“My dad got arrested, his second DUI. Vincent was the prosecutor assigned to the case. During the hearing, he’d seen what no one else had, and figured out my parents hurt me. Afterward, he told me I deserved better and should come live with him. I’d just graduated college, living at home, saving for a place of my own, and I was desperate. So when he offered I said yes.”
If I’d known then what I know now, I would’ve run. But I’d only seen safety, an escape from the constant fists thrown at me and the screaming. I was a walking example of the truth in the saying “better the devil you know.” I’d chosen a new devil thinking he’d be my savior.
Luke didn’t move closer, but somehow the space between us shrank with the way his soulful eyes, bleeding with compassion, bore into me.
“I get being desperate and wanting out of a shitty situation,” he said. “When someone finally sees you after years of being invisible? That’s like someone throwing you a rope when you’re hangin’ off a cliff by your fingernails. Of course you grab on.”
A weak laugh escaped me. “Yeah, well, I didn’t exactly trade up. After I moved in, we started dating. At first he gave me everything I’d never had—attention, care, affection. Six months in, the cracks started. Not big ones at first. A snappy word on a bad day. A ‘joke’ that wasn’t really a joke. Tiny things that were easy to ignore, and easier to forgive. Until they weren’t. It escalated one small concession at a time. By the time I realized how bad it was, I was already tangled up in him.”
I stopped, choking on the truth I should have known to avoid. Luke’s thumb stroked mine, calming me enough to continue.
“I think that’s part of what made it so hard to leave. It wasn’t only him I had to walk away from but also the life I’d built around surviving him. All the ways I’d shaped myself to exist alongside him, turning myself into version after version of whatI thought he wanted. If I left, I’d be abandoning who I’d become, and I didn’t know how to be anyone other than who Vincent, and before him my parents had made me.”
Luke nodded. “That’s totally a thing. You spend so long adjusting yourself to someone else’s moods that it just becomes who you are. Doesn’t mean you wanted it, and it sure as hell doesn’t mean you deserved it. It just means you did what you had to do to get through the days. Walking out isn’t as easy as stepping through a door and into a brand new life. It’s confusing and scary as hell. You gotta start over, and that, after everything, can be paralyzing.”
As he spoke, tears welled in my eyes and rolled down my cheeks. Luke had just named everything that made the whole situation so complicated. I didn’t know what to do with that understanding other than cry, apparently. Just great. Two breakdowns in less than twenty-four hours.
So weak. So sensitive. Are you a man or a pussy, Oliver?
With hasty hands I swiped at my cheeks, but the effort proved useless. I’d wipe them away and more would fall.
Luke’s arms rose, causing me to tense, but rather than the violent collision with my face or some other body part I’d been expecting, he extended them outward in the nonverbal invitation for a hug.
Not counting last night, I couldn’t recall the last time I’d been comforted when upset. While I should have been more hesitant and wary, the promise of what Luke offered was too tempting to resist and I moved into his arms. They secured themselves around my back. Alarmingly, I started to cry harder. I’d create a small pond at this rate.Pathetic.
“That’s it, let it out. Don’t bottle it up. It’ll eat you alive if you do. It’s okay to cry, Ollie,” Luke soothed.
Sinking deeper into the embrace, I pressed my face into his chest. The cotton of his shirt carried the faint scent of laundrydetergent. Everything about this felt good, too good. I hadn’t realized how starved for affection I’d been. The scraps Vincent had tossed me in rare moments of nicety didn’t compare to this. Not when some part of me always waited for the turn, for Vincent’s kindness to twist into viciousness.
“You know what the cruelest thing is? Crueler than the bruises, crueler than the emotional whiplash, the isolation, the fear?” I asked when the tears subsided.
“What?”
“In spite of it all, I still love him. Or maybe I love who he was, who I thought he was anyway, who he’d been in the beginning. The abuse erased many things, but not that, and I don’t know how to let go of that version of him. I don’t know how to stop loving someone who doesn’t exist anymore. I can’t reconcile the man who once saved me with the one who makes me afraid to breathe.”
“That makes sense. Your heart loves the version he showed you first. The one who pulled you out of hell. That doesn’t go away because he turned into an abusive jerk. If you can still love him after all you’ve been through, that tells me all I need to know about you.”
“And what does it tell you? That not only am I a pathetic fool but also an idiot?”
Careful not to push into the bruises, Luke brushed a tear from my cheek. “No, Ollie, it tells me you always try to see the good in people. After the life you’ve lived, you still give people a chance instead of turning bitter. That’s not pathetic or stupid. It’s beautiful.”
No one could be this kind. If not for the tears still drying on my face, I might have thought I’d finally snapped and started hallucinating. But if I were hallucinating, I wouldn’t be sitting here a wreck, stripped of even the pretense of dignity.
“I don’t want to live like this anymore. I can’t keep living like this. Loving someone who keeps hurting me and never knowing when it’s coming,” I said.
“Whatever you need to do next, I can help. You don’t have to decide right away, we can take some time to think about what you want while you heal. You’re welcome here as long as you need, but you have options. When you’re ready, I can walk you through them. You’re not alone anymore.”
My stomach chose that precise instant to gurgle, voicing its hunger. My face burned from embarrassment. Yep, further confirmation I was not hallucinating.
“That’s my cue to start breakfast for real,” Luke said with a light chuckle, but I didn’t think he was poking fun at me the way Vincent would have, berating me for having basic needs.
Chapter 7
Luke
Aculinary prodigy I was not, but I could make a decent breakfast from a skillet when it counted. The pan hissed with the butter. I cracked the first egg, then the second, careful not to rupture the yolks. Over easy wasn’t difficult in theory, but it demanded focus. A task that would serve me well while Oliver’s story settled in me.
I wanted nothing more than to hold him close, to fix what had been broken. But he didn’t need fixing, he needed room. Room to breathe. To decide. To be.
