Luke had written about my sister.
He wrote about watching me rearrange my life whenever she needed me and how fiercely I loved her.
My throat tightened.
“You wrote about her.”
Luke’s expression softened.
“You loved her.”
After she died, he had cooked for me, answered phone calls, driven me places, and sat beside me while I cried through the night.
“Why did you stay through all of that?” I asked.
His eyebrows pulled together.
“What?”
“I wasn’t myself for a long time.”
“You were grieving.”
“I was a mess.”
“You’re the love of my life.”
He said it as though there were nothing else to explain.
Maybe there wasn’t.
I looked down at the pages.
For most of my life, I had measured beauty by the wrong things.
I had looked at Luke and seen someone who could have anyone.
I had looked at myself and wondered why he had settled.
His mother had apparently wondered the same thing.
Luke never had.
He had thought I was beautiful from the beginning.
But that was not the only reason he crossed the bakery to meet me.
He had seen what I did when I thought nobody important was watching.
There was no catch after all.
