Safe [l.h]

Chapter 7

Luke's POV

"Excuse me?" I ask her, bewildered.

"Well.."

"What in the world?!? Honey, I'm all for equality, but I don't think your relationship status is gonna change anything!"

"Luke, you don't understand. I have  thought about it and it makes sense. Sure, you have only known me two days, but I trust you! It took me a month to trust Spencer, and look where it got me!"

"Don't you see?! I'm willing to put my reputation on the line for this! All the time, when I was part of that group, it was suffocating. I hated all of them, and even Spencer and Alison forced me to go along with the things they did. Kayla goes with it. She's scared."

" Even if I hadn't found out about them cheating, I was gonna leave and make a stand against them. But this just spurred me on. I won't be able to do it without someone to help. And I know for sure you can do it. Know why?"

Lucy is staring at me.

"Luke, do you want to know why? "

Oh. Not a rhetorical question then.

I nod, wordlessly, and stare at my hands.

"Not one of the confident, popular crowd would have cared if they saw me cry, like you at the stream. They would probably stop, take a picture and put it on instagram. But you showed that you cared about a random crying girl, by stopping and comforting her."

I open my mouth to reply but she stops me.

" I know you're going to say that any decent person would do it. But no. None of the 'unpopular' people, the people with individual personalities who get bullied by the popular group would stop,because they are scared of me. They would want to, would consider it, but no, they are scared of me, because I am 'popular'. It's ridiculous. They would probably think I would take out my problems on them."

"So. I need you to date me, so we can give an example if two people going against the pull of things, show that you don't have to follow the masses, and be a mindless follower. That people need to be able to express themselves."

"But why do we have to 'date'?" I get her point. And its sad that people feel like that. But how can Lucy and I 'dating' help?

" Unified symbol."

"Lucy..I don't know. I will help you. But I don't like this fake relationship shit. Lying isn't good either. And besides, I am new. People will wanna know how you know me?"

" We can wait a while. 'Get to know each other' for publicity and you know...actually get to know each other. I wanna be friends, Luke? "

I heave a sigh. "We will have to wait a month or so, till we 'get together', but alright."