Here's the next chapter guys and, as much as I hate to tell you, the last... NO, not THE last, but don't have anymore written for the moment... Or well, that's a lie, got half a chapter...
Trust me, I really HAVE been trying to write, but havent been able to since the beginning of July.. I SUCK!! You're allowed to verbally kill me, maybe that's what I need to get my brain working again..
(It's seriously dead, I can't even get myself to write a 400 word exercise for english, which is a piece of cake... I've had like 2 weeks, one of which has been fall break, and gotten 78 words written... but it's mostly cause I simply can't be bothered I guess...)
Anyways.. Hope you'll enjoy it... And don't forget, me loves those reviews... and you're MORE THAN WELCOME to give me inspiration, ideas etc...
Chapter 42 - Coping slowly
Sighing, Luka sat down at his desk in chemistry. He'd just had a test in English and he was pretty sure he'd completely flunked it, or at least not done very well. Considering everything that was going on, he had completely forgot to study.
"Is this true?" He looked up as three girls threw the new school newspaper on his table, the same three girls who were always after Abby.
"Excuse me?" Rolling her eyes, one of the girls found the news/gossip section and pointed at the top left corner. Luka was just staring at it speechless, reading the text over and over.
"Well?" He practically threw it back at the girl who was standing with her hands on her hips. "Is it?" He took a deep breath, not really sure what to say.
"I can't tell you." Snorting, the girl walked away, followed by the two others. Luka just closed his eyes as he let his head fall onto the table. How was he ever going to tell Abby that everyone from their school knew she had gotten abused? Sure, it was still just a rumor, but that didn't make it any less horrible.
"Good morning, class." He hadn't even heard the teacher enter the room, but reluctantly sat up as the class started. "I've got your tests for you, and although they were okay, I had hoped for better." Luka was the first to get his test back, and he was pretty happy about his 86 , since chemistry wasn't exactly his best subject. "I see Abby's not back yet:"
"I'll give it to her." He felt everyone's eyes on him, but he didn't care. He just took the papers as the teacher hesitantly handed them to him. He didn't look at it till the teacher went back to the front of the classroom. It didn't surprise him when he saw the 100 in the top corner, but he still couldn't understand how she was able to do so well in school with everything that was going on in her life.
"Hey." Abby looked away from the TV and gave Luka a small, forced smile. "What are you watching?" Shrugging her shoulders she put the remote on the table in front of her as Luka joined her on the couch.
"Just surfing around." She bit her lip as Luka continued going through the channels, feeling pretty awkward. "So how ehm... was school?" Taking a deep breath he looked at her. She actually looked a bit scared and he couldn't blame her, he would have been worried about rumors and gossip as well if it was him.
"It was okay, pretty much like it always is." He knew that he was lying and that it was probably really stupid, but he couldn't get himself to tell her the truth. He couldn't bear the though of him making her hurt even more. "You got a 100 on your chemistry test, though." Once again she just shrugged her shoulders. She couldn't really care any less about some test she took a week ago.
"What about you?" He put the remote down after having given up on trying to find something worth watching, stopping on some commercials. "What have you been up to today?" she looked at him for a short while before turning back to some toothpaste commercial on TV.
"Went grocery shopping with your mom and went to the hair dresser." It wasn't till she mentioned it that he noticed her hair looked different.
"Your highlights are gone!" He could kill himself for not having noticed it before. "It looks... really pretty." And he meant it. He had liked the highlights on her, but he had to admit that the shiny, dark brown looked just as amazing.
"Your mom thought I might want a hair cut." He picked up a piece of her hair but couldn't see any difference besides from the color.
"That's weird, she's always adored long hair. Once she almost killed our aunt because she cut 10 inches of our cousin's hair." Abby just took a deep breath and half shrugged her shoulders, not seeing the point in his ramble but knowing it was just to keep the conversation going.
"Well apparently, it's normal for people, and especially females, to change their appearance after having been through some kind of trauma. And especially this kind." The last part she only murmured, but she knew he had heard it.
"Oh." Luka felt like hitting himself for not having though of that, since it seemed pretty obvious.
"And usually, girls with long hair cut it short." She gave him a small smile, and he could easily see it was fake. He smiled back anyways though, happy that she hadn't been one of those girls. He loved her long hair, but of course, if cutting it off helped her cope, then that would be absolutely fine with him as well.
He had been too busy staring at Abby to acknowledge the TV was still on, so when he saw what she was looking at he quickly grabbed the remote and turned it off. "Oh my God, I'm so sorry!" Apparently he had stopped on some movie about domestic violence, and when he had turned it off the man had been in the middle of beating up his wife.
"It's okay, Luka." His heart was beating way faster than it was supposed to and he felt like killing himself for exposing her to that, but she just seemed like it didn't get to her at all. "It's not like I've never been watching TV before." Luka just opened his mouth about to protest, but when he couldn't come up with anything to say, Abby interrupted him. "I wasn't born yesterday, Luka, I know it's going on and I have seen it in movies and TV shows many times." He had no idea how to respond, so he just stared at her speechless.
"Anyways," Getting up she walked towards the door. "Think I'll go help your mom with dinner or something." Luka wanted to stop her, but he didn't know how, so she had already left the room way before he got up himself to go take a shower. Soccer practice did after all make him pretty sweaty and smelly.
Luka walked into his parents' bedroom where his mom was busy folding the laundry.
"Hey." Picking up a new t-shirt she smiled at her son.
"Shouldn't you be in bed?" He shrugged his shoulders as he sat down on the bed next to the pile of shirts.
"I couldn't sleep." She gave him a knowing look before putting a pile of pants into the closet.
"Something's bothering you." It wasn't a question but a statement, and they both knew it.
"You think?" She gave him an understanding look and he sighed frustrated. "I just wish I knew what was going on in her head." Sitting down next to her son, she started rubbing his back.
"I know honey, so do I." He took a deep breath as he looked at his hands, which were now laying in his lap.
"Yesterday she seemed like she was doing so well, talking with me and laughing. Then today she seemed so distant again." She sighed, but she never got a chance to reply as Luka continued. "And I know she's... coping, or something..."
"You have to remember, Luka..." Taking a deep breath she rubbed his upper arm, trying to think of something good to say. "She's not trying to recover from what she's been through, neither her mind nor her body is ready for that yet." Luka just starred confused at her. "She's still just trying to get used to the fact that it's no longer a secret, trying to understand that suddenly people know, that she no longer has to hide and lie about everything." He looked down, feeling defeated. He had to admit that it actually did make a bit sense, even though he didn't like it.
"But still..."
"We went to see the police today." That shut Luka up. He hadn't expected that, and his mom sure didn't sound like she wanted, or liked sharing that information. Or maybe it was just the idea of it she didn't like. "Not only haven't they found him yet, and have absolutely no idea where to look, but Abby also had to talk to them for quite a while, about... everything."
"Oh." Suddenly her behaviour was completely reasonable. Not that he would have ever acted that way, he would probably have locked himself up in his room and curled into a ball on his bed, but this was Abby. He hadn't ever met anyone so stubborn and strong, so... independent. But at the same time he knew that it was just a façade, that she was shutting out all her emotions in an attempt to keep everyone out and protect herself. Ignoring her feelings so she wouldn't have to deal with them.
"She wasn't too happy about that... Which is pretty understandable." Luka just nodded in agreement before looking wondering at his mom.
"Mom, is it very horrible that... Ehm..." He hesitated, not sure if he could get himself to mention it.
"What?" She pushed for him to talk, knowing that it was probably something bugging him quite a lot, and as she'd expected he took a deep breath before continuing.
"That I'm somehow happy that he beat the baby out of her." When she just starred intensively at him he shook his head, realizing his words had come out completely wrong. "Not that I'm happy he beat her up, because trust me, I'm definitely not! I'm just happy that she's no longer pregnant!"
"I know what you mean." Luka let out a sigh of relief, happy that he could stop his rambling. "And as much as I hate to admit it, I'm happy about that as well." That somewhat surprised Luka. Like the rest of his family, like most Catholics, at least the very religious ones, she was against abortion most of the time, and so was he.
"I just can't imagine her pregnant. And least of all with... his baby." He felt her hand on his back once again and knew that she felt the same way. Abby had been through enough and she definitely didn't need a pregnancy on top of it all. Especially not when it was caused by... rape.
"She'll be okay, Luka. She just needs time." Taking a deep breath he nodded, knowing she was right. He just wished 'time' meant a day, maybe two, and not as much as the rest of her life. She would never get over it completely, he knew that, she'd always have not only tons of physical scars, but deep emotional ones as well.
"You still haven't told me about what happened at her place." He pushed her hand away from his back and looked at her in disbelieve.
"Not now, mom. I don't want to talk about it." Sighing, she looked down at her hands, pretty much expecting this kind of reaction from him.
"Luka, you're going to have to tell me eventually. Why not just..."
"I found her in a pool of blood, okay?" Frustrated he got up from the bed and walked towards the door. "Seeing her... naked... on the kitchen floor... looking so... fragile... wasn't exactly what I had expected to find when I went there." She tightened her lips, hating having to see him like this. "I got her to tell me a bit about what was going on. Forced it out of her. Threatened it out of her. I watched her suffer from the pain as I helped her clean out the wounds." It was obvious that everything from that weekend was still bothering him, haunting him, and she wished she could make him feel better, make him talk to her about it.
"Luka..."
"I failed her, mom!" He was practically yelling, and she could hear the pain in his shaking voice. "I failed her..."
"You didn't fail her, Luka, you..."
"I left her. She hadn't even recovered completely from the blood loss, but I still left her to go to some stupid wedding shower, knowing that that... sick bastard... that monster... could come back any second." He was afraid that he would start crying. He could feel the tears slowly building in his eyes.
"It's not you fault."
"She promised me she'd be safe. She kept telling me he wouldn't come back anytime soon. I let her convince me to leave her, to go home. If I had stayed this wouldn't have happened. It's my fault, mom." She took a deep breath as she got up.
"Luka..." He stopped her by holding out both of his hands in front of him.
"Don't even bother, mom." He grabbed the door handle without turning around. "I'm going to bed. I still have school tomorrow." Before she could even think of something to say, he had left the room, and she let out a deep breath as she fell back onto the bed. She knew that it would be as good as impossible to get Luka to change his mind, and it would be too hard for both of them to try right now. It would have to wait for a while.
