Page 21 of Part of Me
“What are you doing?” I hear Luke ask me as I continue to chuck my clothes into the holdall.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” I retort sarcastically. “I’m leaving.”
“Babe, please don’t go,” he pleads with me, but I ignore him. I move onto the chest of drawers and yank the top draw open but am stopped from taking any clothes out by Luke. He puts his arms around me, effectively stopping me from moving my arms.
“Get off of me, Luke,” I shout as I squirm against his body.
“Charlie, please listen to me,” he says as I buck against his body.
“Why should I?”
“Because I love you.”
“Really, Luke?”
He loosens his grip on me and I whirl around, pushing him away from me. I breath hard and we both stand staring at one another. How the hell has it come to this? I have gone from knowing this man inside out, to questioning everything about him in such a short space of time.
“Ten years we’ve been together, Luke. Ten fucking years, and yet you won’t tell me what’s going on!” I screech at him. His eyes look pitiful.
“I can’t,” he yells back at me. I try to get my breathing under control as I desperately plead with my eyes for him to give me answers.
“Please, Luke. You can trust me.” I soften my voice, hoping that I can appeal to him without screaming the place down.
“I know that I can, Charlie, but I also need to keep you safe.”
“Safe?” I question.
“Yes,” he says as he runs his hands through his hair. I fold my arms around me as if to shield myself from him.
“Why would I need to be kept safe?” Luke remains quiet which inflates my anger once again. “I have a right to know if my safety is in question!”
“These guys are pissed off. Some construction deal gone wrong,” he tells me. I find myself scoffing at his answer.
“Construction? That’s really the way you’re going to go with this?”
“It’s the truth,” he insists, but I don’t believe him.
“You’re lying.” I turn back to the chest of drawers and take more clothes out, placing them in the holdall. Luke watches me, and I can see that his jaw is ticking. His hands are clenched either side of him.
“Babe, if I could tell you the ins and outs then I would, but it’s better if you don’t know.”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it.”
“It is not fucking bullshit,” he shouts before turning and punching the bedroom door. I freeze at his actions, not knowing what to do. I have never seen Luke like this before. He has always been a calm person. He has never been in a fight that I know of, and he has never let things get on top of him. Clearly, he is struggling. But so am I. I zip up my holdall and pick it up off of the bed.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into you,” I say as I walk towards him. I stop when I reach him and stare up at his pained face. “And I don’t know why you won’t tell me. I’m not staying here to be lied to.” I turn and walk to the bedroom doorway, stopping to say one last thing.
I keep my back to him as I speak. “Until you decide to be honest with me, I’m going back to my parents to stay there.”
With that, I walk along the hallway and feel my heart breaking with each step that I take. I walk down the stairs and am disappointed when Luke doesn’t stop me. As I reach the front door, I hear him let out a cry of rage, and I almost run back to him, but I know that if I don’t stick to my guns then I am just going to let him ply me with excuses about what is going on. I open the front door and close it behind me, and I finally let the tears fall.
Chapter Sixteen
I wake up, in my parent’s lounge, on the sofa. I feel groggy and the devastation of last night hits me like a freight train. When I turned up here and my mother saw my face, she took me in her arms and guided me to the lounge. I spent the evening crying as she held me. She didn’t ask me what had happened, and I didn’t divulge anything other than to tell her that Luke and I had had a fight.
My mother has watched mine and Luke’s relationship from the beginning, and she knows that we never fight. Well, not on this kind of scale anyway. I must have fallen asleep on here, exhausted from the tears and emotional strife. There is a blanket covering me, which I presume is down to my mother. I lie on my side and stare at the wall opposite as I listen to my mother pottering around in the kitchen. My eyes feel sore, and I can only imagine that they are red and puffy. I sit up and stretch my arms above my head before I make my way to the kitchen. I stop in the doorway and just watch as my mother busies herself getting the roast dinner ready. I feel a sense of comfort wash over me at the sight. Every Sunday, without fail, my mother cooks a roast. She has done this for as long as I can remember. My mother always said that Sundays were family days. I never deviated from this rule as I knew that it was important to her, and in some respect, it was to me too. Luke would accompany me, once we became an established couple, and up until last weekend there was an unwritten rule that we would come here for our Sunday dinner. I feel a pang at the realisation that Luke won’t be joining us today.
I wonder how he is? I wonder what he’s doing?
