Scarred (Scarred #1)(33)
Author: J.S. Cooper

I smiled at his words, the words I had always wanted to hear. But I felt confused and detached. I shook my shoulders; it had been a long twenty-four hours. Anyone in my position would be confused. It was only natural. I had to keep telling myself that. It was only natural. My ringing phone broke into my thoughts and I walked over to it, slowly, answering it without looking at the caller ID.

“Hello.”

“Lexi.” It was Luke. Just hearing his voice made me happy. He wasn’t mad at me.

“Hey,” I answered, eagerly. “I’m so happy you called.”

“I wanted to apologize for this morning. I kinda just slammed that on you all at once, it wasn’t fair.”

“It’s okay.” I whispered into the phone and turned away from Bryce, who was looking at me with a curious look on his face.

“No, it’s not. I know how you feel about Bryce and I know that things are looking up for you there. I should have been happy for you.” He paused. “Anyways, I called to invite you out this afternoon.”

“Oh?”

“I thought you, me and Anna could go to Chicago. I’ll drive.” He laughed.

“You know I don’t have gas money for Chicago.”

“Or maybe we can go on a hayride and have a midnight picnic.”

“That sounds like fun.”

“I promise I won’t pretend to be a scarecrow.”

“What? No scaring the little kids?” I laughed.

“And the dog will stay at home.”

“And no slobber,” I grinned into the phone.

“Exactly; I promise not to slobber on you.”

“Oh Luke, hahaha.” I couldn’t stop laughing and I saw Bryce sitting on the bed, frowning. “I’m going to have to take a rain check. I have plans.”

“Oh, with Bryce?”

“Yeah.” I tried to keep my voice light. I didn’t want to rub it in Luke’s face.

“Well, I would say invite him, but maybe that’s not such a good idea right now.” Luke’s laugh sounded forced and I wanted to cry at the awkwardness.

“Soon, though. Soon we can all hang out.”

“Yeah. Hopefully before I move.” And then he hung up. I looked at the phone as I closed it and faked a smile at Bryce.

“That was Luke, he wanted us to hang out.”

“Oh? That would have been fun.”

“I thought you didn’t want to hang out with Luke and Anna.”

“Oh, Anna was going to be there as well?” His face blanched.

“Yeah. We love to all hang out together.”

“Oh, okay. Well, maybe another time.” He smiled. “I really wanted to go to Harpers Creek today.”

“Yeah. Let’s go to the creek.” I picked up my bag.

“It’ll be fun. You’ll see Lexi. Just you and me, away from the stress of the city.”

We walked down the stairs to his car and my breath caught as he pulled me towards him and gave me a big kiss before we got into the car. He was so handsome. So masculine. So into me. I felt like I should feel like the luckiest woman in the world. I was twenty-two and it seemed to me like my whole life was finally coming together. I tried to ignore the voice in the back of my head that told me it was all falling apart.

Chapter 16

I thought I was going to have a heart attack when Lexi got the phone call. I thought, for sure, that everything was going to be over before it started. Part of me wanted to make love to her, so that we could have that bond. I knew how girls were about sex, I knew it would be harder for her to walk away from me then. But I couldn’t do it. I was honest when I told her that I wanted our first time to be romantic. I wanted her to see fireworks and explosions. I wanted her to feel like she was in heaven. And now wasn’t the time. I wasn’t going to bind her to me with sex.

“So, tell me about your experience in the marines.” She looked at me with a concerned expression. “That is, if it doesn’t hurt too much.”

“It does and it doesn’t.” I thought about everything I had been through and about the nightmares. I thought about the pills I had to take. I didn’t want to tell her about the darkness. I didn’t want to tell her about the things I had seen. “I became a man in the marines.” I tapped my hands against the steering wheel. “I became a man.”

“What’s the saying again? Die-hard. Live hard?” She laughed.

“In my troop we used to say that there are two kinds of marines: the ones who survive and the ones who die.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” She touched my arm. “Did many of your friends die?”

“Some.” I didn’t want to think about it anymore. “Your letters got us through. We all lived for your letters.”

“You read them aloud?” She blushed.

“Yeah.” I stole a quick look at her. “We were all devastated when you stopped writing. Why did you stop, Lexi?”

“I was falling for you, even more than I had before. And I was scared.’

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t think I would ever have a chance with you.” Her voice was soft and I smiled.

“Well, now you now you were wrong.”

“Yeah. Now I know.”

We drove the rest of the way in silence and I wasn’t sure what to talk about. It seemed to me that I had gotten off easy. I hadn’t expected her to be so understanding about Eddie. I was wondering if she was still in shock.

“Wait, isn’t that the graveyard?” she called out to me.

“Yeah. It is.”

“Shall we go?”

“Why?”

“I figured maybe you would want to speak to Eddie?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think you still have something to say to him.”

“What are you talking about?” I looked at her with narrowed eyes. “What do you know?”

“Nothing, Bryce. Whoa.” She looked at me with a hurt expression. “I just thought, after our conversation today, you might want to go and say a proper goodbye.”

“Okay.” I sighed. I could feel my palms clamming up and my forehead starting to burn up. I needed to get out of the car. I turned around and drove into the parking lot and we walked to Eddie’s grave. I was surprised to see two fresh bouquets of flowers at his grave.

“I guess his mom was here recently, huh?”

“Yeah.” But who else was here? Maybe Anna? She had had a crush on him in high school. But she didn’t have a car. How would she have gotten here?