*A/N-I apologize for the extremely short chapter! But the next chapter I'm uploading right away! This is just Luke's POV and he isn't thinking much at all right now. Anyway hope you enjoy!!
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I couldn’t feel anything. I was numb. I forced all anger and pain out of my body. I couldn’t deal with it. Not without him.
She thought she knew how it felt. She had no fucking clue. I thought I would be ready for it, I had known that it was coming. But who would be ready for something like this? Who could prepare for something as world-shattering as your dad dying? The man who I had looked up to since I was born. The man who first showed me how to throw a football. Who came to every game. Who supported me even when no one else would. Believed in me when I felt like giving up.
Why? I asked him. Why did you have to leave? Why now? My dad would never see me play college football. He would never see me get married or see his grandkids.
I punched the wall, knocking a hole in it and tearing up the skin on my knuckles. No one rushed in to ask what was wrong. They knew what was wrong. They didn’t have to ask.
I ignored the people that came in and out of the house to “comfort” us. I stayed in my room, not wanting to see the pitying faces of my used-to-be classmates. They didn’t give a shit. They only wanted to look like they were giving a shit. Afterwards they would just go on living their fucking lives as if nothing had happened.
I stayed in my room for two days. I didn’t come out for anything. No one bothered me. Tuesday morning, someone rapped quietly on my door. I didn’t answer. Instead, I stayed laying on my bed. Knock. Knock. Knock.
“What?” I shouted, throwing a tennis ball I had found underneath my bed over and over again against the wall in front of me.
The door opened, and in stepped Brittany. I shook my head, refocusing. Something in my chest froze before I realized it wasn’t her. The woman in front of me was shorter, and older. Rachel, Brittany’s mother.
“Hey Lucas,” Rachel smiled weakly, “Can I sit down?” she asked, walking over hesitantly and gesturing towards the edge of my bed. I swallowed, nodding.
She sat down onto the bed, the weight from her small body not making it move much. “How’re you doing?” she asked me.
I sighed, not trusting myself to answer. I continued throwing the tennis ball against the wall. Rachel waited for me to answer. When she realized I wasn’t going to, she placed a small hand on my upper arm, stopping me from throwing the ball again. “I know it’s hard, Lucas. Harder than any of us could possibly know. But you can’t do this. Not to your mother. It’s been a hard two days for her, and without you, she’s taking it even harder. I think to her, it’s as if she lost both of you,” Rachel’s words made me tense, a pang of guilt making my stomach clench.
I hadn’t thought of my mother. I had only thought of myself, and the fact that my dad left me. I hadn’t thought that he had left someone else as well. I went back to one of the last times I had spoken to my dad, fighting back the deep hole of depression that memories of him sent me into. He had told me to take care of my mother, because she was going to take it extremely hard. He told me to be the man of the house. And look what I was doing. My dad would be ashamed of me.
I met Rachel’s eyes, her eyes the same color as her daughter’s. Nodding, I sat up. “I’ll be there in a few minutes,” I told her, and she nodded before leaving my room. I went into the bathroom and brushed my teeth. I stared at myself in the mirror. I could do this. I had to be strong for Mom.
Another thought came to mind as I watched the gaunt, unrecognizably tired person stare back at me. My father told me to keep living after he left. He told me to get on with my life. I realized I was letting him down, holing myself up in my room like this. Shaking my head, I splashed water on my face. Two days he was gone and I was already lacking behind in what he wanted me to do.
I pulled on some jeans and a t-shirt, before walking into the kitchen, where the woman my father had left me in charge was waiting.
I couldn’t help but think of another woman he had told me to take care of.
She didn’t need my help.