So much had happened in the past few months for Lucas. Hill won the intercollegiate championships and many people pointed the success at Lucas. They'd never seen him train so hard and show so much resolve to win. They didn't know the water was his surcease from his crumbling personal life.
Not long after his blow out with Sanaii, his father had a stroke. He had never seen his father look weak and small as he did in the hospital bed.
His father was a God in his eyes.
After John's recovery, something in the elder Somerville's demeanor and priorities changed. He wanted Lucas to visit home on every holiday. He called his son "just to say hello." It was awkward at first. They had never really had a conversation before. More like his father gave a boardroom presentation, and Luc was a captive audience.
Luc recalled the dinner conversation they had on his last visit home:
"Your mother called again today, son."
"I know. She wants to know why I haven't made my travel plans yet."
John dabbed at the corner of his mouth with his napkin.
"Why haven't you?"
"Because I'm not going," Lucas looked into his father's dove grey eyes. "She thinks she can just snap her fingers after all this time, and I'm going to run happily into her arms crying mommy I missed you? She can go to hell."
John slapped his hand down hard on the table.
"Do not disrespect your mother, Lucas!"
Lucas was stung by his father's censure.
"Why should I respect her? You never did, dad."
John tossed down his napkin.
"I admit I made a lot of mistakes with your mother .Whatever our issues were, I should not have spoken ill of her to you."
"Is that why she left, dad? Because you were always cutting her down in front of me or because you hit her?"
Lucas then saw something on his father's face that he never saw before.
Shame.
John didn't look away from his son's angry gaze. Whatever censure he saw there, he knew he had earned.
"Your mother didn't deserve that."
John reached across the table with his still palsied hand to touch his son's clenched fist.
"Don't keep punishing her for what I did to come between you. Those are my sins- not hers and not yours, Luc."
Lucas reflected as he sat in the Zen garden. It was spring time and the garden felt alive with its unchanging palette of lush greens and blinding white stones. Lucas felt irresistibly drawn to the garden the closer he got to graduation.
"Can I sit?"
Luc snapped out of his daze. Sanaii smiled at him with that same shy smile, and he felt his mouth go dry. This was the first time he'd really seen her in months. He caught glimpses of her on campus, but he made no effort to catch her though he wanted to more than anything. If he had hurt her half as much as he had hurt himself with his games, he figured she would probably slap his face as soon as look at him.
"I can go."
"No, stay. It's a big bench," she said repeating the words he said to her the first time they met.
She sat down, and they smiled at each other awkwardly before she spoke.
"How've you been, Lucas?"
"Things have been... a little intense, but we won the champs." he said proudly.
"Congratulations.I know you worked hard for it."
"Thanks, what about you?"
Sanaii swung her feet like a happy little girl.
"Would you believe I changed my major?"
"No way."
"Yes. It's still dance but it's Modern instead of Classical, and I'm minoring in music theory."
"That sounds cool. You certainly look happy," he said though other words came to his mind. Glowing...beautiful...delicious.
"Thanks. You graduate this semester don't you?"
"Yeah," he said almost as if he couldn't believe it himself.
