I Love You, Always (13 page)

Can’t remember a time when I was ever free

A day or a night when I didn’t have to fight

Just to breathe

Your hold was so tight / Colder than ice

But I’m never gonna let you break me

∞

When I come out of the auditorium, it’s the driver who’s waiting for me. I shouldn’t be surprised, it’s what always happens, but for some reason, tonight I still am. For some stupid reason I actually keep expecting them to give a shit about me.

He smiles at me as he asks, “How did you do tonight, Luke?”

I try and smile back at him but it’s hard when I don’t really care. “Okay, I guess.”

“Did you win?”

“Yeah.”

“Well that is good news, Luke, congratulations.”

“Thanks, I guess,” I answer as I follow him to the car. He opens the door for me and I slide into the back seat. Dad is on his phone, as usual. Mom is drinking, as usual. It’s only Mia who looks up and smiles at me.

“Luke!” she says, throwing her arms around me as I slide in next to her.

I smile as I rub my knuckles into the top of her head, before sinking into the empty seat beside her, ignoring both of my parents who haven’t even bothered to glance in my direction. Mia is dressed in a ballerina outfit. “How’d it go?” I ask nodding towards her slippered feet. She shrugs, not answering me. “What happened, Mia?” She rests her head on my shoulder, still not saying anything. “Did something happen during the recital?” I ask.

“No, the recital was fine,” she says quietly.

“But?”

I feel her take a deep breath before she lifts her head off my shoulder. Looking up at me, her eyes quickly flick to our mother before turning back to me. “She told me I looked fat,” Mia whispers, her head falling forward as she slides her hands under her legs.

“What?” I ask, my head snapping towards the woman who is too busy drinking and staring out the window to even notice we’re talking about her.

“Luke,” Mia says, grabbing my hand.

I turn back and see the hurt in her eyes that she’s trying to hide. I fucking hate our mother for the things she says to her. “You aren’t fat, Mia, don’t listen to her, don’t let her get to you like that. Did she even watch you perform?”

“No,” Mia answers quietly.

Bitch, I think to myself. How the fuck would she even know what Mia looks like? Probably too busy drinking with her friends to even
bother
watching one of her kids actually do something they’re good at. I turn back to look at her, ready to say something for once.

“Don’t, Luke, please don’t do it,” Mia says urgently, knowing exactly what I’m thinking.

Her voice is pleading and her hands are gripping my arm now, silently begging me not to. As always I give in because more than anything, it’s Mia I’m looking out for. “I won’t do it, if you believe me when I say you aren’t fat.” She’s looking at me like she wants to believe me, but can’t. This is too many years of our bitch mother telling her this; too many comments, too many pinches of Mia’s skin, too many everythings. “Mia?”

“Okay,” she finally says.

“Okay what?”

“Okay, Luke, I’m not fat,”
Mia
says in a voice that says she still isn’t sure she believes it.

“Better,” I say deciding to let it go this time before leaning in and tickling her.

Mia is giggling now as she asks me, “How did it go tonight?”

“Yeah same old, you know.”

“You won? Well done, Luke,” she says squeezing me in her arms as she attempts to give me a hug around our seat belts, all while I keep tickling her. “I bet he’ll get you your guitar now.”

I’m hopeful. I’ve been asking for ages and this was the trade off. Enter this, win this, and then I get my guitar. It’s only taken me four years.

“Maybe,” I say to Mia, poking her in the side.

She laughs as she tries to pull away from me, but I wrap my arm around her shoulder and hold her against me, tickling her some more. “I’ll bet he will,” she says laughing harder.

I don’t know what to think. He told me he would, but there’s a part of me that still doesn’t believe it, almost can’t believe him. But I’m also trying not to think about it because I can’t bear the thought of it not happening. So instead I turn to Mia, wanting to make her laugh and forget about the shit she had to deal with today. The amount of crap my parents throw at me, I can deal with, but I will not let Mia be hurt by what they throw at her. I will do anything to protect her from their shit. Mia dissolves into a puddle of giggles now, her legs kicking out as I show her no mercy.

“LUKE!” my father finally yells.

We both freeze, turning to face him. He says nothing more, just turns back to his phone. That’s our cue to shut up though. I turn to Mia and she rolls her eyes before sticking her tongue out at me. I laugh, but quietly this time so we don’t incur the wrath of our father a second time.

The rest of the ride home passes in relative silence. Dad makes call after call and Mom just keeps topping up her drink. Mia and I talk about our day, as quietly as possible. The house is in darkness when we finally arrive and I hear Dad complaining about it. I pull Mia out of the car, wrapping my arm around her shoulder and pulling her close.

We’re at the front door when he finally speaks to me. “Luke, today, did you win?”

“Yes,” I answer, forcing myself to meet his stare. He nods. That’s it, nothing else. No congratulations, no mention of the guitar. “Dad?” I finally hear myself say as he opens the door.

“Yes?”

“Am I getting my guitar now?” I ask, unable to stop the hope that fills my voice.

“It’s in your room, Luke.”

I don’t know if he says anything else, I’m too busy running to my room now. Finally, I’m actually getting something I’ve asked for. Finally, it looks as though he has actually listened to me. And finally, I might start to believe that my own parents actually care enough about me to pay attention to what I want.

But all of that is destroyed the minute I open my bedroom door.

The room is in darkness, but when I switch on the light, I see it. There is no guitar. There was never going to be. It was all a lie.

It’s sitting on my bed, a tiny case that is in the shape of the instrument I want so badly, taunting me with what it almost is. I walk slowly towards it and lift the lid, hoping that somehow it will change, that is will miraculously turn into what I want. But it doesn’t. Inside is a violin. It is shiny, new, and looks very expensive. Of course it would be, only the best for my parents.

I don’t touch it at all. I take one deep breath and then close the case. I walk wordlessly to my bedroom window, which I slide open. The sound of the ocean, the pristine beach that sits in front of our house, reaches me. I take a deep breath, drawing in the salty air before I fling the stupid fucking violin outside. I don’t watch it, but I hear it crash to the ground, two stories below. It will have smashed all over the stones of our backyard patio. It will be destroyed and he won’t even notice until tomorrow because his study, where I know he is right now, faces the front of the house.

I also know that tomorrow I will be in deep shit for this, but right now I don’t care. Because tonight, I am so fucking pissed. And as I turn around and punch a hole in my bedroom wall, the only thing I’m picturing is his face, right where my fist lands.

Followed this path, it’s brought me so far

I longed to escape, with my head in the stars

It was always a dream, a perfect creation

But facing the past is part of my destination

∞

The heat when we walk out of the airport is stifling. It’s unusually warm for this time of year and coupled with the pollution and the fact that I don’t want to be here, has me sweating immediately. The record company has sent a van to pick us up again, and it’s outside waiting for us.

As the driver starts to load up our luggage, Mia walks over and pokes me in the stomach as she says, “As shitty as you remember?”

I look down at my sister, knowing she’s probably feeling the same as me about being back here. “Maybe worse,” I say, wrapping an arm around her shoulder.

“Think he’s going to know we’re here?”

“I dunno,” I say to her. “Who knows if he still watches us anymore.”

Mia’s head falls onto my shoulder as we watch our bags get loaded into the trailer the guy has hooked to the minivan. My guitar, the one Ash gave me, is in my hand and watching this guy load up, there’s no way I’m letting it get thrown in there with our other bags.

“He probably does,” Mia says quietly. “I don’t think he could stop himself.”

“Yeah, I think you’re probably right,” I say, squeezing her shoulder. “He never tried to contact you though right, these last three months, after you quit your job?” I glance down at my sister and see she’s staring at Jared, who is talking to Ash, both of them clearly giving Mia and me a second to deal with being back here.

Mia shrugs. “Don’t know. I had one or two missed calls, blocked numbers, but I guess they could have been anyone.”

“Fuck,” I breathe out, knowing they probably weren’t just anyone. “Well let’s hope that’s the end of it anyway.”

Mia actually snorts at my words and I know she believes them about as much as I do. “Luke, I think you and I both know, that when it comes to Dad, only he can be the one to end it.”

“Yeah,” I murmur, knowing she’s one hundred percent right.

Finally, this guy finishes loading up our bags and we all pile in, Ash taking the seat next to me. The drive to our new house takes over an hour and most of the journey is filled with us talking about the album we’re about to record, the songs we want to include and what the meeting with our new record label in two days is going to be about. I’m grateful for the distractions because the closer we get to Santa Monica beach, the more I can feel my chest constricting, as though a tight vice is wrapping around it, slowly suffocating me. By the time we get to our new home, I feel like I can barely breathe. This is so close to my old neighbourhood that I’m beginning to wonder if I really can stay here, why I even agreed to it in the first place.

“You okay?” Ash asks, squeezing my hand as we pile out of the van.

I nod, not wanting to open my mouth and lie to her.

After we unload and take a look around the place we are now calling home, Ash leads me upstairs to what is now also our new bedroom. It’s at the back of the house, overlooking the pool, and although we no longer have our own bathroom, it’s big enough that it’ll be comfortable.

“Home sweet home,” she says, kicking off her shoes. I turn and watch her strip off her long sleeve top and jeans, before pulling on a pair of denim shorts and t-shirt.

“Too hot?” I ask, even though it’s blatantly obvious that she is. She looks up at me, with an eyebrow raised, and it makes me smile, loosening that vice just a tiny bit.

“Something like that,” she eventually says, throwing me a pair of shorts and a t-shirt too.

“What’s this for?” I ask, as I stand here staring at her.

Asha walks towards me and slides her hands around my waist. “This is worse than I thought,” she says, pressing up on her toes to kiss me.

“What are you talking about?” I ask, wrapping my arms around her.

“You,” she says, pulling away from me as she brushes her hand over my head. “Come on, get dressed, we’re going for a walk.”

“A walk?” I repeat. “Nobody walks in this place, Ash.”

She laughs, as she starts pulling more clothes from her bag as though she’s looking for something. “They do when they go to the beach,” she says, gesturing out the window as she stands, pulling a Red Sox cap on to her head.

I turn and look outside, realising just how close we are to the ocean. If that window was open, I’d probably be able to hear it. Just like I could when I was a kid.

“Come on, Luke,” she says, impatient now. I suppress a smile, wondering if this is a sign that she’s been spending too much time with my sister over the last few months. “What?” she asks me.

“Nothing, beautiful,” I say, shaking my head as I start to get changed.

Once I’m done, Ash grabs my hand and leads me downstairs. We head out to the backyard where Jared and Mia are already sitting by the pool, down the path and to the beach. I don’t say a
word,
just let her lead me wherever it is she thinks we need to go. When she finally finds a spot she’s happy with, she sits, pulling me down with her so we are sitting side by side on the sand, facing the ocean.

“So,” I say, pulling her hand into my lap. “You gonna tell me what we’re doing here?”

She turns to look at me now. “You’re taking a minute,” she says, her fingers threading through mine as she moves closer.

“I’m taking a minute?” I ask. “For what?”

Ash smiles, her other hand reaching up to brush over the top of my head. “To get out of here, Luke, and whatever it is you have going on in there.”

I smile, turning so I can press a kiss to the palm of her hand as it brushes over my cheek. “I’m okay, Ash, really.”

Now she’s smiling as she leans in to kiss my lips. “That, my gorgeous man, is a big fat lie.”

I exhale loudly, knowing she’s right. I’m not exactly falling apart here, but I’m definitely not great. She knows this, because she knows me better than anyone, and just like I’ve always been able to read everything that is going on with her, she can now see everything that’s going on with me.

“I just never thought I’d find myself back here,” I finally say, turning to face the ocean. “And not just back here, but so fucking close to where it all happened.” I turn, look down the beach towards a spot I can’t see, but where I know he is. This is where I grew up; this is where I lived a life that I had no control over. And this is exactly what I ran from when I left all those years ago.

“You aren’t back here,” Ash says, breaking my trip down memory lane. “You’re temporarily here, that’s all. You left once, Luke, and you’ll leave again, only this time it will be under much better circumstances.”

“It certainly couldn’t get any worse,” I say quickly, remembering the day that triggered me to finally say fuck it and get out of this city and this life.

“You wanna tell me about it?” Ash asks, her voice quiet. She’s heard some of this story, it’s not like I hide anything from her, but I guess she’s never outright asked for the whole story. I’m not sure what she’ll think of the old Luke. I didn’t much like him, so I can’t imagine she will either.

“Luke?” she whispers.

I turn back to look at her, pull my hand from hers as I wrap my arm around her shoulder and pull her even closer. Pressing a kiss to her temple, I whisper, “Leaving here was the start of everything for me. When I finally decided to man up and say fuck it to the life he was forcing me to live, it changed everything. I got out of here and went to see what I’d been missing out on. I decided to finally start living my own life.” I stop, tilt Ash’s face up and press a kiss to her lips this time. “When I left here, my whole world changed, and for the better, because it all took me to a point where I met you.”

Ash smiles up at me now. “Then that’s exactly what you need to remember, Luke, every time you start thinking about being back here. Remember that you left once and you will do it again.”

I nod, kissing her again, hoping her words are true.