Decision

Serves me right for falling in love with an asshole. It wasn't as if I hadn't expected something like this. It's just that, even when you know how things are going to turn out, you still hope a little that you're wrong. And yet, I was right. Yay me.

After all, he was this rich, spoiled-ass country kid living in a close-knit community, where people were so prejudiced and narrow-minded that it was a wonder they could ever think anything new about anything, if they ever did. I mean, I didn't really blame him. He just echoed what he'd learned from his father and the rest of them, all the prejudices he had, the internalized homophobia he struggled against, they didn't come from him, but from his father and everyone else. And let's face it, he's not the brightest tool in the shed.

If it hadn't been for that night in the cabin - not just what we witnessed together, but what happened between us before then - he would probably have lived his whole life not knowing who he really was. He probably would have married Rose or some other girl, become a farmer like his dad, had plenty of children, and lived out his life, knowing something was not quite right in his life, but not really understanding what it was. But I had come into his life and turned his world upside down. He probably didn't understand what was happening in his life, or what he was feeling for me. On top of that, there was this psycho tracking us and trying to kill us. Lukas was falling apart, and I couldn't really blame him for going over the edge when I told Helen. I'd done it for his own good, of course, but, he thought I'd betrayed him and now he was pissed.

So here he was, telling all these lies - not very good ones either, I mean, in the same breath he was saying I was less than nothing to him and at the same time that I held so much power over him that I could make him steal from his dad, he wasn't that good at lying, in case you haven't noticed - and I wasn't pissed off at him for lying. He was trying to save his skin in the only way he knew how, which was blaming someone else, and I could sort of understand why he was doing it. What woke me up from this little country dream I was having was the look he gave at the end, one of defiance and maybe a little guilt. It was then that I knew that he was never going to choose me, that he was never going to decide himself as long as decisions could be made for him by others. He was never going to be that guy.

He'd told me plenty of times that he liked me, but it was only those times when he wanted something from me, when he needed me to do something I didn't want to do. I knew he was manipulating me, telling me what I wanted to hear so I would do what he wanted me to do. It was so transparent, but still, I didn't care, because I liked to think he cared about me, even just a little. The small things he did for me, like fix my flat tire, get me that Polaroid camera, I'd thought came from his heart, but now I wasn't so sure. As I sat there, watching him lie his ass off to everyone, I wondered if this was how my life was going to be like here. I'd always have to remain as someone's dirty little secret, I'd be with someone who'd never admit they liked me, I'd always have to stay in the shadow. I couldn't stay here anymore. This was not how I was going to live my life. I wasn't going to stay in a place where someone thought it was okay to lie and say I'd made him steal from his dad to buy drugs just because my mom was a junkie and that's what they thought I'd become as well. I was getting out of here.

I sat in the truck, my head swirling with all these dark thoughts, as I waited for Gabe and Helen to get in the car so I could get the hell out of here. I wanted to get back to the city, where I wouldn't be considered a freak. Any place but here.

Then... I heard it. The sound of a motorcycle. At first I thought I'd been so wishing for something like this to happen, that I was finally hearing things. But then, it appeared, and on it, Lukas. And yet I still thought I was seeing things now as well. Until he approached Helen and handed her the gun. I couldn't have imagined him doing that for anything. That's when I knew: he had made the decision, his own decision. So, what now?