I pulled over on the side of the highway and broke down crying. I pulled out my phone and dialed the only number that made sense. After two rings he picked up.
"Em it's 4:45 am I'm sleeping"
"Oh I-I'm sorry I shouldn't have called this early. I'll call Larissa" I cried
"Emma come over now. Back doors open." And with that he hung up.
Luckily Luke only lived about 25 minutes away. I merged back into a lane and drove about 15 minutes. Once I got to his house I pulled up to the back of the driveway and ran inside.
"Luke..."
He ran over and hugged me.
"Em what happened? What's going on?"
I just fell to the floor and broke down again. Thank god Luke's parents are always out of town.
"Babe no don't cry, please don't come on let's go get you to bed."
I caved into his chest and he scooped me up and carried me into his room. This was all so surreal. I'm used to getting abused, I'm used to having to defend myself at all times. Even though we had been together for 6 months I still wasn't used to feeling safe. I was so used to having to take care of myself. But now I had to take care of myself without a place to call home. And that was a scary, scary thing to imagine.
---
"Hey sleepy head time to get up." Luke whispered.
"Ugh but I'm tired." I whined
"Its 7:15 you beautiful mess."
Well that's a way to wake me up.
"We need to go to school!! I have 3 tests, I need to get gas, oh god I left my stuff on the kitchen floor and where's my guitar?! Oh god I need to call Larissa and see if I can stay there. Oh my god I forgot to charge my pho-"
Luke put his finger on my lips to cut me off before I had a full on panic attack.
"Emma, calm down. I took care of all of that. Your phones on 100% your car has a full tank, I put away all your clothes in my brothers old room which is right through the bathroom if you don't remember and I might've went through your phone to see what you needed to go pick up so I went and bought everything. By the way, how much face makeup does one girl need?
I can't believe he did that. He must've had to get up at 5 to get everything done.
I looked into his crisp blue eyes and sighed. "I love you, you know that right?"
"Mhm. And I love you more which is why you're staying with me. There are pancakes on the table downstairs."
"Oh.......um.....okay.." tears started to well up in my eyes. The pancakes. That's what my mother made me just hours ago.
"What's wrong love?"
"My mom made me pancakes this morning."
"Oh I didn't know. How about we go to Dina's instead. I know how much you love her breakfast sandwiches."
"Mhm...can I get a shower please?"
"Yes, come on."
---
"Babe it's 7:25 school starts in 45 minutes!" Luke called out.
"Okay, okay I'll just be a minute. And by the way school starts at 8:15 and its 7:25 which leaves me 50 minutes." I sound like such a geek yeesh.
I stepped out of the warm shower letting all my thoughts stay there. I quickly wiped the fog off the mirror so I could fix myself up, and soon as I looked in the mirror all the memories came flooding back. Bruised forehead, cuts on my arms. Look down at my legs and oops more cuts, more bruises, a couple burns here and there. I held back the tears and went to grab my clothes when Luke walked in.
"Ba-" he stopped in his tracks and looked me up and down.
"Emma....who did this to you..." Tears welled up in his eyes and poured down his face.
"My mom made the burn marks. My dad made the bruises and sometimes they swapped, and I.....well I made the cuts." I looked folded my arms tight to my chest and looked away from him.
"Oh my god....come here" he walked over and pulled my wet body in to kiss my forehead.
"I'm so sorry Luke I tried to stop. I tried to get them to stop but I'm just too weak."
"No. Never call yourself weak again. You are strong and beautiful and wickedly talented. You are my world my sun and my stars. You are not weak."
