshall it always bothered me that he not only wanted to have sex with me, but that I knew he’d had sex with other women. I told myself I was being silly; after all, the ways of the world are different from the ways of God. But, still, bother me it did.

Which is why the sense of peace I feel following what Luke just shared makes no sense.

I’ve already figured out that I care more about Luke than I ever did about Marshall. So where are the feelings of jealousy and insecurity? Sure, I can feel them simmering there below the surface, asking for me to pay attention to them. But there’s an emotion that’s even louder than both of those things, effectively blocking them out: compassion. That’s right, I feelcompassionfor Luke. I have the overwhelming compulsion to take care of his needs before my own.

But how can it be that in this weighted moment, concern for Luke is my primary emotion?

Because, a stirring in my soul seems to whisper,love does not envy…it is not self-seeking…it keeps no record of wrongs.

“Luke,” I whisper his name, then say it again louder, “Luke. Please look at me.”

Luke rubs at his eyes and takes a long, shuddery breath before finally looking at me.

“It’s okay,” I say simply.

“What?” he croaks.

“I said, it’s okay. Thank you for sharing that with me, but if you thought you’d scare me off, you were wrong. I still want to date you.”

“You do?”

I nod. “I do. Sure, it sounds like you made some mistakes,” I echo his earlier words, “but I assume you’re not still having sex with random women, right?”

Luke barks out a surprised laugh. “Uh, no. That morning was a turning point for me actually. A wake up call. My suitemate at the time ragged me out pretty badly for the whole thing; then, if you can believe it, he invited me to go to church with him. I sat in the back and sobbed through the whole service. But I came back the next week, and I also joined the Christian group on campus. I stopped partying and drinking. I started praying and reading the Bible again. My faith came back to life as Jesus changed my heart and made it His.” He drags in a breath.

“And I also stopped dating altogether. It just kind of felt wrong after what I’d done.” He aims apointed look my way. “Kind of like this woman I know and her pottery.”

I choke on my own spit. “I…me…pottery…” I sputter nonsensically.

“Don’t even try and deny that part of why you stopped was as some sort of misdirected punishment for what happened with,” he wrinkles his nose like Marshall is a bad smell, “that guy.”

“I wouldn’t call it misdirected,” I reply a bit huffily.

“You should still be throwing pottery, Hannah,” Luke states. “You clearly have a passion for it.”

“Says the man who apparently didn’t date anyone for years and years because of one mistake.”

“Yes, well, unlike with you and your pottery, I also sort of lost interest in dating. I didn’t feel like it was missing from my life.” His eyes lock with mine and a thousand sparks fly through my body. “Not till I met you, that is.”

“Oh, Luke,” I breathe. Goodness. What is happening to my hand? It’s fluttering around by my face like I’m the newly crowned Miss America trying to remember everyone I need to thank. I’m completely swept away by Luke’s romantic statement and my hand can’t handle it. “You are so lucky you’re not here right now or I’d be smothering your face with kisses.”

Luke starts to get up. “I can be there in fifteen minutes.”

I giggle. “Thank you again for telling me,” I say softly. “I know how hard that must’ve been.”

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