I'm back with a new chapter :P WOHOO (Just kidding)
This one's pretty long... (Or well, not really... just compared to the other chapters)
Sorry it took so long for me to update, but I wasn't home yesterday..

Anyways, THANKS for the reviews and don't forget to leave new ones :P
ENJOY!!


Chapter 20 - Distant

Abby put her uniform into her bag before signing out. She had been at work since 8 this morning, and it was already 6 pm. Throwing her bag over her shoulder she left the building through the back door.

She shut her eyes the second she came outside. The sun was just as bright as it had been for the last couple of days, which was way too bright. But even worse: It was hot as hell. Another heat wave had hit Chicago and she was sweating to death. She couldn't just walk around in a tank-top and shorts or a skirt like everyone else, and damn she was jealous of them.

"Hey Abby." She froze as she looked up at Luka, tensing up extremely as he embraced her. She was hoping he didn't feel it, but judging by the look on his face when he pulled back, he definitely did. "Is everything alright?" She nodded her head, both to show him she was fine but also to get out of her trance. She hated the way he stared at her with that much concern and compassion. She wanted to just scream at him to leave her alone. Not that she really wanted him to, but things were just way to complicated.

"What are you doing here?" She didn't expect it to come out like that. Like a combination of scared and confused. She could also see on Luka's facial expression that he hadn't expected it either. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that." He was still looking confused at her, so she bit her lip. "I just..." She wasn't sure what she was going to say, but she needed to come up with something. "I worked really late last night, and I've been working all day. I'm just really tired." She looked at him, once again biting her lip, hoping he would buy it. It wasn't like she was lying, she just left out a lot of things in the explanation.

He gave her a small smile, but she could see that he wasn't fully convinced. "Okay. I kind of have jetlag myself, so guess I can't blame you." She smiled back at him, her first smile in weeks probably.

"How about I meet you tomorrow? I really have to get home right now." She gave him her puppy eyes, the ones she knew he couldn't resist. "I don't have to work till later in the evening." He nodded and Abby sighed relieved.

"Meet me at the beach at noon?" She gave him a weak smile and nodded.

"Sounds good." She smiled at him before slowly walking away. She knew that he most probably found her behaviour really weird, but she simply couldn't handle faking right now. Pretending like everything was as when he left. It wasn't. Maggie had pretty much left for good. She had decided that she needed to get away from Chicago, from her family, for a couple of months. To be honest, Abby wasn't even sure if or when she would be back.

Richard was getting worse by the day. Now that there was no school, he was free to do with her whatever he felt like, whenever he felt like it.


Abby sat on the beach, her knees in front of her, looking at a man and a woman, walking with their 2 young kids and a dog. She couldn't help but smile at the sight. The kids couldn't be more than five and seven years old. They were fooling around, wrestling each other, laughing and just having an amazing time.

It wasn't much, but she did have some vague memories of her childhood. Of how life had been before her dad had left. Before... Richard. Okay, it was never idyllic, with Maggie always having refused to take her meds, it was never very stable. But at least she was able to be a kid. Not having any responsibilities. Any chores. Or well, of course she had to behave properly, clean her room and stuff like that, but those were normal and manageable.

She waved her hands in front of her face, trying to make a little bit of wind. The sun was sharp and bright and she was surprised her clothes hadn't caught on fire yet.

She was waiting for Luka to show up, and she was mentally beating herself up for not having found a spot in the shades. It was way too hot out here, and even the sand felt like it was burning.

Richard had let her go when she asked him. She wasn't really sure why, but she couldn't really complain about it. She just didn't have very much time. She still had to be at work at 1:30 pm, thanks to Richard's insane schedule.

"Hey!" She looked up as Luka plunged down next to her.

"Hi." She gave him a weak smile. She was happy to see him, she really was, but at the same time nervous and shy, possibly even scared.

"How long have you been waiting?" She shrugged her shoulders. Honestly, she wasn't sure. It wasn't like she had been timing it. She had been far away into her own little daydream, deep in her thoughts. But she must have been there for quite a while, because the 'happy family' was no where to be seen.

"I don't know. Not long." Luka nodded and looked down, feeling the awkwardness in the air. For a while none of them said anything, they were just starring out over the water.

"So how was Croatia?" Luka ripped his gaze away from Lake Michigan to look at Abby who'd pulled him out of his thoughts. She was still looking at the ground though, drawing patterns in the sand with her finger.

"It was really nice. It was good to see all my of my family again, hear some Croatian." Abby looked up at him, not succeeding in holding back her smile. She had to admit that it felt nice just hearing his voice, feeling his presence.

"Hey! That's not fair. I can speak Croatian!" Luka looked surprised at her.

"Oh really? I didn't know that. Shoot!" Abby took a deep breath, trying to remember the words. Eric told them to her a while back, said he had found them on the internet at school.

"Ja sam u vete." Luka burst out laughing. Abby just stared confused at him when he continued laughing. It was like he couldn't stop.

"Was it that badly pronounced?" Luka held up a hand, telling her to hold on till he could breath again, which could very well take a while.

"Well that too, but ehm..." He looked at her like he wasn't sure what to say. "You just told me that you're 'on the toilet'." That made Abby start a laughing fit of her
own, and was soon joined by Luka.

"I'm gonna kill him." Luka gave her a confused look but she just kept chuckling. "Eric. He told me it meant 'I want ice cream' or something like that." Luka nodded, knowing that Eric probably told her that on purpose.

"Well, if you want ice cream, you have to say 'ja utchu sladolet'." She bit her lip, still not getting how he could pronounce those words.

"Good to know. I'll try to remember that." Luka smiled and looked down at his feet, feeling that it was getting pretty awkward again.

"What about you? How have you been this past month?" Abby took a deep breath. This was the part she was dreading, the part where she had to lie. She was pretty good at it, but she hated it. It made her feel, lousy. She wanted to just get up and run away. Hide somewhere where he wouldn't be able to find her. She automatically pulled her sleeves down so they were covering her hands as she looked at him, giving him a fake smile.

"Okay I guess." One very important thing with lying, don't ever go over the top. Make it sound natural. Real. "Been busy with work, hanging out with Eric. Stuff like that." Luka nodded, but Abby couldn't read his face. She wasn't sure if he believed her or not.

She looked down again, noticing that her drawings had disappeared.

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot." She looked back up at Luka as he pulled her out of her thoughts. He was pulling something out of his pocket and handed her a big clump of wrapping paper. Or well, there was something inside it of course.

"Wow, for me?" Her voice was weak and she sounded just as surprised as she was. Or well, she was in disbelieve. No one had ever though about her enough to get her anything. Not even Maggie when it was her birthday. She always forgot. And well, all of Richards presents always involved her. Naked. She looked at Luka, like she wanted reassurance that it was really for her.

"Yeah. I promised you a souvenir, didn't I?" Abby just looked at the big, blue, heavy object in her hand and slightly nodded.

"I didn't expect any though." She just kept starring at it until Luka's voice brought her out of her own little world.

"Open it!" She bit her lip as she quickly looked up at him before looking back at the present in her hand. Taking a deep breath she carefully started unwrapping it, slowly peeling off the blue paper like the world's fate depended on it.

"A snow globe?" She was starring amazed at the approximately 3 inch tall snow globe in her hand. It was one of the ones made out of glass, and not just cheap plastic.

"Yeah. It's Dubrovnik, the city I'm from. I know it's kind of lame, but..." She could hear in his voice that he was both proud of his home city, but at the same time not sure if she liked it.

"Luka it's... It's beautiful!" It really was beautiful. The bottom was brown with some kind of pattern engraved in graved in it, but it was the pretty old fashioned houses and the beautiful mountains and the ocean inside it which had captured Abby. She carefully shook it and studied the little pieces of fake snow slowly and peacefully moving towards the ground, like it had all eternity before it had to touch the ground again.

Still sitting down she spun around, throwing her arms around his neck. She was hoping he wouldn't hug her back too tight. "Thank you so much." When she pulled back not long after, she saw Luka's confused facial expression turn into a smile. She wasn't sure if it was because she liked the souvenir or if he was just happy that she seemed a bit like herself, actually seeming happy and allowing physical contact.

"You're very welcome." She couldn't stop starring at his face, she'd missed seeing his smile so much. But at the same time it scared the hell out of her, she was still dreading that he would be able to see through her facade.

She couldn't help it. She had promised herself she wouldn't, but when Luka leaned towards her, her body ignored every signal the brain was sending and she automatically leaned in and met his lips with her own. She wasn't sure how long they were kissing, all she knew was that it made her forget all of the things that had happened since he left. She was completely lost in their kiss, enjoying the touch and the taste of Luka's kiss, when his cell phone went off. She closed her eyes as they both pulled back. Somehow Abby was really happy that they had been interrupted, but at the same time she was mentally cussing at who ever was on the other end of that phone.

"I'm sorry." Luka pulled her out of her thoughts as he hung up the phone. "That was just my dad asking if I wanted anything specific from Blockbuster." Abby just nodded, but then ripped his cell phone out of his hand.

"Damn! It's 1:23." She quickly threw his cell phone back onto his lap and started getting up. "I gotta go!" Luka just looked confused at her.

"Abby?"

"I have to leave. I'll find you later." Before he had a chance of getting up, or even saying anything, she was hurrying down the beach. He sighed as he got up as well. There was something mysterious about Abby, and he wished he knew what it was.