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I stop him, “N-No. I upset them. Sophie will be a good distraction from them. I’m not –“ I take a deep breath, before forcing out a calm voice and somehow managing to meet his gaze in a steadily. “- I’m not myself right now. I don’t want her to see me like this. I’ll be fine.” My hands tighten on his. “Just stay with me. Don’t leave me alone.”
And he doesn’t.
Lucas’ house is a sprawling two story house with large grounds that, if I had been feeling like myself, I would have loved to explore.
However, the rain is also a hindrance as Lucas ushers me in and the run from the car to the door has me completely soaked.
My dad’s shirt is large on my frame and right now, it’s plastered everywhere.
“Careful,” Lucas tells me, guiding me to the right.
I notice the broken glass on the floor. “What-?” It’s then that I also see his injured knuckles.
“Don’t ask,” he mutters.
I have to ask though, “What happened? Did you punch the mirror?” I gape at him.
“Sort of.” He’s deliberately avoiding my gaze and I stand my ground and raise my shoulders. “Tell me what happened.”
He raises a brow at my stubborn attitude. “Awfully persistent, aren’t you?”
And then before I know it, I’m being thrown over his shoulder and carried up the stairs. I let out a startled cry, “Lucas!”
He just spanks my bottom once. “Good girls don’t ask too many questions.”
My cheeks burn in insult. “Say that again!”
He, very wisely, chooses to hold his tongue.
We enter a bedroom on the first right as we exit the staircase.
It’s done up in black and white hues with multicolored objects scattered across the room, mementos it seems.
Mindful of my arm, Lucas lowers me to the bed, carefully. “I’ll get you something to wear.”
In a matter of minutes, I’m wearing a blue button up shirt that’s quite loose and I flap the sleeves dangling way past my fingertips, experimentally.
Lucas enters the room, wearing just a pair of sweatpants and he eyes me before sitting down on the bed and pulling me towards him to stand between his legs. The other arm is useless the sleeve hanging down, so he starts rolling it up.
I stand still, meekly.
Once he’s done, he still doesn’t release me, finally saying in a low voice, “You don’t have to be brave in front of me all the time, Elise. When things are tough, I want you to tell me so we can share the burden.”
I purse my lips. “Those things – Lucas, they happened a long time ago. I didn’t even know I was holding on to them until today.”
He looks troubled. “Still. I never knew any of this. It feels like whenever I think I have a grip on who you are, I find out something new.”
“My father wanted me to take over the company from him. I don’t know how that went to this, but it got ugly pretty fast and now I feel guilty.” Remorse floods me for how I screamed at my father. “You think he’ll want to talk to me after this?”
Lucas sighs and pulls me closer, looking up at me, with a serious expression on his handsome face. “I think your parents need some time to come to terms with how they’ve treated you. But I know that they love you. They just have a different way of showing it.” He pauses then asks, “Why didn’t you ever go to them if you were going through such a hard time?”
So, he had heard it all.
“I never thought I would be welcome. They always dissuaded me from bringing my problems to them as a child, telling me to learn how to handle my problems myself, that it was the way the world worked. And as I grew up, I just started forcing myself to become independent; I never really looked at them as people whom I was supposed to depend on. When I applied for colleges, I had to pick the cheaper one because I couldn’t afford the one offering the program I wanted.” I tug at his hand and say, fiercely, refusing to be pitied, “Don’t feel bad for me. If nothing else, I know how I want to raise Sophie now. She won’t go through any of this. You see. Sophie will have you and she’ll have me. We won’t do this to her!”
“No, we won’t,” he vows.
My lips tug into a reluctant smile. “It’s going to be really awkward when I go back.”
