I'm Only Human (Lashton)

I'm Only Human

This is a collaboration with @5sosandfood and is every bit her story as it is mine.

-~*~-

I'm only human, and I bleed when I fall down

I'm only human, and I crash and I break down

Your words in my head, knives in my heart,

You build me up and then I fall apart

'Cause I'm only human.

~Christina Perri, "Human"

Usually Luke knows when he’s done something wrong. He can see it coming from a mile away--or, more likely, two or three feet away.

This time, he didn’t realize what was happening until it was happening. And as usual, there’s nothing he can do about it.

There’s a lot of noise. A lot of yelling and crying and threats, and he’s pretty sure none of it’s coming from him. He doesn’t have the time to make any noise; his energy is better spent trying not to cry and fighting to keep from blacking out. The only sound from Luke is an involuntary gasp here, a whimper there, and all of it lost in the deafening screaming match above him.

The grip in his hair tightens as the noise level increases. His head makes contact with the edge of the kitchen table in rhythm with the fighting.

He’s trying to rid the house of the screaming and fighting, as if he had any power over it. He knows he doesn’t, but he feels like he does, and maybe if he focuses enough, they’ll go away. Maybe he can even convince himself that they’re not really there and it’s all a dream.

More like a nightmare, really.

He’s almost convinced that it’s not really him, that it’s another kid whose head is being slammed against the table edge, when a new noise snaps him back to reality.

The whine of a siren slowly penetrates the yelling and the yelling stops, leaving just the siren.

A police car? An ambulance? It doesn’t matter. It’s enough to shut everyone up.

There’s a face in Luke’s, now, demanding, shoving, and Luke blinks a couple of times, clearing the haze in his vision. It’s going to be the same drill. Luke fell, Luke slipped, Luke tripped. That’s what he’s supposed to say.

An hour later, Luke sits in the police station in an empty room. Everyone’s gone. The police officer told him to wait there. She was nice. Luke wishes she’d stayed.

The door opens and he looks up, his eyes big and uncertain. His head throbs. He doesn’t want to check for blood, because it always seems worse if he knows he’s bleeding. It’s a man this time, and Luke draws back instinctively in his chair. The man smiles and stays several feet away, probably trying to give him space.

The man wants to know all sorts of things. Where did Luke get those bruises? How did he break his fingers four months ago? Why is Luke’s head bleeding?

Luke rattles off the practiced responses. He fell. He’s clumsy. The kids at school can be rough. He smashed his fingers in a drawer. He hit his head.

Luke can tell that the officer isn’t believing what he’s saying. He’s clearly smarter than the other people Luke’s recited that story to. Either way, though, the man thanks Luke and then probably goes off to discuss his responses.

Luke’s alone again. He wants someone to come back. He doesn’t like it in here. It’s cold. He doesn’t have enough body heat, sitting in this cold chair in this cold room. He’s lonely, too. Luke doesn’t understand what’s going on. This has happened before, but he’s never been here for so long. He doesn’t want to be here, he doesn’t want to go home--Luke doesn’t belong anywhere.

He thinks he can hear chatter of the man accompanied by a female voice, but he can't be sure. The room is sitting in an uncomfortable silence where thoughts can run wild, so the voices may just be a figment of his imagination. Sometimes nothing seems real.

The door opens and it’s the nice woman and the man who asked him questions, and Luke hears himself ask in a very small voice if he can go home now.

They smile too sweetly, and Luke almost thinks they’ll say yes, but instead it’s a,“Not yet sweetie...”

Luke shifts in his chair and watches them carefully. They sit down in front of him. Luke’s hands are starting to shake. This is nothing like the past visits. Normally they just send him home. He’s getting a sinking feeling that this visit is going to end differently.

“Do I have to stay here?” he asks, dismayed.

“Not much longer,” the woman replies, the man taking out his notebook. Luke falls silent.

They ask even more questions and Luke is tired of questions. He just wants to know what’s going on, because nobody’s telling him anything and he’s very confused.

Finally, the man says, “Listen here, Luke. Our job is to protect people. We want to make sure you’re safe, and we’re not sure that you’re safe.”

“I’m fine though,” Luke interferes. “I’m just clumsy.”

“We see lots of clumsy boys, though, and it seems you’re the clumsiest of them all,” the woman states, and Luke can tell she’s only going along with the “clumsy” excuse to please Luke. “We have a very safe place for clumsy boys to go.”

Luke’s lower lip trembles. “When do I go home?”

The police officers exchange a look and Luke wonders suddenly if he’s ever going home again.

“There’s a new home for you, Luke,” the man says, his voice almost to a whisper for the first time of the night.

And now they’re looking at Luke with those warm smiles and those eyes that are begging him to trust them and he wants to cry. But he’s not supposed to cry.

Apparently, they notice Luke’s trembling lip and decide to (attempt) to comfort him some more.

“Luke, you can cry if you need to. Everyone cries,” the woman tells him, reaching across the table pat Luke’s arm in an attempted-sincere way.

Luke pulls his arm away instinctively, and refuses to cry. He never cries and he won’t start now just because some woman is telling him he can.

“Alright. If you don’t want to cry, that’s fine. Luke, we have some nice men and women here at the station who are going to take you back to where you lived--” Luke notes her use of the past-tense form of live. “--so you can get anything you need, anything you want. Does that sound good to you?” Luke nods because he’s supposed to. “Good. Now, we’ll be back in a few minutes, okay? You have this time to yourself.”

When the officers leave, and Luke is sure they’re well off down the hall, he does something he hasn’t done in such a long time and the feeling is so alien to him.

He cries.

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Equal credit to @5sosandfood.