I FIND LUKE SEATED on the couch in the living room, his elbows dug into his knees and his head resting in his hands.
I let out a long breath before approaching him slowly, cautiously, as if one move might awaken a beast — and rightfully so. I'm not quite sure which Luke I am going to face — the sad, woeful Luke or the angry, fired up Luke. When I finally reach the couch, Luke still makes no move to look at me, but I know he must be aware of my presence. So, I slowly take a seat and place a careful, soft hand on Luke's shoulder.
"Hey," I breathe the word softly, again in fear of some type of outburst. "You okay?"
Finally, Luke lifts his head from his hands, to my surprise revealing a red, splotchy, tear-stricken face. I try my best to allow my neutral expression to remain as Luke sniffles and wipes his nose. He doesn't appear to be crying hysterically, simply softly, but I am surprised all the same.
"Everybody thinks I'm a terrible person," Luke manages to choke out, his gaze not quite meeting mine, but rather trained on the floor.
I shake my head instantly, my hand coming forward to rub his back soothingly. "That's not true," I argue.
"Yes it is!" Luke cries out, finally coming to look up at me through teary, blue eyes. "They think I drove off that bridge on purpose."
I shake my head again, brows furrowed as I watch this typically strong boy fall apart at the words of a few ignorant teens. "No they don't, Luke," I assure him, though even I'm not sure that this is true. "Nobody thinks that."
He seems to ignore my words this time, only shaking his head and leaning back into the couch, staring directly forward at the fireplace.
"People really think that I hate you so much that I'd try and kill you." The words escape cold and low, like a harrowing thought that had been echoing around Luke's mind for days, but that he had been too afraid to voice — and it likely was.
Seeing him this way breaks my heart in two. He seems so defeated — his limbs soft and numb, his body slouched, his smile empty. Deep, dark circles are pressed beneath his eyes, sinking the now hollow beings further into his skull. He seems almost... dead. And all because of the accident. It seems that regardless of how many times I attempt to soothe him — regardless of what words or actions I use to convince him that he is forgiven — he will not forgive himself.
"Luke..." I trail off, unsure of quite what words to use when none of them seems to work.
He turns to me again, eyes filled with tears and the only emotion that he seems able to display as of recently — guilt.
"I feel awful," Luke confesses, tears already beginning to stream down his face. "Rory, I'm so sorry. What I did... everything I've done..." he is unable to get a full sentence out now, beginning to sob, his head buried in his hands, "...I'm awful."
My heart shatters all over again as I watch Luke break down before my eyes. All those walls Luke built up to protect himself from others, to stop everybody from seeing the real him, have fallen right before me — that's how I know this must be bad. I wonder if this is how he felt watching my life almost fade in the accident. Once I put that into perspective, I begin to understand, even just a little, how he must be feeling — particularly with the entire world seemingly blaming him.
"Luke," I attempt to pry his hands from his face, but he continues to hide away from me. I let out a sigh and resort to stroking through his hair gently. "You need to forgive yourself."
"I can't," he sobs instantly, shaking his head.
I let out another sigh and pry his hands from his face again. "Look at me," I instruct, doing my best to portray a firm and stern voice, and to my surprise he does look up. I take a moment to stroke away the tears on his face, pressing a soft kiss underneath both his eyes, before speaking. "What happened is nobody's business. It's between you and me, okay? Nobody else." Luke nods at this, though I'm not sure he entirely believes it. "I forgive you, Luke — in fact, I never even blamed you." Luke nods again, though he still doesn't appear to really be taking in my words, so I lean forward and grasp his face gently but surely.
"I care about you, Luke — so much. I don't care what anybody else thinks happened in that accident. None of that matters. What matters is what I think — and I think that you saved my life. I think that we both made a stupid mistake. And I think that you're punishing yourself for it, and you shouldn't be."
Luke gazes into my eyes, his blue ones seemingly entranced, and I finally begin to feel like I'm getting through to him.
"It hurts me to see you like this," I tell him, my voice soft and gentle now. I bring a hand up to fiddle with his hair momentarily, then let it drop back to his cheek. "You need to forgive yourself. Can you do that? For me?"
Luke pauses, filling the room with a momentary, thoughtful silence, and then begins nodding. I cannot help the smile that breaks out on my face at this, and I only hope that he is being truthful. I lean forward and press a kiss to his lips, allowing us both to bask in the moment before pulling away.
"Thank you," Luke utters, a small smile on his face. His arms are woven around my waist, pulling me close to him, and I notice that I've never felt quite this safe before.
"For what?" I ask, slightly confused.
Luke looks over me, a knowing smile coming over his features. "Just... being you," he concludes, pressing another kiss to my lips before I can respond. When he pulls away again, Luke lets out a rough sigh and begins shaking his head. "My dad's going to kill me when he finds out I've applied to an East Coast school."
I think back to their argument at the table and furrow my brows. "Why does he want UCLA so bad?"
"I get a free ride at UCLA," Luke explains, still staring off at the fireplace. "He knows we don't have the money for another college — I'd need a scholarship."
"You'll get a scholarship, Luke," I tell him instantly, the words not even slightly untrue. "You're probably the smartest person I know."
Luke doesn't agree nor argue with this point, simply raises his brows and finally turns to me. "Tell that to my dad," he says, huffing slightly afterward. "He doesn't believe in me."
I reach out to Luke, placing a hand on his cheek and stroking the skin there softly. Luke leans into this, letting his eyes flutter shut momentarily as he does so. "Then he's an idiot," I tell him, offering a small smile.
Luke chuckles at this, nudging my hand away and instead tackling me down onto the couch in an aggressive hug. I squeal, afraid that he might start tickling me, but instead he plants small kisses all over my face and neck.
"Luke!" His name escapes in a mixed squeal-laugh as he continues kissing me.
I put my hands up slightly in a half-hearted attempt to defend myself, but all of a sudden Luke ceases his assault and looks down at me. My back is pressed into the arm of the couch rather uncomfortably, but the way Luke is looking at me through those sea-blue eyes stops me from moving even an inch.
"What?" I breathe, searching Luke's eyes and face for some kind of hint as to what emotion he is portraying.
He smiles at me — a kind of smile I've never seen before. It is all-knowing, revealing that something is on his mind that I can't quite pick, but it is also happy. It is the happiest smile I've ever seen on Luke, and the fact that it is seemingly reserved for me makes my entire being soar with joy.
"Nothing," Luke responds, though the smile doesn't disappear.
Instead, he begins kissing me again — really kissing me, this time. At first, it starts off sweet and innocent. The kisses are soft and gentle, portraying everything we are both too afraid to speak out loud. Then, after a few moments, they become more heated; more passionate. My hands reach up to tangle in Luke's hair, searching there at first before tugging, eliciting a soft moan from his lips. Our tongues intertwine, lips locked together as our bodies press tightly together.
Luke's hands are on my waist, pulling me impossibly closer to him, as we continue kissing passionately. He moves down to my neck, nipping and sucking at the skin there. I am sure he is set to leave a mark, but I cannot bring myself to tell him to stop amidst the pleasure. Luke pinches my waist as he moves further down my neck, quickly approaching my chest and pressing a few sparse kisses there. I am wearing a low-cut dress, providing him with easy access to where I am sure he is bound to venture, but my heart begins to race as he brings a hand up to slide the strap of my dress aside, and I am becoming all too aware of our surroundings.
We are at Luke's house, in his living room. Both of our families, neither of which are aware of our relationship, are only metres away happily enjoying a meal — one that I have been absent from for a suspiciously long amount of time. Luke and I are getting heated — too heated for the current circumstances. If things progress any further, we risk being caught out in a very uncomfortable situation.
"Luke," I mumble as he begins pushing aside my dress. He doesn't appear to hear me this time, or perhaps he doesn't listen, so I try again. "Luke, stop."
I bring my hands to his cheeks and pull his face gently up to meet mine. Luke peers up at me through those big, blue eyes, his lips a gorgeous pink and slightly swollen. "You okay?" He breathes.
"Yeah, it's just..." I begin, feeling a little bit disappointed that the action has stopped, but knowing that it is necessary. Luke pushes himself up on the couch to lay beside me, fully intent on listening to me. "I don't want to get caught."
Luke glances out to the door which I came in from, toward where our families are likely still eating, and nods softly. "Right," he agrees. "You're right."
Instead of moving apart, however, Luke wraps an arm around my shoulders and coaxes me to rest my head up against him. I do so willingly, finding the utmost comfort in the gesture, curling my body up against his and beginning to draw patterns on his chest. Luke allows his free hand to come up and fiddle delicately with my hair, twisting the strands between his fingers and stroking them down neatly.
After a few moments of blissful silence, I look up to Luke and see him staring straight at the ceiling in silence. "What are you thinking about?" I ask, watching as he turns to me with a small but happy smile.
"You. Us," he answers instantly and honestly, reminding me again of how much this boy has changed in my eyes. "How crazy it is to think about how long we've spent hating each other. How wrong I was about you."
I can't help the smile that breaks out on my face at Luke's words. I, too, cannot believe how much has changed between us. I cannot believe how this boy who I once detested, who made my life a living hell, now makes me one of the happiest people in the world. I constantly think about how different our lives, and our story, might've been had this romance ignited years ago. Then again, I'm not sure I would change what has happened between us, regardless of how stressful it has been.
Before I have the opportunity to say any of this to the person who needs to hear it most, however, we are interrupted by the sound of somebody abruptly walking into the living room. Luke instantly shoved me off of him, sending me tumbling off the couch and straight into the ground, landing on the hardwood floor with an 'oomph'.
When I stand up, glaring across at Luke, I am equal parts surprised and horrified to find Nanna Mae standing before us.
"So this is where the two of you snuck off to," she accused croakily, waving her walking stick between us.
"It's not what it looks—" Luke begins, frantically attempting to explain away what she has just walked in on, though even I am unsure how somebody could do so.
Before he can finish, however, he is interrupted by a loud, hearty laugh from Nanna Mae. "Please," she shakes her head, already moving past us to take a seat in an armchair. "I've known this was going to happen since the day you two met. You never could leave each other alone."
I share a worried glance with Luke, unsure of what to make of the situation, but when he shrugs and takes a seat on the couch himself, I assume that there is no point continuing to deny the situation.
"Because we hated each other, Nanna," Luke responds. I am surprised by how honest he is being with her when he has been avidly denying our relationship to everyone else.
"The line between anger and passion is a blurry one," Nanna advises us, awing me with her wisdom. I take a seat finally beside Luke, now invested in the conversation. "It's easy to become confused." She points a shaky, bony finger at Luke before speaking again. "Your grandfather and I spent years detesting each other before we fell in love."
Luke furrows his brows in confusion. "I thought you and Pop were childhood sweethearts?"
Nanna Mae only rolls her eyes at this. "That's what he liked to tell people," she corrects him. "Jay and I couldn't even be in the same room together. That is, until my sister passed when I was twenty-one.
"When Jenny passed, I had nobody. My family were still living in Connecticut and I was here, in California. Jay was all I had. I needed somebody and he was there. We were inseparable after that. It turns out we had loved each other all along — we only manifested it in anger."
As Nanna Mae concludes her story, I turn to Luke. I begin thinking of all the times he had been there when I really needed somebody — with my Spanish grades, with Ashton, with the accident. Despite how much Luke apparently hated me, he had always come running when I called for him. Luke turns to me as I am mid-thought, a small smile breaking out on his face when he takes in my expression. I know that in this moment we share the same train of thought — we are like Nanna Mae and Jay. Only nobody had to die to bring us together — we did that all on our own.
"He's a troublesome boy," Nanna Mae calls our to me, pointing that bony finger at Luke. He lets out a defensive scoff, shaking his head, but she ignores him. "He's never quite known how to express his emotions. But I can tell how much he cares for you."
I reach across and grip Luke's hand, stroking the back of his palm softly, hoping that it conveys at least some of the words that I cannot bring myself to say. Luke turns to me, a slightly guilty expression overcoming his features. I frown at him, becoming confused as to why he appears so guilty.
"Rory, I have to—" Luke begins, looking as though he is about to confess something, but before he can somebody else comes barging into the living room.
I whip around, my hand flying away from Luke's, and meet my brother's eye. Calum stands before us, slightly confused at the situation, but upon seeing Nanna Mae's presence nods knowingly. The old woman, much like other elderly people, has always had a tendency to trap people into long, winding conversations — obviously this is what Calum thinks is occurring here.
"They're bringing out dessert," he announces, giving me a side wink as if to say 'you're welcome'. I roll my eyes at this, but stand up from the couch nonetheless.
"Ooh, I don't want to miss out on the chocolate cake," Nanna Mae gushes, standing up from her armchair as quickly as she can.
As we exit the room, returning back to the table with our families, I cast a glance back at Luke, only to find him harbouring that guilty expression. I only have one thought as we leave, and it makes me increasingly unsettled — what has he done?