LUKE: Complete Series Read Online Free Page B

understand, don’t you?” He repeated his question as he turned onto the off-ramp in Newport.
    Then it hit me. The hurt unraveling in my chest, strangling my words. Even after what we had just done in my bedroom, he still didn’t trust me. It was stupid and irrational, especially since he had every reason not to give me his trust. But it still hurt. And it hurt because I cared.
    This was bad. I would have to pull myself off this assignment as soon as we got back to Seattle.
    “Of course, I understand,” I replied, smiling as I gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. I understand that I have just blown my chance at a promotion. I understand that my parents will have to continue to scrape by on the meager sum I send them every month. I understand that you will soon find out who I truly am and you will hate me. I totally understand.
    “Good,” he said, letting go of my hand as he pulled into the parking lot at Imitex headquarters. “Because I was just testing you.”
    “What?”
    “I wouldn’t bring you all the way out here to wait for me in the lobby. I want you in the meeting with me. This is a huge project and you need to know everything if you’re going to be part of the team.”
    He rolled the car into a parking space and killed the engine.
    “So… you did do the background check?”
    “More thorough than the background check I just did on you an hour ago, if you can believe that.”
    Not thorough enough.
    I closed my eyes and swallowed the bile in my throat as I prepared to speak the most painful words I had spoken in seven months. “I don’t talk about my brother to anyone,” I began. “I don’t like people pitying me. I don’t like the looks they give me when they find out I’m the one who found his body in the back of the VA hospital after he jumped off the roof. My brother had just been cleared by the mental health staff for another tour, but he was far from clear. I drove him to that appointment because he hadn’t had a chance to renew his driver’s license while serving his first tour. I took him there.”
    “You know it’s not your fault,” he said, his voice soft and reassuring as he reached for my hand again, but I pulled my hand away.
    “I know that. I’m not irrational. But that doesn’t change the fact that I drove him there. It’s just a fact and now my brother is just a statistic. And every time memories of him crop up, I push them aside. I want to forget him.” I paused to take a deep breath as my head and throat began to ache with a cocktail of grief and guilt. “I can’t go in there with you today. I’m not in the right state of mind. I’m sorry.”
    I can’t betray you the way I’ve betrayed my brother.
    Luke’s silence made me uneasy. He probably thought I was a horrible person for trying to forget my brother. At least now I could go back to Seattle and turn in my resignation at both jobs. Maybe I should just move to Mexico and forget everyone. It’s not like anyone would hire me after this.
    “I’m not letting you give up. You’re going in there with me,” he said. “You don’t have to talk; just listen. And that’s not a request. This is an order, from your boss.”
    He exited the car and I followed reluctantly. This was my chance to help my parents out of the cloud of poverty and depression that had followed them since my brother’s death. This was the moment I had been working toward for the past two years. Luke was everything I had ever wished for in a man.
    Be careful what you wish for, it just might turn you into a selfish bitch.
     

PART TWO: MEMORY

1
    I reached into the bare refrigerator and pulled out a carton of milk. I checked the expiration date and my heart sank.
    “Jesus Christ, Mom. This milk expired three weeks ago.”
    The refrigerator exhaled a breath that reeked of rotten broccoli as I slammed the door.
    “It’s fine,” my mother replied, taking the carton from my hand and making her way to the sink. “So long as it’s not curdled,