Yeses and Toes

The Fight

"What an absolute jerk!"

Luke looked completely shocked when I gave him the news. I should have felt the same way but I just felt weirdly alright about it all. Maybe I was in shock.

I gave him a shrug and fiddled with the point shoe ribbons. We were sitting on the couch now, eating pepperoni-pizza Hot Pockets, mulling over options. Well, Luke was mulling over options. I just sat there and listened to his beautiful voice. I knew I shouldn't have thought that. I should have been thinking about everything he had done to me in the past. But something inside of me stopped me from looking back. All I could see was now.

His words from that night at the graveyard played in my head.

He was right.

We are the same.

"I should go in there and toss him around a bit. See how he likes it."

Okay. Maybe not exactly the same.

I reached over and placed my hand over top of Luke's. His face softened.

"I don't think that's a good idea," I said to him. "Rick's not actually that bad of a guy."

He really wasn't. Sure, he may have fired me on completely ridiculous terms, but when it came to bosses, Rick wasn't the worst.

Luke seemed to disagree. "You were the best employee he ever saw! How could he fire you just because he couldn't get any?"

I winced at his words, glad I hadn't gone through with the date. Imagine how that would have been. Rick and I sitting in silence, pretending to watch the play, him sneaking nervous glances, doing a carefully-calculated yawn move so he could put his arm around my...

"Hey, you alright, Tish?" Luke asked me, squeezing my hand. "You look like you're going to be sick all of a sudden. Was it something I said?"

Smiling at him, I shook my head.

The door swung open and Fleur barged in. I dropped Luke's hand like it was hot and threw myself to the other side of the couch.

I shot a triumphant glance over to Luke but he was narrowing his eyes at me. I made a mental note to ask him about it later but, for the moment, I was relieved Fleur didn't find out about us and how we were... whatever we were.

She set her most menacing glare on her brother, her mouth a thin line and her eyes slits. The definite warning sign was how nervous Alvin looked right then. It was clear he knew what had his girlfriend in a state. His fake tan did nothing to cover up the sickly pale his face had turned. Luke, on the other hand, didn't look scared at all, just strangely distracted.

"What," he said, his tone tired, "is it?"

Fleur stomped up to the couch and shoved him. Hard. He didn't seem affected, though. Well. Not in the way I would have been. A sly grin slowly crept over his face as he appeared to suddenly take everything in. Luke seemed to love disturbing people. I wasn't sure how that wasn't stopping me from getting closer to him. Mentally, I mean. I stayed on the other end of the couch. I sure as hell wasn't getting in the middle of whatever it was that was about to go down.

When his sister just stood there, trying to pin him under her glare, Luke taunted, "Well, sis?"

This resulted in her shoving him. "Don't use that tone with me, Mr!" she snapped.

Luke started laughing. I could feel Alvin's cringe as well as my own. There weren't many who had the guts to even talk back to Fleur, let alone laugh at her. She was a pretty intimidating person. Then again, Luke wasn't the type to be easily intimidated. "Who do you think you are," he started, standing up to face her, "Mom?"

"No. I don't think I'm Mommy, Luke," Fleur quipped right back at him. "But you know who does think she's Mom?"

Luke frowned, lost. Fleur shoved him yet again, clearly pissed the boy couldn't put two and two together. Although, I couldn't even figure it out. And she was my best friend. She honestly looked ready to pull out all of her hair. Or Luke's. Probably Luke's, actually, considering she was quite attached to her own hair. Fleur was notorious for spending hours on elaborate hairstyles. Even when we were kids she'd be experimenting with different kinds of braids and Lady Gaga hair-bows. If my hair wasn't so course, I was sure she would have played hairdresser with me, too. I wasn't sure if I would have been able to handle being her hair model and her fashion/semi-wearable-art model.

"You've lost me!" Luke said to her now.

Fleur's eyes almost rolled out of her head. "MOM!" she yelled. "Our mother thinks she's Mom. Which is so funny because I bumped into her and our father in the gas station! They said they were fully ready to pay for you to go back to school! Why aren't you going with them? Why are you staying here?"

Fleur looked ready to explode but now she wasn't the only one.

"What do you mean why aren't I going with them?" Luke seethed, his eyes slits.

Alvin and I shot each other more nervous glances. I had never seen them this angry at each other before. Sure, they bickered because of their differences, but now something had changed. Their rage at each other was just so... serious. I didn't like it. I could see that Alvin didn't either. But, from experience, we knew we could never get a word in when the twins were going at it.

"What do you think I mean?" Fleur fired back at her brother. "You've been moping around our place, eating all our food, making us completely bonkers for months now! And now I find out our parents showed up, all set to forgive you for lying to them and wasting their time and money. They wanted to give you a second chance! You could go back! AND YOU'RE STILL HERE! WHY ARE YOU ST-"

"Because they're idiots!" Luke roared.

Fleur was silent after that, her mouth hanging open on her interrupted rant, like someone had hit the pause button. She looked rather comical, I thought, her right hand pointing up in the air and her left on her hip. I would have laughed had I not been so shocked at what Luke had just said. Luke adored his parents. Sure, he knew they were difficult sometimes, but he was always on their side. That was why he and Fleur fought so much. It was like they were on different teams, him on his parent's and Fleur on her very own. He had just said to me a couple hours ago that he would get them back on his side.

I searched Luke's face, expecting him to look conflicted and ready to take back his words, but all I could see was determination. His eyes seemed to be elsewhere, like he was concocting some kind of scheme, one that was more important than what was going on right there and then. It was an angry determination though, he looked on edge and unsettled. My hands itched to touch the crease between his brows to make it go away, to make him happy like he was not twenty minutes ago.

Finally, after an excruciatingly long stretch of silence, Fleur finally whispered, "Say that again."

Luke's firm frown turned to one of confusion.

"Say that again," Fleur repeated, louder this time.

A smirk twitched on the corner of his lips before he opened his mouth to say, "They're idiots."

And then Fleur did the unthinkable and wrapped her arms around her brother in, not a strangle or the beginning of a wrestling match, but an all-loving hug that I never thought I would ever witness in my life. I couldn't stop the smile that took over my face.

Alvin came and put his arm over my shoulders and whispered in my ear, "I just love happy endings. And I thought she was going to choke him."

Fleur pulled back and held Luke, who was a good foot taller than her, by the shoulders. "I have been waiting more than two decades to hear you say that, Lu."

We all just stood there after that, silently grinning at each other. Even though things weren't all hunky-dory at the time, it was as if a giant weight had lifted off all of our shoulders. A tension had been released. It was like an apology. Just a Luke and Fleur version of an apology. Which not one of us had ever seen. Sure, there was still a whole lot of crap going on at that time, but, in that moment, it felt like everything was going to be alright.