Page 79 of Show Me How to Heal
Avery: He prefers to keep his clients’ business private.
I pursed my lips.
“Hey, Zayne, are you coming? I need you to hear this story!” Moritz shouted from the living room.
Okay then.
Taking a deep breath, I entered the living room where both Luke and Moritz sat on the couch. Seeing them next to each other was hurting my brain. They really looked almost identical, though I’d been right. Moritz’s hair was a tad lighter. But while they looked so similar, their demeanor was completely different. Luke was rather serious, while his brother was full of mischief.
“I’m so glad it’s finally Luke doing stupid shit, you know,” Moritz explained. “When we were little, I was always the one getting into trouble.”
“You’re the responsible one of us,” Luke muttered, petting Sammy who lay on the couch, his head placed on Luke’s lap…. Damn… that looked comfortable.
“No.” Moritz shook his head. “I’m your conscience and your voice of reason. Just like you’re mine. But you were always so serious.” He looked at me again. “From the moment Luki started playing football as a kid, he was on a mission. A lot of boys wanted to become football stars when they grew up, but Luki… he worked for it from day one. I, on the other hand.” He snorted grinning at me. “I was a normal teenager. Drinking, occasionally smoking weed, and the like.”
“I couldn’t do any of that,” Luke explained as I sat next to him. He placed one of his hands on my thigh, squeezing lightly. “There were very strict rules for us — as in my team. I was picked up by a junior team of a well-known soccer club at age ten. No alcohol, no smoking, no drugs.”
“Which is why I was always the one that got into trouble.” Moritz laughed good naturedly. It was obvious he didn’t harbor any hard feelings for his brother. “Our parents used to say I was getting into enough trouble for the both of us, but I swear it wasn’t that bad. I only almost got kicked out of school once. And that was only because Mrs. Andrews couldn’t take a joke. Anyways… as he started making money, I thought for sure now he’d be the one to do stupid shit for a change. But Dad immediately stepped up, preventing Luke from doing just that. You know, being an eighteen-year-old with more than a million euros at hand is a recipe for disaster…. At least if you don’t have a father who takes it all away and makes you be responsible. So, once again, I was the troublemaker. But now? Now the time has finally come!”
I couldn’t help but smile as I saw how giddy he was. Yesterday, Moritz had been incredibly serious and worried about his brother, so whatever was going on, it couldn’t be too bad, could it?
“You make it sound as though I did something crazy!” Luke protested. I wasn’t sure if he was fondly exasperated or worried. His expression was changing too fast, so maybe he didn’t know, either.
“Yeah, you did. You bought a rundown cabin in order to be able to pretend you’re living there instead of this… villa made out of wood.”
“You did…what?” My eyes widened while Luke looked at me sheepishly.
“Well… uhm… it sounds… bad? And… crazy? But I didn’t go through with it! I knew it was taking things a step to far!”
“So you didn’t buy it?” I asked tentatively, my mind still wrapping around the fact that he could. When he’d told me he wasn’t hurting for money, I hadn’t expected him to be rich. And after all hell broke loose with the press, the thought that my boyfriend, the guy working as a retailer in a soap shop for minimum wage, was actually a multi-millionaire had never crossed my mind.
“Oh no, I did… By the time I’d come to my senses, I couldn’t back out of the sale. But I knew pretending to live somewhere I didn’t was too unhinged, even for me and my anxiety, so now the cabin is just… there. Mine in name only.” He shrugged. “I thought about fixing it up and moving in because let’s be real, this cabin — while truly amazing — is too big for me. Hell, it’d still be too big if you moved in with me. But I came to love the view. I even started falling in love with those cinnamon-colored black bears that started stopping by a couple of days ago. They’re cute.”
Had he just mentioned us moving in with each other?
I blinked, replaying everything he’d just said in my head and yeah, he sure did. I didn’t know how I should feel about this. I wasn’t all that sure that the warmth unfurling in my chest was appropriate seeing as we’d already been a couple for… six weeks, and we’d just had such a big fight we’d almost broken things off, but… at some point in the future? Me, Luke, Sammy…
I smiled as I thought about waking up next to Luke every day. Having Sammy run around my legs all the time. Watching the black bears in the morning, a cup of coffee in hand… maybe… my heart skipped… maybe there’d even be a kid, pressing their nose against the windows, excitedly squealing and pointing at the bears.
One day…
“Be glad he didn’t gift you the cabin,” Moritz said gleefully. “Well, he might still do that. I think buying other people houses is his love language. My parents got one. I got one… we even got a vacation home by the North Sea because my parents mentioned liking it there once. Once.” Moritz snorted. “Since he’s obviously in love with you… be careful. If you mention loving a place, chances are, you might end up with an apartment or a house for Christmas.”
“I’m not that bad,” Luke whispered. “Besides, my brother loves the vacation home. He goes at least thrice a year.”
I leaned against him, relaxing again.
Was it weird he’d bought that cabin? Fuck yeah, it was. And it was just another thing that proved he needed a therapist. I knew convincing him to trust one was going to be a lot of hard work, but… he needed it. I knew it, and I was sure that, on some level, he knew it, too. This anxiety was neither healthy for his mental wellbeing nor for his physical health. But was I going to leave him because of that? No. If he’d crossed that line, actively lying and pretending to live somewhere else… My chest tightened. I don’t think I could forgive that.
Luke and Moritz kept joking around while I reveled in the fact that I saw Luke smiling and truly free. There was nothing holding him back, the guard he’d kept up for so long was gone.
When I noticed they’d started speaking German, I pulled my phone out of my pocket, opening my Instagram, ignoring all the notifications, and started browsing. Liking a couple of photos here and there, reposting pics snapped at my grand opening before starting to edit the photos I’d taken on my phone and posting them, thanking people for coming.
I rigorously ignored any comment on Luke and any speculations about him possibly leaving my house in the morning. I noticed people fighting about it being him or not, but I didn’t care.
What I did care about was the movement within my followers and — apparently — some of Luke’s fans that started a trend called #leavethembe, advocating others to stop harassing us. My heart warmed upon reading all those comments about why it was toxic and them understanding why Luke had fled from all of it. I wasn’t delusional. I knew the press didn’t care about hashtags like that – except for making it into a big article, ruining the whole purpose, but seeing people go out for us… yeah, that felt pretty good.
I knew we’d need to take care of this issue sooner rather than later. It wouldn’t dissolve itself, but today… today was for us.
