Page 32 of Walking Wounded

“What do you want to be?” he asks.

“A dancer.” She says it immediately, reverently. The word leaves her lips like a prayer. Luke knows that feeling: it isn’t a hobby, or a hope; it’s a prayer, fervent, hopeless, painful, aching deep in the bones.

He shouldn’t mock her – heshouldn’t– but he has to break the rapture, because it hurts to be close to it. “Apoledancer?”

She gives him a light backhanded smack against the chest, without thought, like they’re friends. “A ballet dancer.”

He shrugs, and glances forward in time for them to split apart and go around an older man walking his dog, joining up on the other side of him. “So? It’s expensive, but your parents could afford to send you off somewhere.”

She sighs and he knows it means he’s missing the point. “Dad doesn’t think it’suseful, dancing. He says all I’ll have to show for it is bruised toes and a lot of debt.”

“Hmm.”

“What?” She glances at him sharply.

“I would say that seems like a real dad thing to say, but I never spent much time with mine, so I dunno.”

“Huh.”

“You’re not a real sympathetic person. Ever think that’s why he won’t let you dance?”

She elbows him. Hard. And he laughs. This feels nice. Like the kind of raw, emotions-unchecked relationship he’s missing so much when it comes to Hal.

Hal. Jesus. His ribs ache as his lungs contract, and he knows it has nothing to do with the cold.

“I still dance,” Tara says. “But I want to go to New York. I want to be in the Company.”

“You could run away.”

She hesitates.

“Though, for what it’s worth, I don’t think running away is ever worth it unless youreallydon’t have a choice.”

Her head drops and she studies the toes of her boots as they walk.

“You have a nice family. Don’t hate it too much.”

“Yeah,” she says, glum.

“Come on.” He slings his arm across her shoulders. “I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”

~*~

Georgetown Grind is hopping, but the line moves quickly, and Luke needs the moment in the warmth, breathing in coffee smells, listening to the low murmur of conversation and the clack of laptop keys. Tara orders a chai latte and Luke orders his with whip and cinnamon. They find a table out on the sidewalk, where Tara bums a smoke and they both light up.

“Will,” Luke says, when they’re settled. “What’s the deal there?”

She sips her latte and looks thoughtful, cigarette held between index and middle finger in a pose that strikes him as very Hepburn – Audrey, always his favorite. “He’s always been a little cagey,” she says. “Ever since I was little. Everyone always said, ‘Don’t upset Grandpa.’” She makes a face. “He was good to us, the grandkids, but, I dunno. He was always just so unhappy, it seemed like. Even before Gram died.”

“Leena?”

“Yeah. Eileen Maddox.” She takes a drag, exhales, chases it with coffee. “You know the story there, right?”

“Do you?” he counters.

“Not all of it, no. But I know something happened during the war that messed him up. And I know before they shipped out, Leena was engaged to his best friend, Finn.”

Luke rocks forward. “She was?” It shouldn’t, but the information hits him like a shock.

---