Chapter 46 #4
“I’m sorry,” he says to me. I’m not entirely sure what he’s apologizing for. That I witnessed their argument? For his mother’s behavior? Or that he’s a mess after their interaction? Maybe a bit of all of it.
“Was it always that bad with Pete?” I ask. It weighs on my heart to think about young Luke and what he must have gone through at the hands of that monster. He’s lucky his ass is in jail already.
Luke shrugs. “For the most part. It wasn’t always physical, but it was abusive all the same.
” He sounds like he wants to leave it there, but after a moment, he keeps talking—letting it all out.
“When he and my mom met, Pete was charming and kind. He filled her head with all kinds of promises to take care of her after my dad had died, telling her to quit her job, and that she wouldn’t need to work another day in her life if they got married.
He’d protect her—provide for her. It sounded great.
But Pete was a chameleon like that. The moment they got married, he changed into a completely different person.
He’d lied to tie her down and then made sure she was trapped.
She had no income of her own. No means of escape.
I didn’t even realize how bad that was until this year…
“For me, he knew I was gay when he met my mom. She’d told him that right out of the gate.
He gave her all kinds of sweet lies about how he was accepting and would support me in whatever way he could.
But in reality, he was disgusted by me. And as soon as he felt secure in his position with her, he let me know it.
She’d turn around and defend him to me, trying to keep the peace.
I knew that was only because he started hitting her when she’d talk back to him.
She was just trying to save her own skin. ”
“When did he start hitting you?” I frown.
“Right around the time I got outed to the whole town.” Luke frowns.
“He was humiliated to be associated with me through my mother. He felt like he was as much of a pariah as I was. Marked by it. He beat on my mom, claiming it was her fault I was this way. I stepped in between them, and he turned it all on me—almost like it gave him permission to start. And then it was a pattern where I’d step in to take it for her because I didn’t know what else to do. ”
He laughs humorlessly. “At the time, I didn’t think there was another way to live.
I knew it wasn’t right, but what sixteen-year-old knows the complexities of mental illness and manipulation tactics?
It wasn’t until I got out and put myself in therapy that I unpacked a lot of this. Tried to heal from it.”
“What made you come back and try to help her now?”
“Because she was right. She was the one who got me out of there as soon as I graduated high school. She sacrificed her own freedom to give me mine.” Luke lets out a shuddering sigh.
“I don’t know if it was atonement for marrying the bastard or her way of feeling like she’d done some good in the world.
But she cashed out her entire 401k to pay for me to get to New York and get my degree.
She took all of Pete’s wrath for it, too, when he found out. ”
“So, you felt like you owed her?” I frown.
“Yes. And no. Things started to degrade with Pete after the 2016 election. He joined a bunch of conspiracy-theory white supremacist Facebook groups and bought into the lies and propaganda they spread. He got more paranoid—more psychotic. Then came the pandemic, the 2020 election… He went so far right listening to that shit that he wasn’t the same person by the end of it.
My mom was trying to hide all this from me.
Whenever we talked, she was holding back how bad it was.
When I came home to visit, I saw it for myself, and I was desperate to get her out of there. ”
I think of the back of Pete’s truck—the concerning amount of bumper stickers and rhetoric that told anyone who looked at it what he thought about a lot of things. I can clearly see how that’s a sign of a radicalized man.
Luke releases another shuddering sigh. “You can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped. I should have seen that. Should have given up on her a long time ago.”
“Do you think you’ll ever be able to forgive her?” I ask softly.
“I don’t know,” he mutters, closing his eyes. “Probably. Yes, eventually. I know why she did it. I understand her issues. But I can’t force her to get better. At the very least, she’s safe for now while Pete’s in prison, so I don’t need to worry about her so much. The rest is up to her.”
“Are you okay?” I ask, pulling him closer to me. He melts in my embrace, dropping his head on mine.
“No. Nothing about this is okay. My therapist is going to be pretty fucking busy with me the next few years.”
“Mine, too.”
Luke barks a laugh at that. It’s a little unhinged, but it makes me smile.
“I’m sorry I woke you up with all that,” Luke groans.
“How long was I asleep?”
“Only a few hours. But you were very out of it. The police were here at one point to take my statement, and you slept right through it.”
“Seriously?”
Luke nods. “It’s no wonder. You’ve been here this whole time… You should go home and sleep in your own bed. Get some real rest. I’ll be fine.”
I stiffen slightly at the suggestion to leave.
Even though he’s awake and clearly okay, the thought of being away from him lands like a ball of lead in the pit of my stomach.
So, I don’t answer him. I close my eyes and resettle, relishing the warmth of his body against mine.
If he can tell where my hesitance to leave is coming from, he doesn’t push it.
Instead, he just curls his fingers in my hair and sighs.
We’re quiet for a moment, and I let everything Luke’s told me wash over me in the stillness.
After a moment, he asks, “Did you let Dmitry or anyone know what happened?”
“No, I didn’t. I was too scatterbrained, and I don’t have any of their numbers.”
“Perfect. Don’t move.”
“What?”
Luke reaches over and grabs his phone from where it’s sitting on the side tray table, and he flips it open to the camera.
“What are you…?” I ask, dread suddenly rolling through me.
“Put your hood up and turn your face in a bit,” Luke commands. I glance up and glare at him, and he flashes that devilish little grin that tells me he’s up to no good.
I do as he asks, repositioning myself at his discretion until we achieve the perfect pose he’s looking for, and he snaps the photo.
After he studies it to make sure he likes it, he turns the phone screen to me so I can see the result.
In the picture, he’s bedraggled and yet still the most attractive person on the fucking planet, even with the fading bruises around his throat and face.
He’s giving a sultry look right at the camera, throwing a peace sign with his left hand, his hospital gown pulled down enough to show off a tantalizing collar bone and the edge of the bandage on his chest. I’m lying curled against him, my face mostly covered except for a slight profile peeking out from behind the fabric.
It’s not much, but just a tease of who might be hiding underneath the hood.
“Are you okay if I post this?” he asks.
I shrug. I still have no idea what he’s doing, but I’m very intrigued.
He starts tapping away on his phone, speaking out loud word by word as if dictating the caption of this photo to himself: “The best part about being shot.”
“What the fuck?” I laugh.
“Just wait.”
He posts the photo to his Instagram, then sits back and relaxes, looking like he’s expecting something to happen any moment.
Sure enough, within sixty seconds, his phone starts ringing with a FaceTime request. Dmitry’s name pops up on the screen with a contact photo of him presumably very drunk, covered in glitter, and getting kissed on the cheek by a voluptuous drag queen.
I need the story behind that photo, but for now, I can’t help but chuckle.
“That’s how you decided to tell him?” I scoff. “You’re a dick.”
“He’s used to me by now.” Luke grins.
I roll my eyes, a smile tugging on my lips.
Then Luke answers the phone, and I listen as Dmitry starts shouting an ungodly amount of “Bitch, what the fuck?”s at him, trying to make sense of what he’s seeing.
I can see on the screen that he’s got AirPods in, walking down the street in the city, the people around him ignoring him, despite the high-pitched squeals coming out of his mouth.
And in a dramatic way that is undoubtedly mimicking a viral TikTok soundbite he’s committed to memory, Luke shimmies his good shoulder and says, “Surprise, surprise!”
I can’t help but laugh as I watch Luke dip into his signature dark humor to regale Dmitry with the whole sordid tale that led to his injuries.
He embellishes a few things, throwing in a bit of theatrics, and really enhances the drama to the point that I’m not sure I’m listening to the same events I lived through.
It’s so Luke. Beautiful, funny, brave, kind-hearted Luke. I love him for it.
While I listen to him, holding him firmly in my arms, a sense of peace washes over me that I haven’t felt in a long time. With its warmth, I finally start to let myself believe everything will be all right. Better than all right. Come what may, it’s going to be extraordinary.