Charlie's POV
"Charlie? Answer me. Where did those marks come from?" He asked again.
"Nowhere. I must of just fallen or something." I lied. Which was becoming a bad habit of mine.
"I don't believe that shit. Charlie, please just tell me. I don't want you to get hurt anymore." He begged. I wanted to tell him, I really did, but if I told Luke I would just get hurt again and there's a chance Luke could too. I didn't want to risk anything.
"Please. I'll do anything for you to just tell me, princess." He was becoming desperate. I felt bad, but I couldn't tell him. Maybe if he knew then he could scare off Jake, but he also could overreact and end up hurting Jake. He could help, he could also make things worse. Jake could hurt him, Luke can handle himself though. This constant battle in my head was getting old and Luke was becoming frustrated more and more each second I was keeping my silence. I should just tell him.
"Well, I was just getting my stuff from my locker when Jake came to talk to me. I told him that I was with you, and started to walk away, but he grabbed my arm and that's how the marks happened." I said, trying to make it as innocent as possible and purposefully leaving out the whole thing with him doing anything to get me. I knew Luke would already freak out from Jake just talking to me, Luke did not need to know anything else.
"I'm gonna kill him for touching you. Did he do anything else?" Luke jumped off of my bed and walked to my door.
"No." I said quietly, but he gave me a doubtful look.
I told him about Jake's threat, and begged him not to do anything. But, of course, Luke didn't listen. He bolted down my stairs and I ran after him.
"We told you to stay away from him, young lady." My mom yelled from the living room.
"Not now, mom!" I started to open my door, but she came and pulled me back.
"Do not speak to me like that. And stay away from him. He's a bad example for you." She said while blocking the front door.
"You can't say that! He hasn't done anything to you or me or anyone! He's not a bad example, I already explained to you what he has done for me! Just let me follow him!" While talking, I was apparently using my arms a lot and she noticed the red marks on my arm.
"Did he do that?" She grabbed my arm to examine them.
"No. Just let me through. Please, he's gonna do something really stupid and I need to stop him." I pleaded.
"No, go upstairs. You don't need him." She clearly wasn't going to change her mind, so I ran up to my bedroom with tears streaming down my face. She didn't know that I did need him. Without him, I didn't know where I would be right now. I put on this tough girl act here because when I didn't have it, I would just get picked on and bullied at my last school. But Luke helped me realize that I didn't need to put up an act, he helped me through everything. I noticed my window while I was thinking. I pulled it open and climbed out of it. I had to find Luke. He was probably at Jake's house, but I didn't have any way of getting there. I pulled out my phone and called the first person I could think of.
"Charlie? What do you need?"
"P-please can you just come take me to Jake's house. L-luke's gonna do something s-stupid. Please." I begged.
"Of course, I'll be there soon." I hung up and waited for a few minutes before a familiar car pulled up in front of my house.
"Thanks Mikey."
"No problem." The car ride was silent until we pulled up in front of Jake's house. Luke's car was here too. I raced to the house. Michael tried to pull me back because he didn't want me to see what might be going on in there, at least that's what he told me, but I needed to at least try to stop Luke from doing whatever he was going to try and do. Once I burst through the door, I saw something I could never unsee. Luke had Jake on the floor and was punching him senseless.
"Luke!" I screamed. He ignored me and kept hitting Jake. Michael had come in with Ashton and Calum. He pulled me out of the house while Cal and Ash tried to pull Luke off of Jake.
"Mikey what's gonna happen to Luke?" I said through my tears.
"I don't know. But everything will be ok, I promise." He tried to sooth me. I heard police sirens coming from the distance, they started getting louder meaning they were getting closer.
"M-mikey?" I stuttered.
Shit, He's fucked. I heard him mutter under his breath.
"He's fucked? What do you mean? Who's fucked? Luke? Why? What's gonna happen?" I asked question after question until 2 police cars pulled up in front of Jake's house. The police officers ran past us and went inside the house. I tried breaking from Michael's grip, but he just held on to me. I saw two police officers pulling Luke from the house. More tears just kept coming. This time when I tried to run, Mikey let me.
"Luke? What's going on?"
"Miss, please step out of the way." One of the officers said.
"Not until someone tells me what the fuck is going on." I demanded. The officer who spoke before looked annoyed but talked anyways.
"Mr. Hemmings is under arrest for assault towards Mr. Ford for the second time. We told him last time that if this happens again, he would be arrested." I moved out of the way, not making eye contact with Luke. Twice? He's done this twice? I looked at Luke being guided to one of the cop cars, he was trying to get out of their grip and was shouting something. I couldn't understand most of it, but I did catch one thing, "Charlie! I love you!"
A year later
Charlie's POV
A year. It's been a year since Luke was taken away. It's been a year since I last saw him. It's been a year since I talked to him. It's been a year since he told me he loved me. In the past year, my life went downhill. Ever since Luke left, I shut everyone out. No matter how much anybody tried, I wouldn't open up. The only people that were happy, were my parents. Luke left, and I was back to my quiet, nerdy self again. They didn't have to worry about me again. I hadn't talked to the boys or Kassidy ever since Luke was officially put in jail, which was a month after he was taken away. I had graduated high school and decided to take a year off before going to college. While I was thinking about everything that happened in the past year, someone knocked on my door.
"Come in." I said quietly.
"Charlie? Someone called the house and wants to talk to you." My little brother told me and the home phone to me.
"Thanks Dan." I took the phone, "Hello?"
"Miss. Springs?" A deep voice spoke.
"Yeah?"
"Tomorrow is Mr. Hemmings's release date. You were who he said he wanted us to call to come pick him up."
"Oh." I didn't know what to say. Luke still wanted to be apart of my life.
"You will need to come get him at 7:30 a.m. We will see you then." The man hung up, not letting me get another word in. I guess I was going to have to pick Luke up tomorrow. I was not ready to see him again. It was around 11, so I decided to try to sleep. I couldn't sleep very well, I kept waking up and trying to go back to sleep. At around 6, I just gave up and got up. I threw on a random hoodie over my pajama top with some sweats and walked downstairs as quietly as possible because everyone else was asleep. I grabbed the keys to my new car and decided to just go for a drive for a little bit before having to pick up Luke. I didn't know where I was going, but once I got to where I was going I knew it was stupid. I climbed up into Luke's tree house and just sat down in the middle of it. I tried to clear my thoughts, but I could only think of Luke. I had no idea what I was going to do when I picked him up. I wasn't even sure if I wanted to see him again. I decided that being in his hideout wasn't helping and went back to my car to drive to go get him. The ride there was too fast, I didn't want to do this, but I didn't have a choice. As soon as I walked in the police station where they were keeping Luke, I had a weird feeling in my stomach. It could have been nerves, or excitement. Luke was sitting on a bench with his head down. He hadn't noticed me yet, so I took this opportunity to stare at him. He hadn't changed at all, he still had his hair in the same messy quiff, he still had his lip ring, and no new tattoos were added. I snuck past him to go talk to one of the officers who were waiting behind a desk.
"Are you here to pick up Luke Hemmings?" The man asked me.
"Yeah." I nodded my head.
"Okay, just sign here and you can take him." He handed me a piece of paper than I signed quickly. I just wanted to get this over with. Luke had finally noticed me and he started to smile, but stopped once he saw that I wasn't happy to see him.
"Lets go." I walked past him and he quickly followed me. Nobody talked until we got into my car.
"I'm sorry, Charlie. I should have-" He started.
"No Luke. Just drop it. I didn't want to do this, I had to. I never wanted to see you again, but I had to come pick you up. Do you even know what I've had to go through for the past year? No of course you don't because you weren't here. You were in jail because you almost killed a kid. You couldn't just listen to me when I said not to do anything stupid. If you weren't being a fucking dick, we wouldn't be here. We could have graduated together, we could have gone to prom together, we could be happy right now!" I was letting all of the anger I've been bottling up for the past year.
"Charlie just listen to me, please." He begged.
"No Luke. I'm done with putting up with this. I shouldn't have to worry about you hurting other people if they talk to me. You should be able to control your anger and jealousy." I was done yelling at him for now.
"You're right. You shouldn't have to deal with that. I should have been there for you. We should have gotten to go to prom and graduate together. I shouldn't have done what I did. I'm sorry. Please Charlie. You said you wouldn't leave me. You promised." Luke was almost in tears. I was about to give in because, if I'm being completely honest, I missed him. I missed him sneaking into my bedroom, I missed him cuddling with me until I fell asleep, I missed him protecting me, I missed him singing to me, I wanted him back because I love him. In the past year, I've realized that I did. I didn't want to live without him, but I had to. I didn't want to have to put up with everything, but it might be worth it to be with Luke.
"Yeah, well I said that before you left me." I stopped the car even though we were still 20 minutes from my house. I got out of the car and started running. I didn't know where I was running, but I kept going. I eventually stopped and heard footsteps catching up to me. I didn't care, I just sat down and started to cry. I felt Luke pull me into his chest with his arms wrapped around me.
"Please, princess, don't leave me. I need you, and I know you need me. We can work through this." He said. I stayed quiet. Then I looked up at him and told him,
"Luke, I love you, but I don't want you to hurt me again."