Luke woke with a start. Like he’d been pulled from a nightmare. It was dark, but he heard crashes and explosions in his head.
He looked around the room, trying to get his bearings. He wasn’t in a war zone. It was light outside. Not an afternoon kind of light. More like the light of day. A new day.
He must have slept through the night. His body creaked and groaned from the awkward position he’d curled into in the night. He was in a hospital room. His large body folded into a small, uncomfortable chair.
Paul lay in the bed. There were wires and tubes going into his body. His heart monitor showed a steady beat. His chest rose and fell in a normal rhythm.
It was a normal scene. But it was one Luke had hoped he wouldn’t have to witness ever again with his friend. The door opened, and the white-haired doctor walked in. His features were grim.
Luke swallowed. He inhaled through his nose, forcing the air to steel his insides before he heard the news. On the bed, Paul remained asleep. The man didn’t have any remaining family. He’d long ago signed documents that Luke could hear details of his prognosis, but not make any decisions for him.
“Major Hanson is going to need surgery,” said the doctor. “But he knows that.”
Luke had suspected as much.
“It’s going to take a lot of hard work, but I have every confidence that he’ll make a full recovery if he elects to have the surgery. Otherwise, we might wind up back here in a few weeks or a few months.”
“How long will the recovery take?” Luke asked. “If he does elect to do the surgery?”
“A year, at least.”
When the doctor left the room, Luke let out the breath he’d used to steel himself. His body caved in on itself as he did so. He looked down at his friend. Now that the doctor was no longer in the room, Paul’s eyes were wide open.
Paul’s gaze connected with Luke’s and held. Luke wanted to look away. But his friend wouldn’t let him. He knew where this conversation was about to go.
“Not your fault,” said Paul.
“I know,” Luke said. “That interception you caught was a foul, and you know it.”
Paul let out a chuckle. That turned into a laugh. That turned into a guffaw. And then he winced.
Luke didn’t go to him. He didn’t reach out to his friend. He couldn’t make any of this better for Paul. Paul had to make it better from himself.
That day in the war zone, Luke had done what he could to save his friend. He knew with perfect certainty had the roles been reversed that Paul would’ve done the same. In a heartbeat.
But Luke also knew that had the roles been reversed, he’d have gotten the necessary surgeries and done what was necessary to regain as much of his health as possible. Luke didn’t understand Paul’s hesitancy. He might never understand it. That didn’t mean he was giving up on Paul.
“You’re my family,” said Luke. “You would’ve done the same for me. But you’d get on my nerves worse if I got injured.”
“Debatable.”
“I’m staying here, and so are you.” Luke sat back down in the uncomfortable chair.
Paul twisted his lips before he spoke. “You’re using me as an excuse to go to the town library.”
Luke knew that was as close to an admission as he would ever get from his friend. Luke grinned. Then he frowned. Then he groaned. “Oh, no. I gotta go.”
He’d not only missed their date. He’d missed an entire day as he waited for Paul to come out of the emergency room.
Luke floored it into town. He swung into an empty space at the library. Bursting into the front doors, he didn’t see a cardigan-wearing bunhead behind the circulation desk.
“I rooted for you,” said Mary, looking every bit the stern, banned-books type of librarian from his youth.
“There was an emergency,” said Luke.
“It couldn’t have been life or death.”
“It was.”
The stern look on Mary’s face fell. “She’s not here. She took the day off today. She never takes the day off.”
That was all Luke needed to hear. He raced to Elaine’s home on foot, not wanting to deal with the traffic stops. Racing up the steps to her porch, he knocked.
He was about to knock a second time when the door opened, and there she was. Her hair was down. She wore a t-shirt with no cardigan. Elaine’s face was impassive as she regarded him like she barely knew him.
“Let me explain,” he said.
The smile that tugged at the corner of her mouth was not a pretty affair. “That’s what my dad always said.”
“Paul got hurt—”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does,” Luke insisted. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“But it did hurt,” Elaine said. “Just like I thought it would. Imagine if I’d actually fallen in love with you.”
That hit him straight in the heart. Because he was falling in love with her. He wanted to spend his days loving on her. He wanted to spend his time showing her what love could really be like. But more importantly, Luke wanted Elaine to not be afraid to fall in love with him.
“Don’t back away from this,” he said.
But she was shaking her head and backing away from the door. “It’s not your fault. I’m just not built for this.”
Luke could see the pain in her eyes. Once again, he’d hurt the one he cared about. He needed to regroup. He stepped to the side and heard a crash.
The pot he’d stepped into on their first night, the one that had spilled its innards, it was now broken into large pieces. The flower's leaves and bulbs crashed down onto the ground. The soil that had protected it was now slipping through the cracks of the porch and showing the plant's roots.
“I can fix it,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter. The cracks were already there.”
Luke looked back to her. It was as though the life had gone out of her eyes, out of her very being. He wanted to reach out to her, to grab hold of her and pull her close, but she was too far away.
“Elaine, relationships aren’t perfect. People make mistakes. I make mistakes. I use my body as cover to save the ones I care about. I don’t always look before I cross the street.”
She wouldn’t meet his gaze. She looked suddenly weary and tired. Luke went to her, but she backed up behind the door. Her body stood rooted on the threshold, not letting him pass into her inner sanctuary.
“Let me try and fix this,” he begged.
Elaine looked into his eyes. There was a tiny spark of hope. But mostly there was fear. And the fear won out.
“There are just too many cracks. It’s not your fault.” She shook her head, stepping back behind the door and closing it with a quiet snick.
But Luke wasn’t giving up. Not on her. Not on them.
He picked up the pieces of the broken pot and backed down the steps.