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Leilani Morales precariously balanced a stack of plates on her arm whilst pinching the rims of two glasses together in one hand and holding a bag of food in the other, attempting to make the least amount of trips from her kitchen to the dining area. She slowly sat the bag down on the table center first before grabbing the plates and depositing them on different place mats opposite each other. The waters sat on the corner of the mats, threatening to spill when her hand shook while positioning the glasses. As soon as everything looked semi-decent, Leilani went back for the silverware and simultaneously checked her phone for any texts from Luke. He was a few minutes late so she wanted to make sure nothing had happened. Her nerves were already on edge at the thought of revealing her past, and delaying their talk made her even more uneasy.
She knew that there were people with worse stories than her. The last thing Leilani ever wanted to do was make it seem like she took the gold for the worst relationship experience, but she could never say that the experience wasn't emotionally draining. Her last relationship ended over a year ago, and she was still recovering from the abuse it inflicted on her mindset. Leilani always looked out for others which meant she tended to neglect herself in the meanwhile. Before she had such a strong support system from Mali and Eliza, she used to bottle everything up and let the feelings wear her down. Self destruction was inevitable; there was no way to prevent it. Eventually, Leilani burst and let every emotion out one drunken night with her best friends. However, with them, it was like putting a patch on an inner tube. Leilani expressed her feelings but her friends couldn't never understand. They didn't have any experiences like her, but Luke did. During their short time of texting, she received a brief rundown of Luke's last relationship, how it was so good to begin with and turned toxic as time went on. She hoped that getting everything out with someone who understood would be like buying a whole new inner tube rather than patching up the old one and hoping it held.
Leilani wanted to feel free from the confines of that experience. Sure, talking to Luke wouldn't automatically heal the scars from the words her ex imprinted on her brain, but it was a start. She would take what she could get to accelerate the process of feeling comfortable in her skin again. Her friends joked about it, but Leilani did use her Instagram and social media comments to boost her mindset. She desperately needed validation in everything she did and that was the most frustrating thing in the world. Self-love wasn't an on/off switch. It took building and molding and careful monitoring. Leilani had to work on it everyday so as to keep from spiraling into the state of depression she once occupied.
She thought of last night, of Calum. They'd spent hours getting to know each other, learning dozens of random facts that didn't really have any significance other than their contribution to molding their individual selves. She thought about how he didn't know of the bad patch she'd gone through—that she still went through on occasion. Maybe one day Leilani would be able to share that part of herself with him. She wanted to, despite their relationship being casual, and felt as if eventually she'd be ready to take their relationship to the next step if he felt the same way. The first step to starting a healthy relationship was purging completely of the rocky past. Leilani hoped tonight would be a pivotal point for her.
