Luke swallows, and his lower lip trembles as tears come to his eyes. He takes a deep, shaky breath and looks at me with a depth of soul-crushing agony that runs straight through me.
“And my mom…” he continues with a sob. “She eventually pulled him off me before it was too late. She was begging for him to stop. He almost didn’t. But once he let me go, she crawledright backinto his arms like nothing happened—consolinghim,like I’m the one who did something wrong. Like it’s perfectly normal for her husband to nearly strangle her son to death. She didn’t seem to give two shits about whether or not I was all right. She just kicked me out of the house—told me to get away. She should have leftwithme. Instead, she chose him over me.”
She chose him.The exact words that brought him such unfathomable anguish last night. I didn’t know the context then or how something like that could hurt him so much. Now I understand, and the thought brings tears to my eyes. My brain creates a perfect mental picture. Luke, lying helplessly under his stepfather’s grasp, his mom desperately trying to pull him off. Not being able to breathe, thinking it’s the end…and then finally being saved only to watch his mother console his attacker first.
“Luke….” I take a step toward him, wanting to comfort him. He holds his hand up and backs away, keeping the distance between us.
“I’ve spent the last few months trying to get her away from him,” he shouts, pacing back and forth across the floor, his whole body rigid. “I’ve wasted so much of my time helping her get her finances in order—putting a plan together to help her leave him for good. And so many times, we werethis closeto packing her bags and finally doing it. I’d almost convinced her to go. Then she’d back out at the last minute, claiming that he’s promised to do better from now on—that helovesher—only forhim to turn around and beat the shit out of her again two days later because she didn’t cook dinner the way he liked it.”
I’m frozen like a statue, listening to his painful words, watching how much it upsets him to speak, and knowing in some part that I’ve brought this out in him with my insistence that he let me in. My body aches with the desire to wrap him in my arms and ease some of his suffering, but he’s made it very clear he doesn’t want that right now.
“I put my life on hold coming back here to get her out,” he continues. “I lostmonthsof my happiness… I put mycareeron hold.”
He takes a deep, shuddering breath, gripping his hair until it looks like he’ll nearly pull it out. His voice is ragged, his anger circumventing the pain of his throat as he bellows his frustrations. I know he’s not letting all of this out for my benefit. Now that the floodgates are open, every pent-up emotion he’s kept bottled in for the last few months is gushing out of him beyond his control.
“Fuck! I turned down a part in a great show to be here for her! I left my cat alone for months, even though it broke my heart. I went through my entire life savings so she’d leave him. I did all of thisfor her, and how does she fucking repay me? She chooses to stay with her abuser two seconds after he nearly murders her only son. There’s no line he can’t cross. Even if he’d succeeded, she would probably justify it and stick with him until he kills her next.”
“Why don’t you go to the police?” I ask.
“The police don’t do fuckingshit,” Luke hisses, his words laced with venom. “Whenever they come to the house for a domestic dispute call, they just end up buying Pete’s bullshit and making it worse for her to deal with when they leave. All cops are bastards.”
“But look at what he did toyou,” I say. “You can press charges for aggravated assault.”
He shakes his head, tears in his eyes. “It’s still too risky. They’ll arrest him, but they won’t keep him there. He’ll get out on bail and go right back to hurt her in retribution.” Then he takes a shaky breath, his voice rising sharply in anger. “God, why am Istillprotecting her?”
He drops his shoulders, tears streaming down his face, his whole body shaking again. He turns his eyes to me, and the level of anguish in his expression stabs through me like a knife.
“Do you have any idea how it feels to watch your own mother abandon you for a monster?” His voice breaks. “What am I supposed to do with that?”
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this sooner?” I ask softly.
Luke scoffs, shaking his head as he looks away. “Don’t you start. You’re one to fucking talk. You have no right to judge me for the secrets I keep from you when you’re keeping a pretty massive one of your own.”
I frown with confusion. “What are you—”
“The house, Ethan,” Luke snaps. “Thefuckingtownhouse.”
I freeze, trapped like a deer caught in headlights. “Where did you….”
Luke walks back over to the counter and gently shoves Misty to the side from the stack of mail and papers she’d been sleeping on. That’s when I realize what they are—the closing documents for the purchase. I’d meant to take them upstairs and file them in my safe, but I got distracted with everything that happened yesterday and left them out in plain sight, completely forgotten. Luke must have found them when he came downstairs. That’s why he was so cold with me when I walked in. He wanted to confront me about it before everything took a turn.
“I can explain,” I say quickly.
“No need,” Luke snaps back, all of his cold vehemence turned on me. “Dmitry already told me everything. About the money. The house. All of it. I had to find out through my best friend that my boyfriend lied to me. And that he helped you do it!”
“I swear I was going to tell you soon,” I continue, knowing how feeble the excuse sounds in the face of Luke’s accusations. “I was waiting for the right moment. I wanted to tell you all along, but I was…afraid, maybe. I don’t know.”
Luke shakes his head and gives me a look of such reproach that I know he doesn’t believe me. “You’re afraid to do a lot of things.”
“What do you mean by that?” My hackles raise at the suggestion in his words. Is it a commentary on my slow roll in telling my friends the truth? That I’ve been too scared to come out?
Luke must think better about following that train of thought to where it leads. Instead, he changes trajectory as if he never said anything to that effect.
“I don’t care about the money, Ethan,” he says. “It means nothing to me if you’re rich or poor. You could have lived the rest of your life never telling me about it and that would have been well within your rights. The part that pisses me off is that you treat me like some fucking charity case with it.”
“What?” I scoff. “Where’d you get that impression?”
“The truck.” Luke stares me squarely in the eye. “Did your mom really give that to you because she didn’t need it anymore?”
