Page 35 of Purple Hearts

Cassie

City hall broke the skyline of downtown Austin in angles, all slanted brown tile and sweeping glass. Frankie parked on the street, but I didn’t realize we weren’t driving anymore until the white noise of the talk radio had bleeped off and the car was quiet. I spun the too-tight gold band on my finger, trying to remember the chords I had found this morning, a rhythm for my heartbeat to follow so it would slow down a bit, stop jumping around.

“Before we go in,” Frankie said, looking at us with sentimental eyes, like we were prom dates, “I have this idea. My parents do it in couples’ therapy.”

“Your parents go to couples’ therapy?” I asked.

George and Louise Cucciolo were the most in-love couple I knew. They were always making out in the kitchen when one of us went to get more snacks. They went to Italy every year on their anniversary.

“Yeah, they like it. Helps them ‘grow,’ they say.”

Luke and I glanced at each other and shrugged. I wondered if he was thinking the same thing I was, which was that it was probably easier to “grow” as a couple when you had disposable income to throw at marriage experts and trips to Europe.

“Anyway,” Frankie continued. “When they’re having a disagreement or whatever, they start off the session by staring into each other’s eyes for thirty seconds.”

“No,” Luke said, scoffing. “No way.”

“Frankie,” I said, touching his arm. “I appreciate your effort. And you doing this. Everything. But we’re just going to go in there and sign some papers, take some photos. Okay?”

“I’m not letting you get out of this car until you do it. Seriously. Elena and I do it, and it’s amazing. We can talk about anything.”

“We don’t need to talk about anything, Frankie,” Luke muttered. “Except for financial stuff.”

“As your future lawyer...”

I couldn’t help it, I snorted.

“Seriously,” Frankie said, and he started to raise his voice, which didn’t seem to be a familiar sound to either me or Luke. “You need to take this seriously. Because if anything goes wrong, they will bring a body language expert into that courtroom. I swear to God.”

Silence. The idea of a courtroom infected our thoughts. The consequences that lay there. Jail. Money gone. Future gone.

“Okay,” I said.

“Luke, get in the backseat with her.”

I watched Luke come around the car, the black suit a little too short at the arms and legs, but cutting his form in all the right places. Wide, wiry shoulders, a runner’s waist, long legs that he shoved behind the front seat. He smelled like sharp, wet wood and herbs, probably Frankie’s cologne, too.

At least everyone would understand why I’d be attracted to him.

“And what are we supposed to be thinking about, anyway?” Luke asked.

“Whatever comes to mind,” Frankie said.

“Like what?”

I almost said sex as a joke-not-joke but decided against it. I mean, we were in a backseat together. It was kind of funny, but not the time. I popped my knuckles and tried to focus.

“All right,” Frankie said. “Look at each other in the eyes. Don’t break. Don’t laugh.”

I laughed immediately. But then I took a deep breath. Do this for Frankie. Do this for Mom. Do this for the album.

“One one thousand, two one thousand...” Frankie began to count out loud, but then fell silent. Three one thousand, four one thousand, five...

I looked at Luke. I remembered those eyes from when we met last week, before he became an ass. The blue and gray, with long lashes under delicate brows. He had light purple circles underneath them.

I could smell his breath, mint toothpaste and a hint of something else, not unpleasant, just warm. Lungs and nerve endings and bones, that’s all Luke was. Just like me, just like anyone else.

He’d said he ran six miles a day. He must like to push himself. Yet it seemed like he’d been taught that man body must go with man thoughts, must be strong and never show otherwise. I didn’t envy that.

In the corner of my eye I saw his hands, wide palms, smooth, thick fingers, resting on his thighs. Occasionally, they tensed.

He had done something to his body that he was trying to undo, I could sense that being next to him now, and from the way he carried himself.

Believe me, I told his sad eyes silently, I can relate.