Free Falling

I laughed and slapped his shoulder, trying to fake hurt. “Don’t keep insulting my butt, I’ll get a complex about it,” I scolded playfully.

He winked at me. “I guess I’d better get home soon. My aunt will be worried about me, I didn’t tell her that I was coming here after school, so she’s probably wondering where I am.”

“And what will she think when you walk in with a smashed up face?” I asked, wincing as I looked at his split lip and bruising jaw.

He waved his hand dismissively. “She’ll just be pleased that I stayed the full day at school.” I laughed, and he moved on the bed, scooping together all of his things that we’d made. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Maze-Daze.”

I groaned. “Please don’t call me that either.”

He opened his mouth to answer but was interrupted by a commotion coming from downstairs. I could hear Alex growling something, there was a slight crash as something banged against the wall. Then I heard Luke’s voice too, shouting that he was invited and that I wanted to talk to him. I gasped. He’s early! I didn’t tell anyone that he was coming over. Crap!

I sprang off of the bed and ran for the door as fast as I could before Alex got too angry and they started fighting again. As I burst out of my room, I looked down to see Alex was practically pinning Luke against the wall as they shouted at each other. Alex looked ready to kill.

“Alex! I did invite him!” I shouted, running down the stairs as fast as I could without breaking my neck.

My brother looked up at me and frowned, his grip not loosening on Luke for a second. “What the hell? Why?” he cried angrily.

I reached his side then and looked at him pleadingly, trying to keep my eyes away from Luke’s for as long as possible; his eyes always were my favourite part about him. “Because I need to talk to him,” I explained, frowning at Alex because he hadn’t let go yet. He looked like he was having trouble not beating my ex-boyfriend to a pulp. My dad was there too, I didn’t see him at first but my mom was standing in front of him trying to calm him down. He looked like he wanted to kill Luke too. I sighed dramatically and grabbed Alex’s wrist, pulling to get him to let go of Luke’s hoodie. “Alex, just leave it. I said I invited him over, so just go already will you?” I requested, trying to look stern even though I actually loved him for doing that for me. I loved how protective he was of me, it was adorable - it’s just that it was infuriating at times.

He made a kind of growling sound as he shoved Luke away from him, making him hit the wall again that he was already being pinned against. “I swear to God, Hannigan, if you hurt my sister again I’m going to kill you,” he promised, his voice full of menace.

Luke nodded, signalling that he’d understood, so Alex walked off. He mumbled something to my dad before they both stomped off into the lounge together, still grumbling cuss words under their breath. My dad was worse than my brother at times. I turned back to Luke and smiled apologetically, but he wasn’t looking at me, he was looking over my shoulder with an angry expression on his face.

I frowned and turned, expecting Alex to be watching us or something, instead, Zach was walking down the stairs, a cocky smile on his face as he held Luke’s gaze.

“Wow, you should see someone about that face, it looks bad,” Zach suggested, grinning.

Luke seemed to tense as he stepped closer to me, his eyes not leaving Zach’s. “What are you doing here?” he spat.

Zach’s eyes flicked to me as he shrugged. “Just screwing your ex again,” he replied coolly.

“Goodbye, Zach!” I interjected before they could get into an argument about it again.

Zach laughed and winked at me as I practically pushed him out of the front door. “Tell your brother I said bye, and thank your mom for dinner.” I nodded in acknowledgement and practically shut the door in his face which made him laugh again outside.

I chewed on my lip and looked back to see Luke looking at me expectantly, obviously waiting for an explanation. Well screw him, I didn’t owe him anything, he should know me better. “Let’s go upstairs and talk then,” I suggested, ignoring the tense atmosphere. He was so jealous that his jaw was twitching where he was grinding his teeth together.

I walked off without waiting for him, heading to my bedroom, dreading this whole conversation. It was necessary though, I needed to find out if he felt like he’d been taken advantage of, because this whole situation would change if he did.

When we got in my room I sat on my desk chair because I didn’t want to sit too close to him. He trotted over and sat on my bed, looking at his hands, his shoulders slumped. I took a deep breath and tried to come up with words that would actually make sense, but my mind was too jumbled to form a coherent sentence.

“So, I just… about Friday… and…” I closed my eyes and willed my mouth to work.

“Maisie, baby, I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

I nodded; I knew he was sorry, his whole posture and attitude was showing me how much he regretted it. “I know. I just figured I should talk to you about it and find out what happened.”

He sighed and closed his eyes letting his head drop down so he was looking at his lap.

“Luke, just tell me what happened on Friday night. In your words. I don’t want you to tell me what I want to hear, I want you to tell me what you felt happened, okay?” I suggested, just needing to get this done already so I would know one way or the other.

He ran a hand through his hair, not looking at me as he spoke, “I was drunk, really drunk. I don’t remember much of it, but I started to feel sick and managed to get upstairs to Ricky’s bathroom before I puked. When I turned around she was there, leaning on the door frame, smiling.” He looked up at me then with a pained expression on his face. “I just remember thinking that I wanted to go home. I was washing my hands and I was going to come and get you to see if we could leave. But she started taking her shirt off and I was a little too shocked to do anything. Then she kind of threw herself at me I guess, I don’t really know, it was all happening so fast. I didn’t think about anything else, my head was swimming, and nothing seemed to matter and she was so insistent and was undressing me. I just,” he winced and shook his head, “I’m sorry.”

My heart was hurting so much as I started to imagine how that happened. I imagined her lips on his, her tongue in his mouth. My lungs felt like they were constricting, so my breathing was a little shallow. “Luke, you said that you were at the hospital, and that someone put something in your drink,” I said, trying to get the information out of him without saying the words.

He nodded. “I wouldn’t have done it otherwise. I would never cheat on you, baby. You’re my life. I love you more than anything,” he promised, looking at me pleadingly.

“So, you didn’t know what you were doing? You were drugged and didn’t know what you were doing?” I asked, bracing myself for his answer.

He frowned. “Maisie, I don’t know what you’re getting at. What is it that you’re asking? If you want to know if I regret it, then the answer is yes. If you want to know if I’ll ever cheat on you again, then the answer is never. I promise this was a onetime thing. I can’t lose you, please?”

I took a deep breath and looked at him as I asked the thing that I couldn’t stop thinking about since lunchtime. “Luke, did she take advantage of you? You said you wouldn’t have done it if you weren’t drugged. Do you feel like she,” I took a deep breath, “raped you?”

He recoiled, seeming a little taken aback by my question. He didn’t speak for a minute or two, and I felt like the silence was killing me slowly. He was obviously thinking about his answer, a thoughtful expression covered his face as he looked at his hands. Finally, he shook his head. “Not really,” he admitted.

Part of me was glad for him. The emotional turmoil he would feel if he’d answered yes would have been hard for him to deal with, so I was glad that he didn’t feel like that. The extremely selfish part of me, the part that was hoping for my boyfriend back, was a little disappointed. I hated myself for being so nasty, but if he’d answered differently then I would have thrown my arms around his neck and given him my full support. I would have Luke, sure it would be hard to work past, he would have had a lot to deal with, but we would have gotten through it together.

“You felt like you were in control and you could have stopped it if you wanted to?” I questioned, just needing to make sure he was okay.

He nodded. “I have the strong feeling that if I’d said that she’d taken advantage that I wouldn’t be facing losing you right now,” he muttered. Luke always was smart with things like that.

I frowned and shrugged. “You didn’t answer differently, so,” I trailed off not knowing what else to say.

“Maisie, is there anything I can do? Anything?” he asked, looking at me pleadingly.

“I love you, I really do,” I replied. “But you did that knowing I was downstairs, knowing that she wasn’t me, knowing that I would never do that to you. Yet you still did it. That hurts so much, Luke.” I willed the tears not to fall in front of him, there was no doubt I would be crying myself to sleep later, but for right now I was trying to be strong. “I just don’t know if I can forget this. I want to hate you, I want to punch you in the face and scream at you. I want to hurt you like you’ve hurt me.”

He moved off of the bed then and knelt in front of me. “Do it then. Hit me, scream at me, do whatever you need. Please, just give me one more chance. Just please don’t let this be it,” he begged.

His beautiful brown eyes that I loved so much locked on mine and I didn’t want to say this was it; I didn’t want to completely cut it off with him. I actually didn’t know if I could forgive him, but I couldn’t rule it out. “I don’t know. I’m so confused. I love you; I honestly still love you, but…”