Page 10 of Addicted to Love

Luke waves his cast. “You did this. Your actions caused this, and you need to take responsibility one way or another.”

The two men stand, having a staring competition as neither of them wants to back down.

Shaking his head, Mark glares at Luke. “I won’t go to jail for this shit. I can’t.”

Voices in the crowd titter, and someone mentions security, which makes Mark’s friends pale. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say that they probably have drugs on them and were worried about being caught.

Licking his cracked lips, Mark shakes his head in disbelief. “Fine. I’ll go. Tammy, look what you’ve done. Look what your boyfriend is doing to us.”

He turns and storms off, his little gang following closely behind. It isn’t until he’s almost at the exit that the panic sets in. Mark is leaving me. He’s going. He’s actually going. No. He can’t leave me. Who will I have?

“Mark…What...” I can’t think straight.

Stepping towards him, I feel a tight grip on my wrist. Dark eyes, swirling like whirlpools hold me in place. “Don’t you dare go after him.”

Luke orders a cab and gets us back to his house, where he sets about the kitchen, making us both a cup of coffee. I was starting to break down back at the mall with everyone watching me, all those eyes judging the mess of my life. Mark was my boyfriend...ex-boyfriend. He was all I’d ever known.

Sitting on the sofa, I let the events replay. The cheating, the drug use, the way Mark said it was my fault. It was my fault. I wanted things I could never have. I wanted a life away from here. Freedom. Luke...Luke had forced Mark to leave and now I had no one. My father wasn’t around, my mother was dead and my boyfriend had driven off into the sunset with someone else. Ex-boyfriend.

I feel like a cup that’s been filled to the brim, all my emotions threatening to overflow, and there's nothing I can do to stop it. Whispering, I finger the edge of my socks, “You made him leave. Mark is gone. You forced him outta Pine Grove.”

Luke places the mug of coffee on the table before me. “I never made him leave you behind, Tammy.”

He takes a seat on the edge of the coffee table, his knee touching mine as he leans in and offers me a tissue. There’s a guilt that gnaws at me, a few days ago I was in the changing room with Luke, Mark nothing more than an afterthought, and now I was here scared about a future without Mark in it. What was wrong with me?

I swallow the sob that I can feel building in my chest, holding back the swell before it can crest. “You told him to go. It was the only way…”

Luke buries his head in his hands, and I resist the urge to reach out and stroke his hair as an act of comfort. “He could have gone to prison. Faced his punishment like a man. Or he could have taken you with him.” Peeking up at me, through his dark eyelashes, I see the sadness in his eyes. The pity held there for me, and the boy who didn’t love me enough to choose me. “Wasn’t that what you wanted? To leave Pine Grove together and start afresh somewhere new?”

“What?” He could have taken me with him? But Luke had said...that Mark had to leave. He never said that I had to stay here, and that fact slowly sinks in, my brain turning the words over and over in my head. Would I have gone with him? Did I trust him to take care of me if we left everything behind?

Exhaling slowly, Luke straightens up and places a hand on my knee. “He chose to save himself, Tammy. Rather than fight for you, or find a way, he left with someone else and didn’t even look back.”

What did that mean for me? For us? Luke and I? My boundaries had shifted, and my world had fallen off its axis, so what happened next? Slowly, I begin to calm down. The rational part of my brain begins to talk me down from the ledge I was dangling off, reminding me that Mark blamed me for this. He vanished for days on end, doing god knows what with god knows who and still had the audacity to lay the fault at my feet.

The heat of Luke’s hand through my sock, is keeping me anchored as my thoughts whirl around. Mark was gone. Fine. It was probably for the best. I no longer had to feel guilty every time I looked at Luke, every time I leaned into his touch. I craved it. I had come to miss it whenever we weren’t together. And that scared me, because I still didn’t trust my feelings for him.

I lean further back on the sofa, sinking into the plush cushions, the atmosphere lighter between us now I was almost done processing. “I can’t deal with you right now. You always say things that have me tied up in knots. Is this all just a game? Seduce the trailer park girl with your kind words, lure her in with your ocean eyes, and then ruin her whole life?”

Being honest was all I had left, and I wasn’t sure why Luke was so invested in me. Why was he always there? Treating me like I was someone special when I was just a nobody.

Hooking his good hand behind my knee, Luke pulls me down, so I’m almost laying back on the sofa. Scoffing, he shifts between my legs. “He was not your whole life.”

Grumbling, I think about it. Mark and I, were we just routine? Was he my safety net because he’d always been there? Because he was all I’d ever known, and trusted myself with? I told myself that I didn’t deserve Luke, whenever I thought about him. But did that mean I deserved to be treated the way Mark treated me?

“He was once,” I say pointedly, but I know he’s right. Mark was the center of my world for the wrong reasons, and it was time to close that door.

Luke’s tongue darts out across his bottom lip, as he slides to the floor on his knees. “He never deserved you.”

It’s like the pieces slot into place as I’m watching Luke on his knees at my feet, gazing up at me with a kind of reverence. I’m not a game to him, he wasn’t playing with me. He was waiting patiently for me to see his feelings and admit my own. My thoughts flit back to the changing room where he’d asked me what I wanted. And as his head rests on my leg, I know the answer.

Luke presses his lips against my knee as he settles between my legs, and in that moment, I needed to feel loved. I needed someone to want me. To choose me. And Luke did. He watched me, his eyes always on me from the moment we met at the bar. But it was more than that, he saw me.

I wasn’t some poor trash girl living in a trailer, with a junkie father and a cheating ex. I wasn’t a failure working a dead-end job in a music store. I was Tammy Reuben. Full of potential. With a custom denim jacket and bubblegum lip gloss. With dirty blonde hair and knee-high socks. Luke made me feel like I was more.

Reaching down, I thread my fingers through his hair and lightly stroke him. I wanted to be cherished, and if I thought about what that actually meant, this came pretty damn close. His kisses make my skin sizzle, my body betraying me as it burns for his touch.

His voice is soft as he murmurs between kisses, “I know, I’m blurring all your boundaries. But as your friend, let me make you feel better.”

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