My voice came out drained, tired, and empty of any type of feeling whatsoever.
When Luke took a step back to let me out of my car, he crinkled his forehead for just a slight second, and then he smirked.
“Did you enjoy the show last night?”
I couldn’t even roll my eyes; that’s how unamused I was. Like the life had been sucked out of me.
I didn’t muster up a response, and Luke stopped walking.
“Nothing to say this morning?”
“Go away,” I mumbled, dragging myself up the front steps.
It didn’t take long for him to catch up to me. I caught a whiff of his manly scent, with a touch of deodorant or cologne, and I wanted to freeze in this exact spot, with his scent lingering in the air, causing me to forget about everything.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, worry touching his voice.
“Nothing.”
I pushed past him, but he grabbed my arm to stop me. I looked down sharply at his hand on my white, long-sleeved undershirt.
“Cammie, what’s wrong?”
“Why do you think something is wrong?” I asked as I pulled my arm out of his grasp. I quickly reached into my crossbody purse to fish out my keys.
“Because I know when something is wrong with you.”
I huffed, “You act like you know me or something.”
“I do know you; something’s wrong. Tell me.”
He pulled on my other arm and I willingly let him lead me to the porch swing. It creaked beneath our weight, and I let out a frustrated sigh.
We sat there for awhile, and I knew that he was ditching his morning run to be here with me. My heart strummed a little, but then I remembered my night and it suddenly went dormant.
I focused on our legs touching. Brushing along one another, making a swishing sound between my cotton scrub pants and his silky gym shorts. I started to adjust my leg, but he stopped me by placing his palm on my knee. Confused and a little bit jolted, I blurted out, “I lost a patient tonight.”
It only took him a few seconds to respond. “That really sucks.”
I closed my eyes for a brief second. “It’s nothing new. It’s just…”
“What is it?”
How could I put this so he wouldn’t think I was completely broken inside? Why did I even care? I shouldn’t care what he thought of me. I shouldn’t care if he thought I was weak. What’s the worst that could happen?
“It’s the first patient I’ve lost, at least while I was on a shift, since my brother died, and it just… reopened some old wounds.”
Luke nodded his head in agreement, making the swing shake a little more vigorously than before.
His voice was barely audible when he spoke again. “Those wounds never really heal, do they?”
I slowly turned my head to face him and searched those bright green eyes. I would be lying if I said I couldn’t see the pain lying so quietly behind them, and I would be a naive fool if I thought he had never lost anyone in his life. He’d been to war. He’d been in a combat zone. He’d lost somebody, too, probably many somebodies.
“No,” I whispered, still staring at him. Small flutters started up in my chest, and I suddenly felt extremely vulnerable. “I’m just going to go to sleep. I’m tired.”
His face froze, eyes huge. He turned his head towards my door. “Yeah, uh. Give me like twenty minutes.”
I pulled back.