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.
He won’t have time to change my mind.
Later, after Luke blows out the candles in the jars and unplugs the lights, we head inside to go to bed.
“I’m going to miss you like crazy,” Luke says, moving in and out of me slowly. “I think I already do.”
He kisses me hungrily, pushing himself deeper inside of me.
Later, like I’ve done nearly every night since I came here, I curl up in his arms and listen to his heart beating as he sleeps. I stare up at the ceiling, the shadows cast by the trees outside the window dancing along it in a slow, swaying motion. But it isn’t until hours after Luke has fallen asleep that I begin to drift off myself, accompanied by the sound of rain pattering on the roof and Luke’s steady breathing.
And those thoughts about knowing what I have to do lingering in my head, cruel and victorious.
THIRTY-ONE
Sienna
Luke gets me up on time at nine. My flight leaves at eleven. I sit up in the bed, feeling like a bundle of frayed nerves, just as he’s coming around the corner with a mug of coffee in one hand and a smile on his face. I can barely look at him at first; my rapidly beating heart sits deep in the pit of my stomach; my hands are trembling against my bare legs; my mouth is incredibly dry and I know that no amount of water in the world can moisten it.
“I ran out of sugar,” he says, leaning against the doorframe. He takes a sip and makes a face. “I don’t know how Seth drinks this shit black.”
“Luke,” I say and then pause, looking down at my hands wedged between my thighs.
He steps farther into the room.
“You want some coffee?” he asks, even though he knows I always say no.
I look up at him.
“You … Luke, you said something to me the other day that I can’t stop thinking about.”
He places the coffee on the nightstand and sits down next to me.
“What did I say?”
I sigh and look down at my hands again, my fingers tangling nervously.
“That you’d never want me to change who I am for you or anyone else.”
“And I meant that,” he says, all traces of the good morning he was trying to maintain before gone from his voice—he knows something’s wrong.
And I know I can’t linger on this anymore.
Finally I raise my head and look over at him next to me, pain and regret at rest in my eyes. I know because I feel it in every part of my body.
“Well, I’m a firm believer of that,” I say, “and I’d never want you to change for me, either—I wouldn’t let you.”
He waits for me to go on, but the sudden look of realization in his eyes tells me that he wishes I wouldn’t.
A tear rolls down my cheek. I reach up and wipe it away quickly.
“I watched that documentary on Tian Keng yesterday.” His jaw hardens as if he’s fighting to suppress emotion. “I-I didn’t make the connection until I saw it: your paintings, the ones at the community center, the ones in that room at the end of the hall”—I look right at him again—“the one you were painting when I found you that night.”
“What are you saying, Sienna?” He stands up from the bed and begins to pace.
I stand up, too.
“Luke,” I say, meeting his eyes, “I know you’re going to Norway to honor your brother, but … do you really, down deep inside of you, feel like it’s going to help make his death OK?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing will ever make his death OK.”
“I know, but”—I’m struggling to find the words; this is all so much harder than I expected, and I expected it to be excruciating—“but do you really have jump off that rock?”
His eyes crease with confusion.
“Have to?” he says. “I—well, I want to. Landon and I were going to do it together. On his birthday. We made plans. And I—”
He stops and stares at the wall, struggling as much as I was moments ago. When he looks back at me, there’s even more pain in his eyes. More guilt. More heartbreak. More of everything that makes me want to take back everything I’ve said.
And I feel every ounce of it, burning me from the inside out.
“I was supposed to jump with him in China,” he says, angry with himself, and although he’s said these things aloud to me before, I feel like this time he’s repeating them only to himself, condemning himself with the memory, over and over again. “I was supposed to be there. I was supposed to check his pack like I had always done. I was supposed to be there.” Tears fall from his eyes and it’s breaking my heart—and taking everything in me not to reach out and comfort him. But I can’t. I can’t keep being his crutch. “But I didn’t go. After all that planning we did, all of the excitement, I was too busy with work to keep my promise, to stay true to my brother. Too busy with my bullshit life”—he slashes his hand in front of him—“to go with him and make sure he was going to be OK.”