The Probability of Violet and Luke(52)

It’s amazing how easy it is to run away from your problems. Running back to Preston felt easier than going back to Luke. Yes, it has to do partly with who his mother is, but I think there was always more to it than that. I think it was easier to run away, because it meant running away from what I was feeling. That night he told me who his mother was hurt so badly that I knew I was falling for him. Hard. I’d never had such powerful emotions toward someone before and that scared me.

“What about this thing with your… mother?” I ask, wincing as I remember the one and only night I met his mother, how crazy she looked as she sang that song with my parent’s blood on her clothes. “What if something happens, like they arrest her? Won’t that make things weird? More weird than they already are?”

He looks baffled, his jaw dropping, his eyes widening. “I f*cking hope they arrest her. In fact I’ve been waiting for them to my entire life.”

Silence stretches between us as he drifts into thought as he rolls onto his back, his gaze floating to the ceiling while I examine his expression, trying to figure out what he could be thinking.

“How bad was it?” I dare ask. I’ve heard some stories from him, horrible stories, but I’m guessing there’s more to it, more that he hasn’t told me yet. “With your mom, I mean… was it just the drug thing? Or was there something more?”

His breath catches in his throat, his eyes glued to the ceiling as he struggles with something internally. I’m about to tell him never mind, that he doesn’t have to talk about it if he doesn’t want to, but then he starts talking. “She used to like to play these games,” he says, his voice faltering. “Ones that you’d never win, but you’d have to try or else you’d pay too. There was one time she messed up the entire house and then told me to clean it, but the catch was that everything had to be put in the right place, otherwise I’d have to spend time with her… days… which should sound fun but her idea of spending time together, was not the normal mother son relationship. More like a pet… only she liked the pet too much…” He squeezes his eyes and I wonder if he’s trying to hold back tears. “You know what really f*cking sucks. Is that I just let her make me do all those things, was I that afraid of her?"

“You were just a kid,” I tell him. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“So. I knew what she was doing was wrong, but I didn’t do anything to try and stop it, because I was afraid of her—still am sometimes. A full grown man and just the sound of her voice makes me feel so angry and helpless.”

Just like Preston does to me. God, we have so much in common. If only there wasn’t that one thing, then maybe we could have something good.

He stays still for a while, while I wonder exactly what he’s trying to say, read between the lines. His mother clearly hurt him, but it seems like there’s so much more to it, way, way more. Dark things. Ones I should know. The things people do behind close doors—I’ve seen a lot of f*cked up shit. But I think Luke might have seen more, which is so sad it literally hurts my heart.

When he opens his eyes again, he rolls back toward me and starts grazing his finger across my cheek. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be talking to you about this. You’ve been through your own shit and the last thing you need is for me to babble about my problems.”

“It’s okay. I asked you to,” I say, battling to keep my voice. Too many emotions, dammit, I can’t keep doing this. I pause, inhaling and exhaling loudly, about to say something that I’d never thought I’d say aloud. “Luke…”

His hand stops moving on my cheek, his thumb tracing a line beneath my eye. “Yeah?” When I don’t say anything right away, he adds, “You can say whatever you want to me, good or bad. I deserve whatever it is.”

“I think I was wrong for leaving that day.” The words fall from my lips and crash to the earth like fragile glass. Throughout the last two months, I’d thought it many times. Every time I woke up from my nightmares alone. Every time I saw a place Luke and I shared some kind of moment together. Every time Preston touched me… that’s when I regretted my decision the most. But admitting that and letting everything go so I could get back to the place I was in before I left Luke, always seemed out of reach. But what if it’s right here, in front of me?

Just let it go.

The thought sounds like my father’s voice, but the thing is, I didn’t know him well enough to know if he’d be the kind of person who’d want me to hold a grudge or let it go. I was too young when he died, barely getting to know him and my mother. I want to believe, though, that they were good people, despite what anyone else says.