Reasons Why

Chapter Twenty-Three

Tears that she’d fought all day started to escape, slide down her face, “I want to so much Luke, but I can’t, not yet. You say I’m strong, I’m not. I feel drained, empty. I have to find me first, I still need to heal. You helped me start that process more than you’ll ever know. But the person I am...I can’t be half a person Luke, I need to find my motivation, sort things out.”

He shook his head gently, “I don’t see why that has to be without me.”

She bit her lip, “it just does Luke, you’re too strong and too much of a temptation for me to just become part of your life. What happens if I dive into this, become part of you, and then it ends? I’ll be five weeks, five months of maybe five years down the road and have to start all over again. Then there are my parents! I’ve compounded their hell, made losing their son a million times worse than it had to be, they’ve spent the last year worrying about me when they should have been grieving. I’ve spent so long feeling guilty at what I didn’t do that I didn’t realise that what I DID do was far more destructive. None of us have really dealt with losing Owen, and I need to get my head around things, rationalise it. I have to clear this now. Can’t you see that?”

                “I see the sense of what you’re saying, but I don’t think you’re right. You’re throwing away something special, for the slight chance that you might find what you’re looking for. What if I am it? What if the whole point of this hell was for us to meet? Maybe we’re meant to be together...” It was his last chance, “please don’t throw this away. Can’t we just see how it goes? You do your thing, I’ll do mine, and then we’ll see how it goes. You sorting yourself and us being together don’t have to be completely separate do they?” He took her hands to implore further.

                “This is exactly it Luke, you’d talk me into things, that’s why I said you’d compromise me, I need me time. Alone.”

He was crying now, as he saw the determination that his words had failed to influence. “So that’s it? Can’t we meet in a month? Two?”

Reaching up, she kissed him gently on the lips, wiping away the tears with her thumbs, “I can’t expect you to wait for me, to put everything on hold. You are the most special man in the World; I’ll never forget you Loukianos Petrakis.” With a wry smile, she turned and hailed a cab, leaving him stood in the worsening rain.

Chloe rued the efficiency of Google. For the umpteenth time since the court case, she’d typed the name Luke Petrakis in and thousands of hits came up. Photos, news - each piece struck a pain in her heart, but she knew this was her choice. Sitting in front of her laptop, she typed the letters Lu and the search for his name automatically popped up. Even her computer knew she missed him.

Closing the lid, she left her childhood bedroom and descended the stairs to the kitchen. Lemonade, she needed lemonade. The house was empty; her parents were out, her father at golf, her mother shopping. She’d had an interview lined up the previous day, a junior partnership at a reasonable sized law firm. It wasn’t anywhere near the size or the prestige of the firm she’d left, but then she hadn’t envisaged going back to a company like that. Ruthless, money and victory orientated. But over breakfast the day before, she realised that she couldn’t see herself working at any law firm. After the way she and her family had been treated, she’d lost all faith in the law profession, she couldn’t work in that field again, it lacked the scruples and morals that she know realise were more important to her. She’d phoned and cancelled her interview.

And now? Now she had no idea what she was going to do. Five weeks ago Malcolm Pinker was sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty a week or two before. There was no euphoria at that, nothing brought Owen back, and as that door closed it finally signalled the end of that chapter of her life.