The Important Parts, Chapter 1, Part 2
The third year, the anniversary was freezing cold. Frost crunched underneath his feet in the early morning as he trod toward the pond. Thinking upon the last year, Luke realized that he had made many changes. He had sold Grimaldi Shipping and concentrated exclusively on the foundation. Casey had graduated law school and returned, without Alison, to Oakdale to work for Luke. Up until then, none of Luke’s old friends had been in town. Shortly after Casey returned, Maddie and her new husband had moved to Oakdale to be closer to Henry. They were soon followed by Will and Gwen. It felt nice for Luke to have friends again.
Those friends, however, noticed the changes in Luke that the years had wrought. Luke’s smile, while genuine, was always more serene than its old exaggerated brilliance. Luke was calmer in general, unlikely to be dragged into any Oakdale drama (which was a good thing from their perspective given Luke’s history), but he rarely showed the enthusiastic interest in people’s lives for which he was once known. All the passion that Luke had put into the neurology wing was conspicuously absent. Newcomers saw a calm, mature man with many responsibilities for his relatively young age. He was not precisely somber, but he was far from exuberant.
Luke’s parents did not know how to help Luke or if he even really needed help. They were relieved that he finally seemed to be moving on from Reid. They had futilely spent two years reasoning with Luke about how much time he spent at work with Reid never far from his thoughts. Harsh, bitter arguments had often been the result. They had had high hopes that once he got past his grief, he would return to being the son they knew. But this third year had proven their hopes to be unrealistic. There was nothing wrong with how Luke was behaving, but it was just so different from 2010 and prior. No matter how they brought up Luke’s life since Reid’s death, Luke now generally reacted with calm reasoning that they could not effectively counter. It seemed impossible to pinpoint what was wrong with Luke. He was not drinking, he was taking care of his body, he had friends, and he remained close with his siblings. Had he spent his entire life with this personality, they would not have worried. But, his interactions were so subdued compared to the past that Holden and Lily were forced to consider that what had made Luke Luke was no longer true.
Luke was aware of the difference. While he may not have felt Reid’s presence at the pond, at least here he felt emotions that ran deeply. It was the only place he felt anything strongly anymore. Reid is dead. This time, he indulged the thought, wallowing deeply into it. It was a luxury that he rarely allowed himself, not wanting to wade too far into the pain it brought and afraid he might not come back. He sharply broke off his grief--he could not be the “old Luke” anymore. That Luke could not stay away from the pain. The man he was now managed his emotions. This man understood the concept of having a defense mechanism. As he stood by the pond, he wished he could be just a little happier.
By the time of the cloudy and cool fourth anniversary, Luke knew he needed a more drastic change in his life. For most people in this town, including Luke’s parents, it was difficult to imagine one’s heart staying loyal to another for so long past death. Luke had dated men over the past two years, including one for a few months, but he could never muster much enthusiasm for any of them. He even dated a few jerks hoping to find a soft underside, but generally he found that most jerks really were just that. Reid was dead. His love was dead. Love was dead for Luke. He sometimes wondered if he were destined to be truly in love only once and for a short time. The thought did not really scare him. He was moving on, really he was, but he was not moving on as the same person that he had been when he met Reid. Romance just was not the priority it had once been.
Despite Luke’s acceptance of the past, he, however, never felt precisely peaceful. He knew others questioned whether he was happy, but he surmised that they had no clue how restless he felt. There were many reminders of Reid, many that reminded him of the life they might have had. He drove past that monstrosity of a neurology wing every day. Every week, he managed to see Katie, Bob or even Chris. They all reminded him of Reid from time to time. Occasionally at Al’s he would flash back to earlier and happier times. These thoughts did not necessarily make him unhappy, but he felt like he was not going to be able to find true happiness so long as he remained in the same place he was four years ago.
What did make Luke truly sad was that, in all these years, he had never found a way to feel particularly close to his former boyfriend again. He was always uneasy about it. For some reason, his heart kept telling him that there was such a place, a place where he could be with Reid and be at peace. That he had never found it troubled him profoundly.
On top of these feelings, there were too many people looking at him, scrutinizing him. They expected a person who was no longer there, and he felt that his future, whatever it might be, was not in the town in which he had spent his life. And so, in the fourth year after Reid’s death, Luke decided to move away from Oakdale.
His family was sorry to see him go, but they did not fight him. Noah, who Luke had kept in touch with intermittently over the years, wanted him to move to LA, but Luke wanted to go to a place where he did not know anyone and chose New York. He moved the foundation’s headquarters there and then found himself a small-by-Oakdale but large-by-New-York-standards apartment in the East Village near NYU.
On the fifth anniversary of Reid’s death, Luke was not at the pond. He did not know if it was warm or cold in Oakdale. It was a sunny and cool day in New York according to the weatherman. He, however, remained the entire day in his apartment trying to think of things other than Reid. He failed miserably. He stopped himself four times from calling the airport to ready his jet so that he could go to the pond. Reid is dead; he does not care if you are there. He spent an hour looking at the photo album with Reid’s pictures that he had brought to New York and then fell asleep that night with the doctor’s dark blue scrubs top that had been Luke’s favorite. After five years, he still missed Reid. Reid was dead, but Luke’s love for him was not.