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He shrugs and buries his hands in his pockets, still nervous, and I think it’s adorable—big, strong, death-defying BASE jumping guy more worried about what I’ll think of his craft skills than killing himself jumping off a cliff.
“Well, technically I’m not.” He chuckles. “I, uh, kinda got the idea from one of those binders you brought with you.”
Wow … he really put a lot of thought and effort into this whole thing. It’s the sweetest, most thoughtful thing anyone has ever done for me before. I almost want to cry; a tightening sensation grips the center of my chest, threatening to bring tears of happiness, as well as tears of sorrow and regret, to the surface, but I retain my bright smile and try to hold them down, deflecting the pain with humor.
“You read my binder?” I ask accusingly.
He winces. “I’m sorry. I just—”
I smile and step toward him, making my way around two flickering glass jars. “I’m just messing with you,” I tell him and lay my head against his chest.
It wasn’t like he had to dig through my stuff to find that binder; I had left it out on the floor beside my suitcase for days. Besides, I looked through a photo album I found of his on a shelf in the living room while he was at work today, so I guess we’re even.
“You did pretty good your first time,” I say. “I should hire you on as my new assistant.”
His arms tighten around me.
“I doubt we’d ever get any work done,” he says suggestively.
After a quiet moment, Luke tells me to sit down and he goes into the house and comes back minutes later with a few Coronas in a wooden ice bucket with a handle. And we sit together on the blanket, surrounded by little lights and little flames illuminating a small space around us. And we drink and we talk and he tells me more about his trip to Norway soon with Seth and Kendra, still oblivious to how I really feel about it.
“It’s really important to you to go there, isn’t it?” I ask, looking up at the stars with my head lying on his arm where it joins his shoulder.
He’s looking up at the stars with me, his free arm bent upward and propped behind his head, his bare feet crossed below at the ankles.
“Yeah,” he says. “Landon wanted it to be his birthday jump. Since he can’t be there to do it himself, I dunno, I’m glad to be able to do it for him.”
I say nothing for a while.
“What about after that?” I ask. “Seth made it sound like you’ll all be doing a lot of traveling.”
His arm that I’m lying on tightens a little around me. His thumb brushes the skin on my wrist as it rests against my stomach.
“Hey,” he says in a soft voice, “if that’s what’s bothering you, let me say right now that you can go anywhere with me that you want. Mexico, Australia, Switzerland, even Norway in two weeks if you want. I’d love for you to go with us.”
“Oh, no, I don’t think I could do that … I mean”—why can’t I just tell him? I need to tell him—“I just have to get back to work and I won’t have another vacation for a while.” I swallow a nervous lump and feel nauseous and heartbroken.
“Well, no matter where I go,” he says, “we’ll definitely keep in touch.”
For an even longer time than before, I say nothing.
Then finally: “Is going to all of those places really important to you?”
I feel him nod. “Yeah,” he says distantly, as if he’s off somewhere else. “It was important to my brother and that’s why it’s so important to me.”
Privately, I lower my eyes in sadness.
Sadness. It’s unmistakably how I feel inside. Because I know I can’t help Luke the way he needs to be helped; I can’t be the one who heals his pain; I can’t be his crutch.
But still … I say nothing. Because it hurts too much to think about it, about what I know I have to do.
Suddenly I realize why I’ve waited so long to say anything, why I’ve put off telling him that I can’t pursue a relationship with him, why I haven’t tried harder to change his mind about jumping or express my feelings about it: because I know that right now, at this dark point in his life, nothing I say will register with him. He will take my concern and only try to make it better by bandaging it, rather than seeing it for what it is. He will kiss me and smile at me and tell me that everything’ll be OK, that I shouldn’t worry about him.
But also I fear that Luke will be able to somehow shake my resolve not only about his jumping, but more so about having to leave him … for good. Because I don’t want to. I want to stay here with him forever. Already, right now, as I sit here with him on this beach under the stars, surrounded by his thoughtful hard work that has softened my aching heart, I’m at risk of becoming putty in his hands. If I’d told him yesterday that I just can’t be with him, or the day before, I fear he’d already have changed my mind by now, despite what I know I should do.
That’s why I have to do it in the morning, just before I have to leave.
He won’t have time to shake my resolve then.
