Chapter 25.

671K 12.9K 16.3K
                                    

"You left your sweater at my house." Luke's voice appeared in my ear as I was putting a book away in my locker.

I turned around to face him, and he did not look happy. I still pulled him into a big hug, however, because he hadn't been to school in the past three days and I was about to go come to him myself if he stayed home any longer. Luke didn't do anything, though, instead he reached around my body and chucked my sweater into my now empty locker.

"Luke, come on." I groaned. I heard Luke sigh into my ear before he finally wrapped his arms around me, but didn't hold me as tight as he normally would. "What's wrong?"

"You left your sweater on the floor of my room, Stel. My mom found your sweater on the floor of my room." Luke said, pulling away.

"What did she say to you?" I gasped. I knew that Luke's little plan of getting me out of his house wasn't going to work, I knew that he would only get in trouble for it.

"She didn't say anything." Luke snapped at me, and I knew exactly what he meant. His mom had hurt him, again, even after we all thought that things were getting better.

"Are you okay?" I asked quietly.

"I'm fine, Stel." Luke said. He backed away from me and ran his fingers through his hair, letting out another big sigh.

"You really need to tell someone about this, Luke. This isn't okay." I said, reaching out to grab Luke's hand. He flinched, but once he realized that I just wanted to hold his hand he returned to normal and let our fingers lace themselves together.

"It will be okay, as long as you don't do anything like that again." Luke muttered. He stared down at the floor, like he couldn't quite meet my eyes.

This time it was me who let out a big sigh. As unhappy as I was that Luke had gotten in trouble because of me, I really didn't understand why he seemed to be blaming me for all of this. I know that's it's my fault for leaving my shirt in his room in the first place, but there were plenty of things that he and I both could have done to make sure that Luke's mom didn't find the shirt.

"So this is my fault?" I asked, dropping Luke's hand.

"No, no it's not. I'm sorry, Stel." Luke shook his head. "I've had a really bad week, I didn't mean to get upset with you. It's not your fault."

"Whatever, it's fine." I said softly, although I still didn't understand this whole thing. I did understand Luke and where he was coming from, though, and I knew that he sometimes said things he didn't mean. Luke looked up at me, almost as if he was surprised that I was forgiving him.

"Can we just go to lunch now, please?" Luke asked, now ignoring the whole conversation completely.

"Yeah." I nodded again, grabbing Luke by the arm and dragging him down the hallway.

He wrapped his arm around my waist and leaned in, leaving a short kiss on my temple. When I looked up at him again he wore a big grin on his face, seeming to be in a better mood already. This was still one of the biggest mysteries about Luke, the way that he could go from angry to happy in seconds.

"Are you okay?" Luke asked me, leaning down so he was closer to my height. His words startled me, I had been staring at him for what felt like so long that I was already lost in my own little world.

"Why wouldn't I be?" I chuckled nervously. Luke was laughing at me now, and I wondered what I had done to amuse him like this.

"You almost ran into that kid back there." Luke said, continuing to laugh.

"Right." I smiled. "I'm fine."

"You were starting at me." Luke smirked.

We entered the lunchroom where I could see that Michael was already sitting down at our usual table, and I ignored the few comments Luke and I received as we walked by. Most of them were asking who Luke even was, since he was so anti social around here. But there were a few about Ashton and I too, which didn't make me feel very good.

Fall.Where stories live. Discover now