Luke

Autumn had turned the park into a mess of gold and rust. I slammed the front door harder than I meant to. Luke’s voice was still in my ears, sharp and frustrated, mine matching it word for word. Ten years of marriage doesn’t mean you stop having fights that make you want to leave the room. Sometimes you leave the house. So I walked to the park two blocks away, sat on our bench—the one with the chipped paint and the view of the maple tree—and stared at the ground. Leaves crunched behind me. “You’re going to catch a cold out here without a jacket,” Luke said. I didn’t turn around. “You can go home, Luke. I’m not ready to talk.” “I’m not here to talk,” he said. He sat down beside me, close enough that our shoulders brushed. He had my cardigan over his arm. “I’m here because you left without it.” I finally looked at him. His hair was messy from running a hand through it a hundred times, his eyes tired. We looked like hell. “I said awful things,” I muttered. “So did I,” he said. “And I meant about 10% of it. The rest was just being mad because I hate feeling helpless when you’re upset.” The wind picked up, sending leaves skittering across the path. “Doesn’t feel like ten years of marriage right now,” I said. “Good,” Luke said. “Because it isn’t.” I frowned. “It’s ten years and two months and seventeen days,” he said. “And about forty-seven huge arguments. Maybe more. I stopped counting after year three.” A laugh slipped out before I could stop it. “See?” he said, nodding at me. “There it is. I still know how to make you do that.” He put the cardigan around my shoulders. It still smelled like him. “Listen,” he said, quieter now. “We just yelled at each other for an hour about money and my mom and who forgot to call the plumber. It was stupid. We were stupid, but it doesn’t change this,” he said, and he took my hand. His thumb brushed over my wedding ring like he always did when he was nervous.