I Love You to Death(51)

"Thank you for today Luke," I finally get out.
"Any time Ash," he says quietly. "Anytime." He tucks my hair behind my ear and for a second I think he’s going to kiss me. I’m surprised to find I want him to.
But he doesn’t and instead he smiles at me once more, before turning and walking away.
When I get inside, I go straight to bed. But I can’t sleep, because a million thoughts are swirling in my brain now, keeping me awake. All of them are about Luke. Even if his voice wasn’t filling the silence of my apartment, I would be thinking about him.
Once he has slept in my apartment. Twice he has held me as I’ve cried. Once he has held me when I haven’t. For the whole day today he held my hand like it was the most natural thing in the world. Many times I have watched his band play. I have met his family and now he has met mine.
And, now I know how he feels about me. The things Mia said are still swirling around in my brain. Her words are making me think and feel many things. The way Luke looks at me is making me think and feel many things.
I don’t know what to do about it all, but I want to let him in. It surprises me that I do, that all of a sudden, a part of me would want to risk it all over again. I don’t want anything to happen to Luke, but I know I can’t ignore this thing between us, or these feelings I have for him, anymore. I know I can’t push him away any longer.
I don’t sleep for the rest of the night and I spend the next day at work in a daze. I have no idea what Luke thinks when he sees me like this, but my brain feels crowded with thoughts still, clouded by feelings and I want to straighten them all out. I want to work out what it is I want.
What is it that Luke wants?
I wish I knew what that was, but he makes it so hard. Because now even though he talks to me all the time, more than he ever used to, even though now he specifically seeks me out, if only to tell me of a song that’s playing on the radio or hand me a new cupcake he’s trying out, or give me a CD he’s just bought or a book he thinks I might like to read. Even though he does all of that, he doesn’t do anything more. He still watches me, but I no longer ask him, "What?" and so he no longer shrugs and looks away. Instead we watch each other, both of us smiling and neither of us turning away.
I know that Sarah notices it though. I catch her looking at us and smiling. Now it’s her I’m asking, "What?"
She just laughs at me and says, "Nothing Ash, nothing."
The guys from Infinity come in a lot now, or maybe I just notice it more, now that I know them. They always say hi to me and Jared gives me little smiles which make me feel weird, like he knows something that I don’t. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I do nothing to change any of it. I don’t try to stop whatever it is that’s happening between Luke and I, because I want to hang out with him. He makes me laugh and he’s so easy to talk too, so very easy to be with. I always feel lighter, happier after being with him and his music chases away the bad dreams I have. The CD of their music, the one he left in my locker. I listen to it all the time. Now I fall asleep every night listening to Luke’s voice.
It helps. I haven’t had a single nightmare ever since I started falling asleep to his voice.
But all of these thoughts still swirl around in my brain, leaving me feeling guilty. Guilty about why I can go for hours without even thinking about Sam or what happened to him. Guilty about why instead I find myself thinking of Luke, wondering what he’s doing. Of what it would be like to be with him, of what it would be like to kiss him. Wondering if he would kiss me.
A million thoughts and one single question – why am I letting myself feel this?
I don’t have an answer, I really don’t. I just think in the end, I would rather risk being hurt than feel nothing. It sounds crazy, but I have to. I have to do something. I have to feel something because feeling nothing is just too empty.




Cloud nine – a state of euphoria or bliss
∞

Playlist:
1. Undisclosed desires – Muse
2. Unchained melody – U2 version
3. Kiss me – Ed Sheeran
∞

I never realised what wanting someone was really like. The power it holds over you, the way it can make you feel, the way it completely messes with your brain. It’s like the biggest rush, the greatest high, where you can simultaneously feel like you’re floating and falling and you don’t ever want it to stop.
I never got that with Sam. With him, one minute we weren’t and the next minute we were. We happened so quickly, that as soon as we did, I couldn’t really remember a time without him. With Adam, I’d simply never thought it could happen, so by the time I got around to acknowledging it, I already had him anyway.
With Luke however, it all just crept up on me. That tension, the longing and especially the want. I wasn’t looking for it, I didn’t expect it and I certainly wasn’t sure I wanted to risk it. But suddenly it was there and now that I see it, now that I feel it, I can’t believe I ever thought I could go without it. It’s all I ever think about. He’s all I ever think about. It’s simultaneously unbearable and unbelievable.
And it just makes me want him even more.
∞

My grandmother’s death was difficult for me. I know what happened was my fault. But, I also know when she died, she was with my Grandad again, and there was a tiny part of me that couldn’t ignore that. It was still wrong, everything that happened, but them being together was a tiny bit of good that I could take from it all. So yeah, I still felt responsible and I still felt guilty, but a part of me felt something else too.