Free Falling

My dad was looking between the two of us, a shocked and confused expression on his face. “You broke up?” he asked incredulously.

Both Luke and I ignored him, our gazes locked on each other; he was begging me with his eyes. “It’s not too late; please tell me that, Maisie. Please tell me I get another chance,” he croaked, still trying to push my dad’s arm off of him so he could get to me.

I could feel the tears rolling down my cheeks again. “I’m sorry, I can’t,” I whispered, not trusting my voice to speak properly.

“No! I won’t give up on us, Maisie. I won’t!” Luke shouted wildly. I flinched, and my dad shoved Luke back a step towards the door. “Someone put something in my drink! I swear to you, I didn’t even really know what I was doing, I swear!” He continued to thrash as my dad pushed him towards the door. “I love you, baby.”

My breath caught in my throat at those words coming out of his mouth, every time he said them to me they melted my heart, and this was no exception, I still relished the sound of every single syllable.

“Just go,” I whispered. He was breaking my heart all over again, seeing him just made everything came back, and the worst part was, the thing that I could see in my head the clearest right now, was him n**ed on the bed with another girl.

He dropped to his knees. “Please don’t do this.” His face showed his heartbreak. For a split second I reconsidered. “You and I are meant to be together, Maisie, you’re my everything. Please? Just please don’t give up on us, because I never will,” he pleaded, not even bothering to wipe the tears from his face.

A stair creaked behind me. “What’s happening? What’s with all the shouting, some of us are sleeping off a hangover you know,” Alex grumbled, slinging his arm around my shoulder, yawning in my ear. I turned to face him and his whole posture stiffened, his jaw tightened. “What the f**k have you done to my sister, Hannigan?” he shouted, letting his arm drop from my shoulders as he stepped in front of me protectively.

“Just stay out of it, Alex!” Luke snapped, getting to his feet again, trying to look around Alex, who was standing there like he was guarding the crown jewels. “Maisie, let’s just go somewhere, let me explain,” he suggested.

I shook my head in rejection. I just needed this meeting to be over, I couldn’t see him anymore. I dug my fingers into Alex’s back. “I don’t want to talk to you, Luke. Please just go,” I begged, nodding to the door.

“Explain what? What have you done?” Alex asked, looking at Luke angrily, his whole posture agitated and alert. He was going to go crazy when he found out that Luke had cheated on me.

“Alex, it’s fine, just leave it,” I whispered, trying to push him away from the protective stance he was in so that he’d look at me.

“My sister is standing here crying, it’s not freaking fine!” he growled, shaking his head angrily. I had to smile at how overprotective he was of me; Luke had some real guts to still be standing there in the hallway because my dad looked like he was trying not to kill him too.

“Leave, Luke,” I ordered sternly. I didn’t want to see him get hurt; I still loved him and I didn’t want to see him in pain.

His eyes tightened as they met mine. “Will you talk to me later? If I give you some time, will you answer your phone later?” he asked, looking at me pleadingly.

I needed to get him out of here before Alex found out what happened. It surprised me that he hadn’t already heard considering we were at the same party last night. Then again, he was probably too busy sleeping with some girl to notice what was going on around him.

I nodded. “I just can’t deal with this right now. Please just leave,” I said quietly. Luke opened his mouth to protest, but I shook my head, cutting him off. “For me, just leave?” I begged. I just couldn’t deal with anymore right now, I needed to go back to bed and try to sleep, because my head was pounding, a migraine was building up behind my eyes that was making me feel dizzy.

He nodded and looked at the floor, his shoulders slumped. He was literally the picture of sorrow. “I love you, baby,” he whispered as he turned and walked out of the door.

As soon as he was gone my dad slammed the door. “What the hell happened? You two broke up? I always just thought you would end up together,” he mumbled, looking at me slightly confused.

“Yeah we broke up; I don’t want to talk about it.” I turned towards my brother. “And you, you leave him alone, you hear me? If you hurt him I swear, Alex, I’m hurting you right back, get it?” I said looking at him sternly.

He frowned at me as his jaw tightened. “Just answer me this, did he cheat or something? He was wasted at the party last night, I left fairly early and someone said that you’d already left. I just assumed you went home with Luke,” his eyes flicked to my dad quickly as he carried on speaking, “I meant Charlotte, that you went home with Charlotte,” he amended.

I sighed, knowing that I needed to tell him the truth; my humiliation would be all around the school Monday anyway. “Yeah, he did. I just don’t want to talk about it right now. Just leave him alone though, okay?” He sighed deeply. He clearly didn’t like the idea of it, but he nodded somewhat reluctantly. “Thanks. I’m going back to bed, I didn’t sleep well last night and I have a killer headache.” I smiled weakly, trying to get them to stop worrying about me as much.

“Want me to send Mom up?” Dad offered, rubbing my back lightly.

I shook my head. “No, I just want to be on my own for a little while.”

As it turns out, the ‘little while’ that I wanted to be on my own for, turned into a fairly long while. I didn’t leave my bedroom for the rest of the weekend. I just sat there at my desk or on my bed, crying or thinking about Luke and what I wanted. He tried to call me again, but I still couldn’t speak to him. I answered and spoke to him for just long enough to tell him where I left his car and that I may have ran a couple of red lights. I didn’t mention the windshield.

I didn’t leave my room, didn’t get dressed, didn’t want to speak to my friends, I didn’t even eat. I was the definition of sad. If you looked up sad, pathetic, and heartbroken in the dictionary, there would be a picture of me next to all three of them.

I laid awake all of Sunday night, just dreading Monday. At home I had Alex and my dad to tell Luke to leave when he came to the door - which he did on more than one occasion - but at school I knew I would have to speak to him. Even just getting to school was going to be different, Luke always picked me up, and now I was going to be arriving with Alex. It was kind of like the end of an era.

As I stepped out of the door on Monday morning with Alex, I didn’t expect to see Luke’s Jeep parked there, and him to be leaning on the side of it, holding a bunch of daisies and a bag of Hershey’s Kisses. He smiled weakly at me as I walked up the drive.

“Alex, will you wait for me in your car?” I requested, looking at him pleadingly as he immediately tensed up and started glaring at Luke. He sighed and nodded, walking off and getting in his car, turning in his seat to watch me. He really was so overprotective it was plain ridiculous.

I walked up to Luke slowly; not quite knowing what words could start this conversation. “What are you doing here?” I asked, trying not to meet his sad eyes. He looked terrible, like he hadn’t slept either. Dark circles resided under his eyes, and his skin and hair had lost some of the shine and glow. He was even wearing rumpled clothes, which was very unlike him considering he had enough clothes to wear a new outfit every day and throw it in the trash instead of in the laundry. He looked like death warmed up.

He smiled weakly. “I thought I might get to speak to you this morning. I haven’t been able to get past your brother and dad all weekend, so I thought I’d try now considering this is the first time you’ve left the house in two days,” he answered. His eyes locked onto mine as he stepped closer to me.

“How do you know I haven’t been out for two days?” I asked, trying not to let the sad tone of his voice affect me.

“I slept in the car. Stalkerish I know, but I just wanted to see you,” he admitted, wincing.

I laughed humourlessly. “Comfortable?”

He shook his head and laughed quietly too. “Not in the slightest. But I just needed to be here in case you changed your mind and were ready to talk to me.” He handed me the flowers and candy. “I got you these yesterday, they’re a little wilted now though. I guess they didn’t enjoy being in the car overnight either.”

The situation felt like it was crushing me. This was the Luke that I fell in love with, the one that always put me first and made me feel like I was the most special girl in the world. I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d made her feel like that too. This was just too much. I had no idea what I wanted to say to him, I had no idea where we went from here or if there was any way I could get past this.

“Luke, I just can’t do this. Please can you just give me some space?” I asked, chewing on my lip, willing myself not to cry anymore.

“Maisie, you know I would never cheat on you,” he said, bending his head and looking directly into my eyes, tracing one finger across my cheek.

I snorted and batted his hand away from my face angrily. “Well you did a pretty good impression of someone faking sex.”

He groaned and gripped his hands into his hair. “Someone put something in my drink! I didn’t take anything but I felt like shit, like I wasn’t in control or something. After you left I just couldn’t stop throwing up. I spent the rest of the night in hospital attached to a drip trying to get my fluids back into my system!” he cried, looking at me desperately. “You know I’d never do anything like this to you. You’re my life, Maisie, the only good thing I have going. It’s me and you, that’s how it’s supposed to work.” He took my free hand, rubbing circles in the back of it with his thumb.