Who Are You?

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Autumn's pov:

"All right guys, time to go to bed." Lucas says as the kids walked upstairs to go to bed. With a heavy sigh he falls back onto the couch but bounces off and falls to the floor with a groan. Scarlet and I began laughing so hard I began choking and she couldn't speak. "Oh hardy har har. Make fun of the hurt one." Lucas says as he sticks his tongue out. Once we had composed ourselves, Lucas went to take a shower. "So, when is your English paper due?" Scarlet asks me as I put my feet under me. "It was due in a couple of days, but since Friday is the pep rally and he has to go out of town for a wedding, he said he would give us another week to get it done." "Ahh." She says nodding. "I'm gonna go to the bathroom real quick." I say as she says 'okay' and turns the TV on. Once I am upstairs, I peek in the kid's room to make sure they are all still asleep and okay. Then I saw Lucas' door was cracked a little and light was shining through. I walk over to the door and peek in to see Lucas standing in his boxer pants. He then turns around towards the bed and picks his shirt up, his back in full view. I stare at it, simply amazed and full of wonder. He puts his shirt on and I quickly go to the bathroom before he walks out. Once I was in the bathroom, I locked the door and stood against it. His back was still sketched into my mind. It was then in that bathroom that I made my decision. I would finally ask him about it. Once I had done my business and washed my hands I went back downstairs to find Scarlet and Lucas talking. "Okay, I'm gonna go take a shower and head on to bed. I'm tired." Scarlet said as I walked back into the living room. "Okay, good night." I said as Lucas stood up and gave her a hug and a kiss on her forehead, "Good night." He says as he smiles and sits back down. "Hey." I said once Scarlet was gone. "Hey." He says back laughing a little. "Mr. Parker extended the deadline to next week." I tell him as he raises his eyebrows. "Really? Wow. Crap, I completely forgot about it, do you have enough info about me to put in the paper?" He asks as he smiles a little and I gulp. "Um, no. Not quite. I have a couple of personal questions for you." I say as his smile disappears and a frown appears. "Okay, what kind of questions?" He asks as I stood up and went over to where he was on the couch. "Okay, I need to know your past. Your secrets. Your fears." I say as he grows pale and his jaw tightens. "Okay, my fear is to lose my family. After what happened with my parents, my real parents, I can't let anything happen to them." He says after a few minutes. "What happened to your parents? I mean I know they died, but I never found out how." I say as he zones out for a minute. "Lucas?" I say and he doesn't respond so I called him by his other name. "Cole? Cole, are you okay?" I say as sadness fills his eyes and face. After a moment he comes back and says, "Um, I think that's enough questions for one night." He gets up and begins to go upstairs. "I'll get you some pj's to change into." He says as I nod then sigh once he leaves. This is gonna be harder than I thought. I think to myself before turning the lights off and heading upstairs. Once I had changed into the clothes he gave me, we were in his room as I started to drift to sleep. "Good night Autumn." Lucas says as I murmur a 'good-night' and went to sleep.

"AHHHH!" A scream chorused through my head as I jerk up and quickly found the light switch. My heart was racing as I looked at the source where the scream came from. I quickly bend down next to him as began to do like Scarlet did the night before. "It's okay. It's okay." I repeated as he held onto me for dear life. "NO, you don't understand my parents are in there!" He shouts at me as I stood frozen in my spot, scared to say anything. Scarlet comes beside me and says, "It's okay, I got it." I nod as I went out into the hall on the verge of tears. When he had said those five words, "My parents are in there!" a chill went down my spine. I wanted so desperately to help him and make these nightmares stop. That's when I heard his sobs come from the room that was when I had broken down myself. I went into the bathroom, not wanting to make things worse for him. I cried silently for a while until I heard Scarlet shut the room door and another door close indicating that she was in her room. I quickly wiped my face and made sure my eyes weren't too red before I made my way back to his room. Forgetting where he was on the floor, I had stepped on him and heard a cracking sound, followed by a groan. "Oh my god! I am so sorry!" I said as I found the light switch and saw him holding his rib cage. "Its fine, not the first time it has happened." He said as I gave him a questioning look. "Never mind." He said quickly as I helped him into the bed. "Why are you putting me on the bed?" He asks as I gave him a weird look. "I just freaking stepped on you and cracked your rib! What do you mean, 'why am I helping you?'" I say as he laughs a little then yawns. Just as I was about to get up and sleep on the uncomfortable floor, a strong arm pulls me down on the bed with him. He somehow has the covers over me and is hugging me to his chest. Struggling to get out of his grasp, he didn't budge. I gave up and laid my head down on his chest. I could hear the beat of his chest. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. It was like a lullaby and soon enough I was off to sleep.

The next morning when I woke up, the bed was empty. I yawned as Lucas made his appearance in the door. "Good morning." He says cheerfully as I smile and say, "Good morning Lucas." He frowns and says, "Call me Cole." I smile and say, "Okay, so do you have some clothes I can borrow?" His face reddens and he mumbles, "Scarlet has some." I chuckle a little at his shyness. I get up and go to Scarlet's room where Cole is beating her up with a pillow. "Cole! If You Don't Go On Now, I Will Murder You!!" She shouts at him as she throws a pillow at him and he ducks easily as it hits me in the face. "Ooooohhh." Cole says as I grab the pillow and hit her on the head with it. "Hey!" She says as she grabs the one she was sleeping on and soon we were all having a pillow fight. Then the smoke alarm goes off. Cole's eyes widen in horror as he lets out a string of curses and runs downstairs, leaving Scarlet and I laughing our butts off. Once we have stopped I ask, "Do you mind if I borrow some clothes again?" "Sure, no problem." She says as I go into the bathroom to change. Once I have finished I go downstairs to where everyone is waiting to be fed. Like last time, Cole hands us our plates, we say grace, and then we ate, and cleaned up the kitchen. "Hey Autumn, aren't your parents gonna be worried about you, since you have been here for a week?" Cole asks and my eyes widened. "Dang it! They are gonna kill me." I say as Cole puts a hand on my shoulder, "Don't worry, I'll go with you when you tell them, if you'd like." I smile a little and calmed down. After we had made a plan to go to my house after school, we hopped into my car and went to school. As usual, people were whispering as we walked Scarlet to her first block class. Once Cole went to Art class and I went to P.E, I realized there were two girls talking about Cole and me. "How did she end up with a loser like him?" I heard one girl ask her friend. I ignored them and decided to work on my essay about Cole, but I kept my ears tuned to the conversation for entertainment. "I heard she slept with him." I heard one of them say. "I heard that he blackmailed her into dating him." "I heard that he is a murderer." I almost laughed out at that one. Wow, really? How bad can these rumors get? As they continued to talk about us, I realized it was time for second block and seeing Cole there, made a smile come to my face. Once I entered the classroom and took my seat, I realized Cole hadn't made it yet. Once he walked into the room, the bell rung. "Okay, Mr. Adams. You know the drill, go to the office and get a tardy slip." Mr. Parker said as Cole sat down and smirked. "But Mr. Parker, with all due respect, it says in your rules, and I quote, 'Students must be in class before the bell rings.' Co- I mean Lucas had stepped foot in the door when the bell rung, making him safe." I say as Cole looked at me shocked, along with the rest of the class, but then a smile made its way upon his face, then a smirk as he looked at Mr. Parker. "Ms. Sanderson, I know exactly what my rules say, and since you want to stand up for Mr. Adams and his delinquent ways, you can join him in detention during break." Mr. Parker says as my face heats up and a scowl is on Cole's face as he glares at our teacher. "All right then class, today..." Mr. Parker began to say but I tuned him out to look out the window.

Once school was over, Scarlet, Cole, and I met in the parking lot by my car so we could go to my house. "Autumn, it will be fine." Cole says as he takes one of my hands off the wheel and I noticed it was shaking. I let out a deep breath before saying, "Sorry, I'm nervous about how my parents are gonna react." After driving for a few more minutes, we finally pull up in front of my house. Cole and I got out as Scarlet stayed in the car. With a shaking hand, I open the door to my house and walked in. I could hear my parents talking in the kitchen as I turned around to go back outside but Cole held me. "It'll be fine. I promise, I'm right here." He says as I calm down once more and step into the kitchen. "Mom? Dad?" I say as my parents look at me and ran to me and wrapped their arms around me. "Autumn, we were so worried! Why didn't you tell us where you were going or what you were doing?" My mom asks as she sees Cole and forced a smile on her face. "Hello, who are you?" She asks as she straightens her posture. "I'm Lucas. Lucas Adams." He says as he extends his hand as my mom stares at him. "Could you give us a moment in private please?" She says as he takes his hand back and nods, stepping out of the room. "How could you?" My dad asks as he makes his way over to me. "How could I what?" I asked as my mom scoffs. "How could you bring that poor, lowlife scum into my house?" She says as my mouth drops, and I know Cole heard it.