It was surely an out of body experience. I could see everything around me, but I wasn't in my body. It was laying in the floor, lifeless.
"Nova." I heard her familiar voice call me.
"Mum?" I answer.
I turn to see her smiling, "you got yourself into a mess. I wanted you to avoid it."
"Mum, why didn't you guys tell me the truth?" I ask.
"There are bad people in the world, your father was one of them. I knew this would happen to you. Your dad was like Nathan." She says.
"Am I dead?"
"No, not unless you choose to be. You can continue to fight and live, or you can give up now." She says grabbing my hands.
"I can't leave Luke, or Arzaylea behind. I want to finish this battle so I can be happy." I say.
She pulls me close and hugs me, whispering, "I love you." She pushes me down towards my lifeless body.
I sat up, gasping for air. Looking around, I didn't see Nathan. I shuffled around the room, looking in every place I could see, Nathan wasn't anywhere.
I creep out the door and walk to the left. Isn't this room that leads to the other balcony? I knocked and waited for someone to answer the door. The person opens the door, it wasn't Luke, it was a different guy.
I awkwardly walked away and to the right. Skipping Nathan's door, I go to the one after and knock. The door cracks open and I'm pulled inside. I gasped really loudly and he started to laugh.
"Nova, it's okay, it's just me." His voice rang through the air.
"Luke." I breathlessly say.
He went to hug me and I flinched, Luke moved backwards and put his arms down. "I'm sorry, Luke. It's just been terrible these past few days."
"How bad?" He asks looking at me.
"Well, he's hit my face," I say pointing to my bruises, "squeezed my arms and left handprint bruises, left hickeys in a different spot, and choked the life out of me." I finished, showing the bruises on my neck.
Luke was speechless and didn't know whether to say sorry or just to hug me. He looks down, then back up, "I hope you don't mind me asking, but where did he leave hickeys?"
I motion my hand over my breasts and Luke closes his eyes. "I know what you're thinking, but that never happened. He kept saying I wasn't his and wouldn't do that."
"You can't be naive, he's done this to a lot of girls, but he wants you. I don't know why though." He says.
"I know why he does. He's after the blood of my family." I say.
There was a knock at the door, Luke looked at me and stood up. He opened the door and sighed, "What do you want Nathan?"
He barged into the room and looked at me, "I thought you were... I thought you were..." is all he could say to me.
"Yeah, it's funny how I'm still here. I had a talk with my mom while I was out." I told him, smirking.
"I need to leave.." he stutters, walking out the door.
Luke walks out and comes back in a few minutes later. I walked to where Luke had his stuff. Rummaging through the stuff, I found his sweat pants and a Green Day shirt.
Luke been in the bedroom, so I snuck into the bathroom and started my shower. I looked at all the bruises on my body.
"I'm worthless to people." I whisper to myself. "What if Luke does the same thing?"
He hadn't hurt me before, don't think like that Nova.
The water was warm, it was soothing. I lathered my hair up with shampoo, rinsed, then put conditioner in. I washed my body and rinsed everything off. I turned off the water and wrapped a towel around my body.
I felt clean, not meaning I washed up, but clean from the things Nathan had done.
I heard a knock at the bathroom door, "yes?"
"I really need to pee." I hear Luke say.
"Hold on!" I say through the door as I quickly grab the clothes and hold onto the towel as I open the door.
He looks at the clothes, knowing that they were his and smiled. Luke quickly walked into the bathroom avoid looking at me. I went to bedroom and quickly changed. I left my towel in the floor and searched for my brush.
When I found it, I walked out into the living room area, -which was a couch, telly, end table, and lamps- and started to brush my hair. Luke came out of the bathroom and took my brush.
He started brushing my hair, "this hotel has two bedrooms, so if you want, you can sleep in one room and I'll sleep in the other."
"Sounds okay." I said closing my eyes as he brushed my hair. "Where's Arzaylea?"
"She'll be back in the morning. I'll tell her to bring make-up." He says.
"Thank you. I need to cover these bruises on my face and neck." I say, "can I take a nap?"
"I'm not in charge of you, of course you can." He says setting my brush down.
"Wake me up in time for dinner, we can order pizza or Chinese takeout." I say standing up and walking to the second bedroom.
As I turn back, Luke smiled a big smile and waved. I smiled back, glad to be with him once again.
*****
"Nova," he shakes me, "Nova, I need to know what you want from the Chinese place."
I sit up and stare at him for a minute before actually getting out of the bed. "Uhm, what is there?
We walked into the living room and Luke hands me his phone. "This is their menu."
I scrolled through the menu looking for anything that sounded good. I looked over it twice before I saw sweet and sour chicken. "I want this." I say pointing it out to Luke.
"Sweet and sour chicken? Is that all?" He asks writing it down o a piece of paper.
"Yeah but I want two quarts of it." I say.
Luke writes something else down on the paper and stands up. "Don't open the door for anyone. Only me." He says walking out the door.
I turned on the telly and browsed through a few channels before turning it right back off. I heard the wind pick up outside, at first it scared me, but then it only soothed me.
***
There was a knock on the door. I slowly walked over to it and look out the peephole. It was only Luke. I open the door and take one of the bags from his hands. I take it to the table in the little kitchen area and set it down.
Luke follows and starts to open all the bags of food to see who's is who's. When he got it sorted, we sat down and started eating. .
