Page 112 of All Too Well
I pull my hands from him, the tingling traveling up my arms and through my body. Jesus, I need to get a grip. This is madness.
“See you tomorrow.”
“Text me when the coast is clear.”
Meaning when his father isn’t here. “I will.”
On wobbly legs I exit the truck and walk up the steps of my childhood home, wishing the boy next door was there so he could climb through my window.
“How is the story coming along?” Caroline asks on our video call.
“I think good. The guys have been forthcoming and helpful in explaining their stories. Lachlan’s interview was key to it, I just haven’t really figured out what I want to do with the story. I have a call with three admissions advisers from various schools for some background info.”
I’m sitting on my old twin bed, going through my notes since I can’t sleep. Thankfully, my friend is also nocturnal during our deadline times.
“So what has you stuck?”
She knows me so well. “Other than the fact that I don’t know dick about sports? Well, I slept with Lachlan.”
Caroline’s eyes widen, jaw dropping before she recovers. “Okay then. Not what I was expecting since you’re one step away from being a nun.”
“Shut up.”
She laughs. “Does he know you’ve been writing his name on your notebooks since you were a kid?”
“Yes and no. He knows I’ve lusted for him, but not that I’m in love with him.”
“I imagine that would scare him off.”
“You imagine correct,” I say, getting up and walking over to the window.
My room faces the West house. The garden that his mother loved so dearly looks exactly the same. Four years and his father has done everything to maintain it. He told my father once that it’s the only way to keep her alive with him.
I wish Lachlan could see it.
“Is it because of his kid?” she asks.
“I don’t think it’s that. I guess partially it’s because of Rose, but not in the way you might think. His father was always gone when he was a kid.”
“So was yours.”
I laugh once. “Yeah, and that fucks you up. We were always good at pretending it didn’t matter, but I would cry for weeks when the Admiral left. My mother would do everything she could to keep me from falling apart, but it took me a good month before I would settle into the new normal. Then he’d come back and screw it all up again.”
Caroline falls silent for a moment. “Being a military kid isn’t easy.”
“No, it’s not, but for Lachlan it was worse. He was an only child, and his mother would go into a deep depression when his father deployed. He almost had to become an adult. My mother would bring dinner to them every night. I remember one time Lachlan had the flu, he was so sick and Mom had to care for him. Every time his dad left, his mother did in a way too. He was on his own.”
I was younger and didn’t recognize that, but as I grew up, itwas hard to watch. Lachlan acted out anytime his father’s ship was deploying. He had an open invitation at our house, and he stayed here often.
“That’s rough,” Caroline says sympathetically.
“It was, and then Rose’s mother got pregnant and she gave her up, which was really hard on him because it felt very reminiscent of his childhood.”
Caroline nods. “I can imagine.”
“When his mother died, that was the nail in his coffin. She got diagnosed with cancer when his father was deployed and didn’t tell anyone.”
“What?”
