Page 47 of Weathering the Storm (Voice Out 1)
“Luke—” I gasped as my eyes fell on the blood. So much blood. I was about to ask him what happened when my eyes fell on the knife lying near his right hand and the slice on his left hand. Realization hit hard, and I took an involuntary step back. He’d cut himself.
I stood there for a long moment, unsure what to do, before shaking it off. He'd told me about this, and I should've expected something like this might happen. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I shuffled closer to him.
I fell to my knees, not giving a shit about the blood. “Lu, are you okay?” Luke squeezed his eyes shut but didn’t say anything. I got up, pulling him with me by his shoulders and led him to the stool by the sink. “Sit.”
He sat down, though his eyes were still closed. My eyes burned as I grabbed the first aid box from the cabinet as my mind raced, trying to figure out what had gone wrong. We’d had dinner with Mike and his family on Thursday, and even after Luke’s therapy appointment last Friday, he’d been pretty upbeat. Same for this morning. Had something happened at work?
I pulled his arm up, examining the cut as I wondered if it’d need stitches.
“It’s not deep,” Luke mumbled, though his eyes were still closed and his cheeks wet with tears, head bowed.
I cleaned the cut with alcohol wipes and grabbed some butterfly stitches, carefully applying them across the length of the cut. I wrapped it up with gauze, and then I was done. I held his arm as I tried to gather up my jumbled thoughts. I didn't know what to feel. A part of me was angry at Luke, angry that he'd hurt himself. But I knew that wasn't fair to him. Something had triggered him, and I needed to support him. I needed to be gentle with him. The last thing he needed was me blowing up at him because for a moment I'd thought I'd lost him forever.
“I’m so sorry, Scott. I know you probably hate me, but I’m so sorry. I—I just didn’t know what to do when the DA called. I was so scared, and I didn’t want to hurt you, but I couldn’t deal with it, and—” His eyes were still closed, his head hanging as if heexpectedme to shout at him. I grabbed his uninjured hand and pulled him to his feet. Then I led him outside the bathroom because I didn’t want to be looking at the blood anymore.
Once we were in the living room, I pulled Luke into my arms, holding him to me as he sobbed quietly. “You’re an idiot if you think I could ever hate you, Lu. You mean everything to me. Yes, I hate watching you like this but only because you’re hurting and I don’t know how to help. I don’t hate you, Lu. How could I, when I’m so in love with you?”
Luke leaned back then, though his arms stayed around me. Even with tears running down his face, he was the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen. I tucked his hair behind his ears as he stared at me, relief pouring out of him in waves. “You do? Even after…” His voice was a breathy gasp as if he couldn’t bring himself to believe what I’d just said.
I wiped his tears with my thumbs, and looking into his gray eyes, I repeated what I’d said before. “I love you, Lu. My love for you is not conditional. I’m not going to suddenly stop loving you because of something. Yes, I hate watching you hurting, but that just makes me want to hold you closer and make sure you’re not hurting anymore.”
Luke stared at me for a second more before leaning up on his toes and pressing his lips to mine. The kiss was soft and gentle, just like it always was with us, just like I loved kissing him. His lips were even softer from crying, and I traced them with my tongue, tasting the salt of his tears. I pulled back after a minute and grabbed his hand as I led him to the couch. I lay down, bloody jeans and all, and gestured for him to climb up. He lay down on top of me and pressed his face into the crook of my neck. I pulled his hair away from my mouth and curled my arms around him.
I waited for him to tell me what was wrong because I knew he would once he could deal with it. “I love you so much, Scott Riley.” Luke’s voice was soft as he spoke, and he smiled at me before burying his face in my neck again and taking a deep breath. That was one of his tells. I knew he was bracing himself to tell me whatever it was that had happened. I tightened my hold on him in support.
“The DA called. Marcusis getting out in a week.” I felt the shudder that ran through him and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. I didn’t know how long his sentence had been, but it looked pretty short to me. Was he getting off early for some reason or another? A parole maybe? That didn’t matter right now, though. What mattered was making sure Luke felt okay.
“Is that why…” I started to ask but then trailed off. What could I say?Is that why you were cutting yourself?
“When I was with him, he told me he’d find me if I ever ran away. He said he’d make me suffer for trying to leave him.”
“Oh, Luke. You know I’d do anything to keep you safe, right?”
“I know,” he mumbled against my skin, “but he told me that if I...if I was ever with someone else, he’d hurt them too. I don’t want him to hurt you.”
“Lu, don’t worry about me, okay? I can take care of myself.” I couldn’t imagine how scared Luke must’ve been when he’d gotten the call. I wished I could’ve been there for him even though I knew it wasn’t possible for me to always be there with him. He shouldn't have to deal with this, not when he'd been making such great progress with everything.
“I was so scared, and I thought—I thought that if I wasn’t here, he’d have no reason to hurt you. I—I tried to end it all, but I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to hurt you. I didn't want to lose all of this.”
“Oh, Luke…” I whispered, burying my face in his hair and breathing in his scent. My heart was thundering in my chest, and I was sure he could feel it. He’d been meaning tokillhimself? What if he’d been too panicked to realize he’d hurt me? Would he have done it then? Would I have come home to him bled out in the bathroom?
My hands were shaking when I caressed his cheek and tipped his chin up so he’d look at me. “Promise me something. Promise me you’ll never try to kill yourself again. If you ever—if you ever feel like that, you call me, okay? You talk to me, okay? Or you call Monica, if you don’t want to talk to me. I can’t—” I took a deep breath and cleared my throat. “I can’t bear to lose you, Lu.I can’t. So promise me that.” I couldn’t lose another person I loved. I wouldn’t be able to survive that. I wouldn’t be able to survive losingLuke.
Luke’s eyes were shining with tears, and I was sure mine were too. “I promise.”
“Good,” I said, squeezing him to me and never wanting to let go. “Good. We’ll deal with this together, all right?”
“Together,” Luke replied with a nod, holding on to me just as tightly. He was my everything, and there was no way I’d let that piece of shit hurt him more than he already had.
29
Scott
Itwasaweekbefore Christmas, and Luke had a surprise for me. At least, that was what he told me before ordering me to get dressed and then promptly dragging me to my car. I’d rarely seen him looking so excited about something, so it wasn’t a hardship to do exactly what he told me to.
“Take the next right,” Luke told me as he used his phone to navigate. Once we arrived at our destination, I looked at the three-story building we’d stopped in front of. It looked like a commercial building with a couple of signs on different levels, but my eyes fell on one of the shops on the first floor.
“A tattoo parlor?” I asked, turning to Luke to see if my guess was correct.
