I Love You to Death(74)

I take a deep breath. "That day you threw the phone, were you talking to him?"
Luke closes his eyes. "Yeah," he whispers. "I was. I was trying to protect Mia."
"Is she like you?" I ask. "You know, gifted?"
He runs his hand over his face, over his head. He looks so tired as he says, "No, it was just me, although she’s definitely not stupid. She just isn’t doing what he wants her to do. He still thinks he actually has a say in all this, in her life."
His face is so sad, so lost. I want him to be happy again. I want to make him happy. He’s done so much for me, so much more than I ever thought possible. I look at him, forcing myself to smile. "So you’re saying, underneath this sexy rock star lurks a total maths geek?"
He laughs now and there it is. His eyes are bright again. The worry and tiredness leaves his face. My heart surges with happiness, finally. I smile at him, kiss him softly. He pulls me even closer, dragging the covers over us.
"You think I’m sexy?" he whispers teasingly.
I laugh now. I feel like I’m home.

It’s been twelve days since Luke’s accident and I’m still living with him. His burn is healing and he will be okay. I’ve officially given up my apartment now and all of my stuff is either here, in storage or gone. I’m living in the apartment with him and Jared. I’m welcome here and it’s nothing like before. I want to be here. Luke wants me to be here. Jared laughs when he says I should’ve always been here. I don’t know how I ever thought I could leave him.
Luke makes space for me in his bedroom. We are lucky because he has the biggest with a bathroom too. He finds places for all of my stuff and he lets me be at home here. I smile as I put my toothbrush beside his in the bathroom. Stack my CDs with his. Hang my clothes next to his in the wardrobe.
And I hang the guitar picks in the window above our bed.
The last two weeks have been like a new start and I feel so different, so completely different to the old me. Luke knows everything now, he’s seen me at my worst and he’s still here. Every day with him is like a new chance and I don’t want to lose that. I want to believe this is all possible. I want to believe things really can be different this time.
I’m lying in bed reading when I hear Luke come home tonight. Mia is here again, staying with us for Christmas. I know now that she always stays with them when she comes to town and I know now how much Jared loves it. I also know it isn’t just a little one sided crush at all, that he is absolutely crazy about her and when I ask him why he doesn’t just tell her, he shakes his head and says, "She’s the sister of my best mate Ash, it’s complicated."
"He knows Jared and he doesn’t have a problem with it," I tell him. "You have to know that."
He smiles sadly at me and says, "Yeah I guess, I mean he didn’t seem to before."
"So what’s the real problem then, why can’t you just tell her how you really feel?" I want them to be happy. It’s torturous watching them both feel the same way about each other and do nothing about it. I don’t know how either of them can stand it.
"I don’t know," he answers quietly. "Too much has happened and too much has been said. Mia, she knows how I….I just, I just don’t know."
He blows out a deep breath and I realise how much all of this affects him, how much it must’ve been affecting him for a while now. I also get the feeling there’s a lot more going on here than I ever realised. Things have definitely happened in the past I know that, but there’s a gap neither of them can cross, no matter how much they both want to. I want to help them, after everything they’ve done for me.
I spent the afternoon hanging out with Mia while the guys practiced. We talked and talked all afternoon, well into the night. When I brought Jared up I saw the sad smile cross her face. They were stuck, both of them.
"Do you want to talk about it Mia?" I asked her as I grabbed us a couple of beers.
"There isn’t much to say Ash," she said quietly.
I squeezed her hand as I said, "I kinda get the feeling there is, that maybe there’s more going on here between the two of you?"
She looked up at me then and it looked like tears were filling her eyes. "Yeah, things have happened before."
"And?" I said, still holding her hand as I sat down beside her.
"And I don’t know, it’s a mess Ash, for so many reasons and things just seem to get in the way of sorting it all out."
"Have you tried just telling him how you feel about all of this?" I asked gently.
"No," she said sadly. "I already f*cked things up once before, badly, and I don’t know how to fix that. How to undo the things I’ve done."
"Maybe you need to make time, find a way. Remember what you told your brother Mia?" I said to her. "You just need to do something, anything to show Jared how you really feel, that you feel the same way he does."
She shook her head. "I can’t sing Ash, you know that."
I couldn’t help but laugh. "You know that’s not what I meant Mia, you just need to let him know, really let him know. Shit, look at what Luke did and he had no idea how I felt."
Mia raised an eyebrow at me.
"What?"
"Ash, I hate to say it, but I knew how you felt about Luke within about two seconds of meeting you."
"Really?" I asked. "But nothing was even going on back then?"
Mia was laughing now. "Didn’t matter Ash, up until you found out I was his sister, you could pretty much see the jealousy and annoyance dripping off you. It was obvious how you felt, even if you didn’t realise it."