Deals with Daisy // LN4

25 ~ On the Green

Trigger warning because I should have put this on other chapters but I have now got it on the book as a whole! But drug use and addiction - please don't read if it will affect you :)

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Daisy's POV

I knew it wasn't convincing, that's why I'd kept quiet for a good minute before replying, hoping that I could steady my voice enough to not raise alarm bells as I stood over my already packed bags. I'd been standing here in this position for forty-five minutes already, unable to move. I was meant to have left twenty minutes ago but I was frozen in indecision until Lando's voice came through the door. Really, it's no wonder that I stumbled over the three words.

I stayed quiet with his response, bringing my manicured nails up to my mouth to bite lightly, it was fine, they needed to be redone soon anyways. "Daisy... can I come in?" He follows up, another minute later, answering the question that was beginning to form in my mind as to whether he was still there. My eyes are drawn away from my bags and the door, finding the mirror on the other wall, my face a little red but not bad as I use my thumb to wipe away the tear tracks that had appeared following Lindsey's phone call.

Yes - I know I'm crazy but I didn't have many friends I could call to check on Luke and we both knew she owed me so I trusted her not to fuck this up. She'd turned up to find a party in our front room, calling me so that I could see what was happening as she did and the moment that she walked into the living room, Luke was quite clearly not okay as he sat with just a couple of lines cut on the table in front of here.

He was drunk but when she handed the phone to him, I still didn't think he was high. I think he was tempting himself but not quite giving in which resulted in it's own emotional conversation via FaceTime after Lindsey shooed the other twenty people out of our home. "What are you doing?" I whisper through my tears, sitting on the bed, one eye on the bags I now knew I couldn't pick up. "Luke..."

"I-I'm sorry! I'm not as good as you!" He half cries half yells, the frustration getting the better of both of us as I feel frustration and hurt coursing through my veins. I didn't want to leave him because he was clearly in pain and I knew how that addiction felt. I knew how difficult it was to quit and I knew the temptation itching in his fingers because I felt it in my own.

"It's not that... just... I-I can't do this... not this," I whisper, clutching at my head a little, trying to massage the pressure away, searching for the path I needed to next go down. "I can come home - we'll go to rehab together-"

"I haven't done it!" He exclaims. Throwing his hands up in the air, as though offended at the suggestion but I don't have it in me to feel pity right now. He needs me to be honest and so I will be.

"But you want to Luke! You're so close to doing it that you're literally sat there with lines in front of you! So I don't know what's going on and maybe you don't either but you're walking such a fine line that I don't understand what's happening. I can come home, I can help but that cannot be there!" I tell him, watching the tears fall from his eyes as several fall from my own.

He might not think I understand but we've been together for long enough that I know the voices in his head better than he does. I know the demeaning words in his fathers voice, the same old sly jabs. Yeah, Luke's rich and he's a bit of a prick but he's human.

Humans don't break for no reason.

"N-no. I-I... Astera no. I can't... you're right. I don't know what I'm doing but I'm not pulling you backwards into this. I know it doesn't seem like it all the time with everything I've done but I do... I do love you and I don't want this for you..." he says quietly, the tears streaming from his eyes as he catches up with whatever is happening. "Don't come back. I-I'll figure it out. I promise you. You deserve more than this. I will go to rehab... but just me. You're doing fine... you have a reason to stay sober and you're in his house right now," Luke says, the words almost turning bitter from the sweet and sorry way that he started.