Confiding in You ϟ a.i.

Chapter 17

Luke and I get to my house at the late time of 10:30 and I start to panic about what could be waiting for me inside. He gets out of the car with me, though, and grabs my hand as we near the door. Since I've gotten here, that has been a comfort to me.

He moves in and gives me a light kiss, which I gladly accept. This feels like a dream and I'm about to wake up from it the moment I go in my house.

"I had a good time with you today, Maddie," Luke whispers after a moment, his forehead pressed against mine.

"Me too," I smile, my cheeks surely turning a shade of pink. Luke bites his lip before kissing me quickly again.

"I have something to ask you, but I don't know if I should."

He rubs the back of his neck, glancing up at the sky. He seems to be determining which constellations he can find before he looks back at me. I don't say anything, but wait for him to decide what to do. After a pause, he takes in a breath and begins to speak.

"Be my girlfriend, Maddie?"

Asdhjjfdjjugfddfffaas. That's how I feel inside, in every way possible. Of all of the things I had expected him to ask, that was not one of them. Middle-school me begins fighting with current me over this instantly.

In 8th grade, God knows I would've said yes in a second. Even if I barely spoke to him, if he had asked that then he would've had me shrieking yes at the top of my lungs. But why couldn't he have done it then, when all I wanted was to date somebody?

Now I'm scared. I'm scared of what a boyfriend entails, what he will try to get me to do with him. I'm scared if I ever tell him what had happened to me he won't be able to understand. I'm scared that he sees me as something that I'm not and he'll find out sooner or later and lose interest.

"We'll see, Luke," I think to say with a sly smile, gripping the door knob. "I'll see you tomorrow."

He waves to me, looking a bit confused as I pull the door open and head inside. When I close the door behind me, I'm on cloud nine even if the response I gave wasn't definite.

"Nice of you to come home," Cooper says harshly, instantly bringing my mood down several notches. I look up to find him standing in front of me, just a few feet away.

"Sorry," I mumble, putting my head back down, "We lost track of time."

"You missed dinner," he says as if that was the worst thing I could ever do. I hear his footsteps nearing me loudly but I still refuse to look at him. His stare burns into me and there's a long pause before he grabs my face with both hands and forces me to look at him. Without another word, he smacks me across the face, right on my bruise.

I expected everything coming home. I expected him to yell, I expected my mother to be there worried sick about me and maybe even ready to ground me. All of the ideas I had of the bad things that could have been waiting for me at home and not one of them included being physically abused by Cooper. My mom wasn't anywhere in sight, either.

I grip my now-stinging face and finally really look up at him. Everything in me is telling me to start crying, but I won't let myself. I want to respond to him and tell him how much of a dick his is and that he has no business telling me what to do, but I'm afraid he's just going to hit me again.

"Were you and Luke fucking?" His tone is caustic and he looks more sinister than I've ever seen him. He gives me a short laugh, shaking his head, "You're such a slut, Maddie."

His words sting just as bad as his hand hitting my face did, but I've heard it all before. I try to ignore what he's just said, softly asking, "Where's mom?"