I Know What You're Thinking

Chapter 19

I fall to the ground, my Dad's thoughts echoing through my brain. Luke freezes, before jolting forward to catch me, the look on his face telling me he heard exactly what I did.

The second Dad walks out of the cemetery and gets into his car, I scream. In anger. In frustration. 

In confusion.

In grief I never knew I had.

"Hey hey Cordelia. It's ok, you're ok." Luke moves to sit on the ground besides me, and I flop against him in exhaustion. "Just breathe." He reaches to tuck my hair behind my ear. "Breathe Cordi." He says again, and it's then that I realise I was even holding my breath in the first place.

"I can't. I slur, before adding. "I don't want to."

"I know. But please? Please just breathe. For me." His concern is clear in his tone and I almost start to cry because of it. Luke shifts again and the next thing I know, he is carrying me back to the car.

"What are you doing?" I ask.

"Um carrying you to the car so you can go home?" He poses it like a question, so I answer.

"No." 

"No?"

"No. I can't go home. You heard what he said- what he thought. My mother is buried back there so who is at home, making dinner and probably wondering where I am?" I snap. Luke stops. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you." I say.

"It's ok."

"No it's not. You've been so kind- and so helpful and I don't know what I would do if I didn't have you. I probably wouldn't be here anymore. She would have found me. So i'm sorry. And I also want to say thank you." I stop, slightly embarassed at my babbling until I look up and see Luke staring at me with the oddest expression on his face.

He puts me down and opens the door, getting in on the drivers side, and doesn't say anything until we have begun driving down the road. "You don't need to thank me." His tone is hard to place, his voice slightly gravelly. 

"I do. And you can just take me home.  I'll be fine."

"Are you sure?" He frowns.

"Yeah." I nod. "I'm sure."

We sit in silence again, until Luke turns the corner onto my street and stops in front of my house. The lights are off, and no car sits in the driveway.

"Thats weird. Mum isn't home yet." I say, and eerie feeling in my gut. I get out of the car, and notice the slightly ajar front door. "Luke.....?" I call, my voice shaking.

"What? Whats wrong?" He hurries up the drive and stops immediately at the sight of the door. "Maybe we left it like that?"

"Yeah. Maybe. I hope so." I step inside, slowly. One foot over the threshold. Then another.

"I'm coming with you." Luke announces, and I sigh in relief. We begin to search the house, but the exhaustion catches up to me, and I find myself becoming sloppy, before noticing something out of the ordinary.

"The knife."

"What?"

"Luke one of the knives is missing from the knife block. The biggest one." I turn, fear in my eyes.

"Now lets not jump to conclusions. It's got to be here somewhere." We check the sink, and all of the draws, my gut sinking with every place it isn't.

"It's not here."

"Crap." Luke runs a hand through his hair. "Maybe it doesn't mean anything? Maybe it's been gone for ages and you didn't notice? Maybe it got lost in the move?" He lists, panic in his voice, but the fact that he used questions not statements shows he's thinking the same as me.