Outside || Luke Hemmings

Chapter 11

The next morning, I woke up at 6 AM because of the sunlight shining into my bedroom.
apparently I forgot to close the curtains last night.
I sighed and decided to get ready, giving myself a little bit of extra time to think about my decision.
Luke was going to be here around 9 AM, so I had 3 hours left to put some actual clothes on and make up my mind.
I took my time, taking a very long and hot shower, making sure to put some clothes on this time, before I went downstairs.
I ate my breakfast and watched some TV while waiting for Luke to show up.
A terrible knot had taken place in my stomach as I started to get more nervous.
I constantly looked at the time and the closer it came to 9 AM the longer the minutes seemed to take.
The doorbell rang 30 minutes after I sat down to eat breakfast and I jumped off of the couch.
I walked to the door and opened it. Luke stood in front of me without his usual smile on his face.
I let him in and closed the door behind him.
Luke already took place on the couch and I sat down right beside him.
The knot in my stomach grew tighter, but I knew I was making the right choice.
It would be hard at first, but I’d get used to it.
Luke stared at me, waiting for me to answer the question he asked last night.
‘Did you think about it?’ he asked when I didn’t say anything.
He sounded a little nervous and it was actually kind of adorable.
I nodded, looking at the ground.
‘I did’ I said, but before I had the time to give him my answer, he started talking.
‘I get it, if you don’t want to come with me,’ he said. ‘When I was on my way back to the hotel again I realised how desperate I sounded. You really need to make this decision for yourself. Don’t say yes just because I was being slightly pathetic.’
I nodded again, still not looking at him.
It went quiet for a few minutes, until I looked up at Luke with a little smile on my face.
‘I’m coming with you’ I said.
Luke smiled widely.
‘Really?’ he asked. ‘Are you really sure about this?’
I nodded, getting excited about this whole thing.
‘Yes, I’m sure. But I didn’t pac-’ I started but I was interrupted when Luke pulled me in a hug.
A hug that I didn’t see coming, making me fall back on the couch with Luke right on top of me.
He pulled himself up on his arms, lifting his body off of me.
‘Thank you’ he said, looking down at me.
There was a huge smiled plastered on his face, and at that moment, I knew I made the right decision.
I laughed and pushed him away, making us both sit down again.
‘What were you saying?’ he asked.
‘I was saying that I didn’t pack my stuff yet because it was too late for that last night.’ I laughed.
‘Do you have a suitcase?’ he asked.
‘We do, but it’s either in my parents room or in mine’ I answered.
Luke nodded and stood up.
‘I’ll look for it in your parents room, you just look in your own’
I agreed with him and stood up as well.
We walked upstairs. Luke stopped in front of my parents room and waited for me to be inside mine, before he opened it and walked inside.
I walked straight to my closet, and started jumping like a little kid who’s trying to find some hidden candy.
The only place it could be was either on top of my closet or under it.
It wasn’t on top of it, so I bend over to look under it.
‘I’ve got it!’ Luke yelled.
‘Okay!’ I yelled back, waiting for him to show up in my room.
I opened my closet and sat down on my bed, which was right in front of it. This was basically how I always sat down when I didn’t know what to wear.
Luke walked into my room with the suitcase in his hands.
‘Okay, you’re going to need pretty much everything you own because we’ll be gone for about 2 months.’ Luke said, dropping the suitcase on the bed behind me. I stood up and started grabbing my clothes off of the hangers.
‘Oh,’ Luke started talking. ‘I also got these out of your parents room.’ He showed me the dress and ugly sweater I cried on a few days ago.
‘I just thought, maybe, you’d feel less like you’re leaving them behind if you take something of them with you’
I smiled at him while folding my jeans as small as possible. ‘Thank you’ I said, putting my jeans in the suitcase and taking the clothes from Luke.
I looked at them for a minute, rubbing over my dad’s ugly sweater with my thumb.
‘I can take them back if you don’t want them’ he softly said.
‘No, I do want them,’ I answered quickly. ‘I was just thinking about the day they wore this’
I sat down, still holding the clothes and smiled.
‘Do you want to tell me about it?’ Luke asked, taking place beside me.
I nodded, thinking of the right part to begin my story.
‘When I was about 12 years old, I was going absolutely crazy because I couldn’t get outside. I was bored out of my mind every day, and all I could think of was how to get out of this house. Until my parents figured out I was just bored and needed some distraction. So I woke up one morning, went downstairs because I was hungry, and I ended up having a food fight with my mom. I always ate cornflakes for breakfast, and when I got  in the kitchen that morning, my mom was wearing this dress.’ I started talking while pointing at the dress. ‘It was ice cold outside, at least that’s what they told me, but my mom loved this dress, so she would wear it anyway. she got me my breakfast and “accidentally” dropped all of the milk from the bowl over my head. So I grabbed the closest, food related thing I could find and threw it at her. And that’s really how it started. In the end we were sitting on the ground beside each other, giggling like little girls. Completely out of breath. Everything was spread around the entire kitchen. At some point I even grabbed a banana and spread it out on her back.’ I laughed at the memory and looked up at Luke who was smiling too. ‘My dad had gone grocery shopping so when he got back he exploded. He always wanted the house spotless. Throughout the years he got more and more obsessed over it. He’d sometimes vacuum clean the whole house 2 or 3 times a day, just to make sure it was really clean. So you can imagine how pissed off he was when he found us sitting in the kitchen, with squashed bananas and pancake batter pretty much everywhere. He ended up cleaning the kitchen about 5 times and the rest of the house about 3 times, and even after that it wasn’t clean enough for him. He was wearing this sweater at that moment. He didn’t talk to me all day, but the day after all of this happened, he apologized and told, me what he wanted most, was for me to be happy, and if that’s what made me happy, I didn’t have to feel bad about doing it’ I ended my story, staring at the clothes. ‘that’s really the only memory I have of them wearing these things at the same time. My dad absolutely hated this thing, so he only wore it once, maybe twice, just to make my mom happy’
‘They sound really nice’ Luke said.
I nodded and stood up, folding my parents clothes and carefully putting them in the bottom of the suitcase.
We were quiet for a few minutes.
Both stuck deep in our own thoughts.
we continued packing my stuff, I got them out of my closet and he put them in the suitcase.
He had much more experience with packing suitcases so I was pretty sure he could get in more than me.
‘How is this thing even going to fit on your car?’ I asked.
Luke narrowed his eyes while looking at me.
‘Don’t doubt the car’ he jokingly said.
 I laughed and handed him more of my clothes.