Page 85 of The Friend Game

Chapter 34

I CAN’T FIND him. I checked his office, the parking lot, even the art classroom–which is where I am now. But Luke is nowhere to be found. Worse, he’s not answering his phone. Or at least he’s not answering my calls. Perhaps if I borrowed someone else’s phone I’d get a response.

The very thought makes me feel sick. How did this night get so off course?

I stare down at my useless phone and try to decide if I should text him again. I’ve already sent him about ten messages all saying something to the effect of: I’m so sorry. Can we please talk? Where are you?

Luke doesn’t have his read receipt setting activated, meaning I have no idea if he’s read any of the messages I’ve sent. Which very much makes me want to throw something.

Feeling completely hopeless, I press the message box to type yet another text to him, but Idon’t know what to say. I’m not even sure what exactly he's upset about. It could be Lexie’s implication that I’ve been two-timing him with Marshall, but surely he knows me well enough to know that I would never do that to him. He definitely knows Lexie is always blowing smoke, so why would he choose to believe her about this?

It could also just be that he’s upset about so many people finding out that he’s dating a woman who once dated a man engaged to be married to someone else. He is on probation after all. This won’t help his case.

Or it could be some other reason I’m not even seeing.

I just don’t know. I throw my phone down and get up, pacing the length of the room. This could be my last time walking across these black-and-white checkered floors. For some inexplicable reason my eyes go to my storage room. The place housing the pottery wheel Luke procured for me. My heart trips over itself in my chest as I remember George saying that Luke fought for me to be given it. I wonder if Luke thinks that if I get fired his fight will have been for naught.

But he fought for me, and that will always be significant to me.

His words to me earlier this morning on the subject of pottery float into my mind.

You should still be throwing pottery, Hannah. You clearly have a passion for it.

Sure I’ve been using the wheel with the kids, but outside of that one time when Lexie walked in and accused me of making phallic art, I haven’t used it by myself. If this is my last time in this classroom that means it’s my last chance to use the wheel. The wheel Luke fought so hard for me to have.

I don’t want him to think that was in vain.

I step forward and, before I can second guess myself, rip open the door. The room is pitch black, so I switch on the light and step the rest of the way inside, noting the sudden pulsing of my fingers. It’s like they know. This is happening.

I’m doing this. For Luke.

No, for me.

But Luke is to thank for that.

I put my Adele record on, grab a tub of clay off a shelf, and get to work. I repeat the process I showed the kids, making sure the clay is plenty wet before I start. As I push the clay up into a cone shape a sense of rightness settles over me. I’ve missed this so much. The slick clay runs through my fingers, letting them mold it, and as I do so the tears start to fall. Just a trickle at first, but then they come fast and furious, drenching the clay until I have to stop for fear of oversaturating it into an unusable mess.

I sit at the wheel and sob, my clay-caked hands gathered uselessly on my lap.

I cry because of how Marshall destroyed my self-esteem as an artist and stole my passion for throwing pottery. I cry because God somehow pulled me out of the pit I was in and set me on a right path. I cry because I messed that up too. I cry because I’m sitting at a pottery wheel again and I can feel the fire within me to create something. But most of all I cry because Luke gave me this beautiful gift and I can’t even find him to thank him…to tell him that I love him.

“Hannah?” The sound of my name jolts me from my teary haze. I whip around, hardly daring to believe that it could be him—but it is. It’s Luke.

He’s standing in the doorway and just the sight of him makes my stomach flip.

“You’re here,” I breathe. Then I notice he’s all wet. His shirt is drenched, sticking to him in a way that leaves very little to the imagination. Aka…Luke has very nicely defined pectorals. And also abdominal muscles. Ooh and shoulders!

But I digress.

“You’re all wet,” I state the obvious because, well, see my previous statements re: his pecs and abs.

I’m only human.

“Yeah, I, uh, went for a walk. Needed to do some thinking and praying. Got hit with MissSherry’s sprinklers. I was distracted, so I walked right into them.” He looks down over himself and gives a rueful shrug, then looks back at me. “But look at you. You’re at the wheel again.”

“Oh. Right.” I’m suddenly self-conscious. A second ago I’d been dying to ask him what he’d been thinking and praying about, but now I peer at my clay spattered hands and feel the insistent need to explain myself. “I just figured that if the board votes against me this would be my last chance to use it, and well, that seemed like such a waste, you know, since you worked so hard to get it for me.”

I chew my lower lip anxiously as Luke’s tumultuous gaze meets mine. “I did work pretty hard to get you that wheel,” he concurs, but with only a glimmer of a smile. “How did it feel?” He shoves his hands in his pockets, adding ‘nicely defined forearms’ to my list of distractions.

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