Chapter 21 #2
Everyone shares breakfast around one last fire, and I join in on the merriment as best I can.
I force myself to smile and laugh with the jokes, actively participating in conversations so that not even Marcus can see what’s happened to me.
I couldn’t handle having him look at me like he does when he knows I’m in a dark place without breaking down. I really don’t want to break down.
The next challenge comes with the impending six-hour drive home.
I don’t know how long I can keep up the facade when it’s just Luke and me alone the whole time.
It’s easier to blend in and go invisible with a group when I’m not anyone’s sole focus, but one-on-one is always trickier. I’ll have to work harder to hide it.
After my truck is all packed up, and we’re ready to go, I start to make my way toward the driver’s seat when Luke suddenly comes up behind me and pulls me to a stop, pushing me up against the door somewhat forcefully.
Not enough to hurt, but it startles me, nonetheless.
He puts himself right in front of me, so I have nowhere to go, and I look at him with wide eyes, my heart leaping in my chest.
“What are you doing?” I snap with confusion, fearing how he’s leaning in closer, staring me down with intensity. We’re still out in the open, the rest of the group only a few feet away, where they can clearly see us if they look over. Is he out of his mind?
“Give me the keys,” he says firmly, his expression hard. He’s not trying to be cute, and the realization startles me.
“What?” I frown.
“Give me the keys,” he repeats, holding his hand out for emphasis, and I look down at his outstretched fingers with confusion.
“Why?”
“Because I’m going to drive.”
“What? You don’t need to drive,” I scoff. “I can drive.”
Luke sighs and shakes his head, searching my face with a furrowed brow. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you right now, but I don’t think you should be driving. You seem…unfocused.”
My heart jolts, and I swallow hard, staring at Luke’s face while my brain erupts into chaos. No. That’s impossible. How could he know something’s wrong with me? I thought I had done a pretty good job of hiding it. It fooled everyone else, so how did he see through it?
Luke’s earnest, his face twisted in a mask of genuine concern. Somehow, seeing it makes me uncomfortable, and I want to crawl out of my skin and sink inside myself all at once. I’ve never been so self-conscious about having someone look at me, and I don’t know how to handle it.
“I’m fine,” I say feebly, heat creeping up the back of my neck. “You don’t need to worry about me.”
I try to move out of his space, but he puts an arm out to block me, looming over me with his hand on the roof of my truck.
If I were in a better mood, I’d think this was hot as fuck.
But I’m tense and worried that the others might see, so I try to push Luke away.
Not meanly or forcefully, but with enough pressure against his chest to make him move so I can escape this unwanted scrutiny.
“Ethan,” Luke hisses, his voice low. He clasps my hand on his chest, holding it to him tightly instead, trapping me further.
He pins me in place with the intensity of his gaze, and suddenly, I’m frozen, staring up into the swirling azure ocean of his eyes. It’s almost like the color changes through various shades of blue in the sunlight as he searches my face, and I’m hypnotized by their radiance.
Luke moves the arm he blocked me with and places his hand on my chest in a mirror of how he's holding mine on his own. We’re standing at such an angle that no one else can see him do it, but suddenly, that doesn’t matter because I feel the pressure lessen like a lead weight has been lifted from my ribcage, and I gasp with an unencumbered breath, blinking with confusion. Wait. How did he do that?
I can only look at him with awe.
“Please,” Luke begs softly, his brows knit with concern. I stare at him in a daze.
I don’t know what to say, and in the end, I don’t say anything. I just hand over the keys, his fingers closing around mine with a little squeeze before he steps back and opens the driver’s side door.
I glance up toward the others, wondering if anyone saw what happened, but thankfully, everyone seems too consumed with their packing to have noticed, and I’m grateful for it.
Moving to the passenger side, I hop in the truck and buckle up, staring out the window as Luke starts to drive.
He honks the horn and waves at the others to say goodbye, and I can’t even begin to decipher the confused looks on their faces as they see me in the passenger seat of my own truck.
But it doesn’t last long as Luke pulls out of the campground and heads toward the freeway.
At first, we’re both silent while Luke drives.
I have my knee pulled up to my chest, and I stare absently out the window with my head back against the seat, feeling too overwhelmed and embarrassed to even look at him.
I’m tense and anxious, a knot growing in my stomach the longer the silence stretches, and my mind races with all the possible things he’s thinking.
None of them positive. He’s definitely judging me.
But I guess that’s okay. Now’s the moment where we’ll nip this whole thing in the bud before it takes off.
Luke will be too disgusted by the hot mess that is me to want to continue whatever this is.
We won’t need to discuss where we go from here because he’ll decide to leave the picture to save himself the trouble of dealing with my depressed ass. It’s only logical.
Eventually, Luke is the first to break the suffocating silence.
“Do you regret it?” he asks, his voice tense.
It takes me a minute to register his words, but I don’t comprehend his meaning. I turn to look at him and see he’s rigid. He’s got both hands on the wheel and is staring very determinedly out the windshield.
“Regret what?” I frown.
Luke looks at me then, his forehead pinched, jaw clenched, like he’s full of apprehension. He looks outwardly how I feel inwardly. That’s peculiar.
“Do you regret…what we did yesterday?” he asks, and all at once, my heart sinks.
Oh, my fucking god, I’m such an idiot. Of course, Luke thinks this has something to do with him. That is the logical reaction. I should have realized he’d believe he did something wrong. Wouldn’t that be what I’d assume if the roles were reversed?
“No,” I answer quickly, shaking my head. “God, no, Luke. Yesterday was amazing. This is… This just happens to me sometimes.”
“What exactly is happening?” Luke asks hesitantly.
I don’t know how to answer him. I wasn’t prepared to have this conversation so soon, especially not during a depressive episode.
But I guess if it’s going to happen, it’s better to get it out in the open now rather than later.
I take a deep breath and swallow hard, trying to find the best way to explain.
Luke is patient, giving me inquiring looks in between focusing on the road.
“Do you remember when I told you my dad died when I was nineteen?” I say, and my voice wavers against my control.
“Yeah,” Luke replies softly.
He suddenly reaches over to take my hand in my lap, brushing his thumb over mine, and the action knocks the breath out of me.
It goes against everything I expected from him, that simple touch breaking a barrier I didn’t even know I’d erected.
I can’t help but cling to his hand like an anchor.
Tears suddenly rush in against my will, and I have to look away as I try to stop them from falling.
This is not how I wanted this conversation to go. I haven’t even started explaining it yet, and I’m already falling to pieces.
“It’s okay,” Luke soothes. “Take your time.”
It takes me a few minutes of moving through various breathing exercises to calm down to the point where I feel like I can keep it together, and the whole time I collect myself, Luke never releases my hand. I’m terrified of him letting go, but more terrified to admit that.
“Can I ask how your dad died?” Luke breaks the silence after a while.
I sigh, the exhale kind of shaky. “It was a brain aneurysm. He had a massive stroke.”
“Fuck. I’m sorry.” He squeezes my hand again.
“It was very sudden, and I didn’t handle it well,” I say quickly, trying to get the words out before I break down again.
“I was severely depressed afterward. It was bad for a while. Really bad. It felt like something in my brain snapped. I don’t know how else to describe it.
I was put on medication and went to therapy for years, trying to deal with this.
For the most part, I have. But sometimes…
I never know when it’s going to come on.
It just does. It’s like a weathervane flips, and suddenly, I’m in a low mood.
Sometimes, it only lasts a day. Other times, it can last weeks before I can pull myself out of it. ”
“Are you taking any antidepressants now?” Luke asks, and there’s no judgment in it—just pure curiosity.
I shake my head and take a deep breath. “Not for about seven years now. I haven’t had a bad episode in a long time, and we didn’t think it was necessary to keep me on them forever if I was doing well.
I am fine. I know myself enough to know that this isn’t like those times.
It’ll pass, and I’ll be okay. I just have to get through it. ”
“Okay.” Luke nods as if it’s as simple as that.
I stare at him in shock, completely floored.
He doesn’t come at me with a list of solutions or action plans to help me get better like everyone else usually does.
There’s no unsolicited advice on thinking better thoughts or just trying to be happy as if that were possible.
He just takes this information for what it is and says, “Okay,” like it really isn’t a big deal.