Secrets In The Garden / l.h ✔️

42

~Ophelia's POV~

"Would you just get in the car, Ophelia?" Luke complained as he sat in front of the curb in his car, the engine idling as he waited for me. I'd missed the bus again, and he was complaining at me to get in his car so he could take me home. We had a project to do for health, after all, that was due in two days and we still hadn't even started it yet.

"I don't want to burden you, though." I frowned, furrowing my brows as I contemplated his offer nonetheless. He smiled slightly and rested his chin on his arm, which was propped on the door, as the windows and the top of the car were both down. "How 'bout you give me a kiss, then, and we'll call it even, if it bothers you so much?" He suggested, eyes glinting playfully under the sunlight.

But we were in front of the school, and he knew how I felt about PDA.

So I frowned at him and shook my head, not wanting to do it where anyone could possibly see us. "C'mon, gorgeous. Get in and you can gimme it when we're at your house." He huffed, making me hum, considering it again. After a moment, I climbed in the passenger's seat, buckling my seatbelt.

We began to drive back to my house, where he then parked in the driveway after we arrived. He got out of the car with me and looked a little nervous as he glanced over at me, following me up the driveway. "My granny is home, by the way, so she might try to chat your ear off." I warned him, looking at him over my shoulder. He looked rather alarmed suddenly, but followed me inside nonetheless, lingering behind me like I was going to protect him from my granny. I couldn't help but to giggle in amusement, locking the front door as we headed inside.

And sure enough, granny was sitting on the couch when we walked in, drinking a cup of tea with a relaxed look on her face. When she spotted us, she raised her brows, her eyes focusing immediately on the large boy behind me, who shied a little closer to me. "Oh? Opie, who's this?" Granny asked, curious.

At the sound of the nickname my granny gave me, Luke snickered softly. "Granny, please." I grumbled, embarrassed that he had just heard her horrible nickname for me. "You know I hate that nickname." I pouted.

Granny laughed. "Of course, dear. That's why I call you it. It'll grow on you." She smiled, her eyes still trained on Luke. "Now, who's this?" She asked, gesturing to him. I looked up at him over my shoulder and he was biting his bottom lip a little, chewing on it. Clearly, he was anxious, even if he was just meeting my granny. "This is Luke, my..." I paused and hesitated, unsure exactly what to call him. "My friend." I decided to say, since that was perhaps the closest thing I could say. But friends didn't kiss, or have sex.

She frowned a little bit and cocked her head to the side, setting her teacup on the table. "Your friend? Not...boyfriend?" She asked suspiciously, narrowing her eyes.

And just like that, both Luke and I became a stuttering, embarrassed mess. "N-No! We...Well, we're just fr-friends." I stuttered, both him and I blushing as we snuck glances at one another. My granny smiled in amusement and then looked at me knowingly, but I sent her a look. She knew me so well that she knew then how I felt about him, but luckily she didn't expose those feelings. Instead, she just smiled. "Oh, okay. Well, nice to meet you, Luke." She said to him, and he weakly nodded his head. "Y-You, too." He whispered. It was odd seeing him so shy, but adorable too.

"We have to do a project, granny. Is it okay to go? You can always call for me if you need anything." I said, and she nodded, dismissively waving her wrinkly hand at me. So Luke followed me down the hall when I turned around, heading in the direction of my bedroom.

When we entered my bedroom, I shut and locked the door, looking over at Luke as he looked around, examining my room. This was the first time he'd been in here, after all. "You don't have a bed frame?" He asked, looking at my bed on the floor. I blushed. "I told you I didn't have one back in Naso, remember? It just kind of became normal to not have one." I shrugged, setting my backpack on the floor by my bed.

I sat down on my bed after I kicked off my white converse, leaving me in my socks and my light green and white plaid skirt, with a dark green cropped sweater. Since I was wearing a skirt, I made sure to sit properly, so I wouldn't flash my panties. He plopped down across from me, kicking off his shoes as well before he sprawled out on my bed like he owned it. "Your room smells nice. Smells like you." He said with a little sigh, setting his bag down beside him. I flushed, feeling flattered that he thought I smelled nice. "T-Thanks." I stuttered.

After we both took out our notebooks and I got my laptop all set up, we began to work on the health project about the disease we'd chosen, which was something called Kuru. "You said this was interesting?" I asked him, typing it into the search engine and pressing enter on my keyboard. He grinned at me. "In a word." He answered vaguely, shrugging his shoulders. I wasn't sure what he meant by that, so I just furrowed my brows at him.

But when it loaded and I clicked on a rather informative sight that told me not only what it was but how it came to be, I certainly understood what he meant.

He seemed to be able to tell what I was thinking as I finished reading, staring at the screen as I blinked. "Told you." He chuckled, leaning in closer to me so he could see the screen as well. I felt the warmth of his breath on my exposed neck and shivered, snapping out of my thoughts as I turned my head. We were closer, his lips brushing my skin as his warm breath fanned my cheek and I peered up at him. "This would've been a lot easier if you just told me what it was when I first asked." I pouted, as this disease was really rather simple. It wasn't hard to understand how it had come to be, but it was incredibly sad.

Kuru, I found out, was a disease that formed as a result of cannibalism within the Fore tribe in Papua New Guinea. When someone would pass, family members were cooked and eaten, as this used to be believed to help free the deceased's spirit. Infectious prions were most concentrated in the brain, which was commonly eaten by women and children, so Kuru was most often seen in women and children. However, eating the infected brain was not the only way to contract it. If you came into contact with any open wounds or sores of someone with Kuru, it was also possible to get it.

Because Kuru doesn't have a cure, it's fatal and generally, the person infected will die within a year of having symptoms. The disease has a long incubation period, however, meaning that it often takes a long time before you'll begin to have any symptoms at all. Symptoms would be preceded with headaches and joint pain, before being first followed with loss of bodily control. They'll have trouble balancing and eventually become unable to walk at all. It's common for those with Kuru to have involuntary movements and body tremors, and they have difficulty swallowing, which led a lot of them to become malnourished.

When the disease is at its worst, the person will become bedridden and will lose the ability to speak. Some even experience complete behavior changes or signs of dementia. Kuru was also called the 'laughing disease,' because it was a common symptom for those with Kuru to randomly begin crying or laughing.

I looked up at Luke, who was already getting started on the essay. "This is a really sad disease. It sounds awful." I frowned, causing him to look up at me. "I know," He hummed, gently kissing my cheek in a way that surprised me. "But I thought maybe you'd find it as interesting as I did. It's a terrible disease, but it's interesting to learn about, I think." He explained, making me pause. I did find it rather interesting as well. He definitely wasn't alone in feeling that.

"You want me to take over writing, and you can read to me what I should put?" I asked him, and he eagerly swapped his notebook and pencil for my laptop. We both got back to work, this time with me writing the information he read off to me, since I was the one with nicer handwriting.

It was odd; I never thought I'd have fun doing something as simple as listening to him read off what I was supposed to write. Even so, I smiled the whole time, listening carefully to what he was saying so as to not miss a thing.