Page 99 of Arranged Devotion
We pause beside the welcome center. A main path runs through the central area, branching off to various rented spaces. There’s a swimming pool, a jungle gym, basketball court, and some crumbling soccer goals in an overgrown field.
“I’m sorry it was like that,” he says quietly. His hand slips into mine.
“Why are you sorry?”
“Because you didn’t get to stay here. You didn’t get to feel that way all the time.”
“Did you? Feel free when you were young, I mean?”
He snorts and runs a hand through his hair. “Not exactly. So maybe it’s lucky you got to feel this way.”
“You never had an escape? A place you went?”
He considers as we start walking. I peer down every campground lane but don’t recognize anyone. “I was never much of a nature guy. I’m still not, so there weren’t idyllic lakeside weenie roasts in my childhood.”
“I can’t picture you roasting anything, much less a weenie.”
“But there was this book I liked. I had to read it for school during one of the periods in my life when my foster family was forcing me to attend regularly, back before I was old enough to figure out how to drop out. It was about this kid who got into a plane accident and had to survive with nothing but?—“
“Oh my god,” I say, nudging him playfully. “You arenotabout to talk aboutHatchet, are you?”
His grin is broad and lopsided. “You read it?”
“Everyone reads that book in school, and it’s terrible.”
“Yeah, I thought so too at first. What’s more boring than listening to the whiney internal monologue of an annoying asshole for like two hundred pages? But then I started thinking about that kid, and how he had to learn to keep himself alive, and how that hardened him and changed him. I started seeing myself in his shoes, not as some fucking wilderness expert, but as a young man thrown into a hellish situation. Every day I woke up thinking my life was terrible, there was no reason to keep going on, but that stupid book made me think maybe it was happening for a reason. Maybe it was happening to make me harder and stronger, and that helped me get through the day. It gave me purpose, you know? Or at least it made me think all the horrific shit I went through in the system wasn’t only meaningless torture.”
I stop walking and lean into him. I cling to his arm and kiss his shoulder, breathing him in. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think about that.”
“No, it’s okay, why would you? I haven’t thought about that book in a long time, but seeing all this—“ He waves a hand at the trees. “Couldn’t help but remember the way it made me feel.”
“Do you think it was right? I mean, what you went through, it shaped you?”
“It shaped me. It hardened me too, but maybe too much.” His arms wrap around me as he pulls me close. “I learned to trust the Whelans, learned to fight, to kill, to hurt. I learned pain’s the only constant. Suffering is universal. We all bleed, right? But I never got the chance to learn other things." He dips down to kiss me.
“Like what?”
“There are decent people in the world worth caring about.”
“Are you talking about me now?”
“Don’t be silly. I’m talking about your brother. The love of my life.”
“Gross.”
He kisses me again and I flush with joy. It feels right standing here with him. Not far away, a dock extends out toward the lake. I decide to angle toward it, remembering how I’d stand there with Luke trying to catch fish for hours at a time, making jokes and laughing together. Liam feels fine following along, out of place around these parts, but it doesn’t matter. The few people we come across are friendly enough and none look too long at my husband.
I try not to think about the past, about the bad things Liam went through to get to where he is now. I know the New York foster system is notoriously difficult, and to survive it the way he did must’ve taken a lot of grit. It’s no wonder he got through it with more than a few deep scars, and it says a lot about how much he cares for me that he’s finding ways to work through them.
I spot a figure sitting at the end of the dock. My heart stutters with surprise as I get closer. The person is the right shape, has the right hair, but he’s in a jacket I don’t recognize and his back is to us. He’s sitting with his feet dangling over the side, face angled toward the water like he’s trying to taste the smell of lake rot on the air.
But as I draw nearer, I know, deep inside my chest. I pull away from Liam and walk faster, at a run as I hit the planks of the dock and sprint ahead. “Luke!” I call out. “Luke! What are you doing here?!”
He turns. His face is bright in the sunshine. He seems happy and free, strangely calm, even though it’s like the world’s coming down around us. I should hate him for what he did, but I’m mostly relieved he’s still alive and safe. No matter what he did, he’s still my brother. He smiles at me and opens his mouth to say something?—
But his expression turns to a terror-filled flinch as he grabs something lying beside him. I come to a skidding stop, not sure what’s happening, as he raises a gun gripped in both hands.
“Get down!” Liam’s voice roars in my ear. I’m slammed sideways as the gun goes off. My head smashes against a pillar, light bursts in my eyes, and everything goes black as a choked scream wrenches from deep in my throat.
