group chat ➳ l.h. [completed]

n i n e t e e n

It took quite a bit of convincing to get Luke to agree to let me get out of the house, considering I've been with him since the day mom left.

And also since my birthday was in two days.

In two days I would be considered an adult. The thought was scary, but life was scary. And I was so ready for it.

But besides that, I had told Luke I was going to hang out with a friend named Melissa. A name I had made up in my head when he asked where I was going.

I wouldn't dare tell him I was going to meet a boy, especially Joseph.

But I had to go, for what he saw was something that couldn't be ignored. I had to tell him everything.

Well, maybe not the days I've dreamt of Luke pleasuring me against my closet door, or the days his fingers gathered the moisture from my opening and rubbed it towards my clit. Or the nudes we've exchanged through the Group Chat.

Those days would be kept a secret.

And now as I've thought of those memories on the seat of the wooden picnic table in front of the pond at the towns park, I've grown to miss them.

I remembered Luke's lips like it was yesterday. Well, it was yesterday, but it felt longer than that.

It felt like a decade ago since I've thought of the idea that things between me and Luke might just not work out in any way.

This morning when he leaned in to kiss me, I let him, but did not kiss back. For the guilt was pricking at me like a sharp needle.

Yellow ducks quacked as a warm gust of wind blew through my hair, and at that moment I looked up to see Joseph walking towards me with his hands stuffed in his jean pockets.

We agreed to meet at this park, for it was the same place we went to a field trip in our class together in elementary school. Those were the days that I only had to have one class a day. I missed those easy days, but now they were replaced with seven classes and unbelievable stress and anxiety added along with them.

I remember the younger me throwing pieces of bread into the pond beside me. I would laugh as the ducks swam to the food like their life depended on it, and I would also remember the caramel colored boy across the pond throwing bread as well. He was laughing too, except not at the ducks.

He would look at me.

Heat would rush to my cheeks, for I believed he was laughing at me for doing something dumb. But now that I thought about it, I wasn't doing anything dumb except throwing pieces of bread. So why was he laughing?

"Hey," I spoke, forcing a smile as he attempted to do the same, but failing afterwards just like I had.

"Hey." Joseph replied, sitting across from me on the wooden seat of the picnic table.

The sound of children playing tag and chasing after the ice cream truck was heard from my right, and I could not help but look, for I envied the children.

Their innocence, their passion for life, I envied it all. But also felt sorry for the children, because once they grow up and learn of reality, it may destroy them.

"Your step-father," he hesitated, "Your Luke, isn't going to pop up anywhere is he?" He asked, looking left from right.

"He isn't my anything. It was a mistake."

"What was a mistake? That you were kissing him in only your underwear?" His dark brows lifted, and I swallowed a forming lump in my throat.

"Yes. It shouldn't have happened, he just-"