Impavid

Thud

     "What?" Luke looked over at me, furrowing his eyebrows. 

     "Why were you arrested?"

     "When?" 

    "Don't play dumb with me." I frowned. "In April."

     He only stared at me, not speaking. He then moved his focus to the water before us, changing the subject to how beautiful the view was. 

    "Don't change the subject, Luke." 

    "It's not something I want to talk about," Luke stated. 

    "Well, too bad. I want to talk about it." 

     I knew it didn't really work like that, but we were dating now, and I felt I had the right to know. He refused, however, only making me angry. I laid on my back, ignoring his comments about what each cloud looked like. I was starting to realize that I really didn't know much about Luke at all. 

    He played basketball when he was little, and it's something he loved to do. He didn't want to move here. He kissed a girl who had a boyfriend in the library. He was more cheesy and sappy than I had originally suspected. That was it, though.

    I really didn't know my boyfriend at all. 

    As I laid there, him beside me pointing up at clouds shaped like flowers or animals, I started to doubt the relationship. I was leaving for camp soon, anyway. I knew we'd be spending weeks apart, and a lot could change in that time period. I felt as though the relationship at this specific point in time was a mistake. As much as I loved spending time around Luke, the only real difference between our relationship and a normal friendship was the kissing. 

    And sure, I liked kissing him, but it just didn't seem like we were in a real partnership. It was more of a friends with benefits feel. There was definitely a lack of trust and communication, which was beginning to bother me. 

     "Luke," I started, rolling on my side to look at him, propping my head up. 

     He rolled over, too, but only pressed his lips against mine in response. 

     "Luke." I moved away slightly after a brief kiss, "I'm serious. I feel like you don't trust me. I think I deserve to know why you got arrested."

     "And I don't think you need to know, Carson." 

    "If you aren't going to tell me things..." I trailed off. 

    "Are you breaking up with me?" Luke laughed. He was still laughing as I tried to speak, repeating his name three times. "This is so stupid, Carson. You're being so stupid."

     I sat up. "Then I'm stupid," I spat, my voice louder this time. "This is something that's important to me. I think I deserve honesty and communication from my boyfriend." 

    "Then maybe I shouldn't be your boyfriend," he barked, his volume matching mine. 

    "Maybe you shouldn't be." 

    We both sat still, staring out onto the water for a moment without saying a word. My heart was pounding, and I was willing myself not to cry. This wasn't what I had had in mind for our first real date. I did, however, think I deserved the truth. It wasn't a hard question. I just wanted to know why he had gotten arrested. If I was going to spend time with him, I deserved to know. Even if we had just been friends, I would have wanted to know. If we had been close at the time, I would have insisted he shared, but we hadn't been. It was that awkward rough patch we had experienced.

    I just really needed to know. I needed to know in general as a neighbor, and I needed to know as a girl he hung around. I needed to know as his tutor, and I needed to know as his friend. 

    I needed to know as his girlfriend. 

    I was sure I was being slightly ridiculous, as he had the right to keep anything private, and I knew I shouldn't push. This was different, though. I had experienced something terrifying with Dave, and I just needed to know I was 100% safe around Luke. I knew he would never personally do anything to hurt me, but I also knew that he had kissed someone else's girlfriend, had the cops at his house on multiple occasions, and had came to my house bloody and bruised seeking shelter. 

     It just wasn't fair to me that he wouldn't tell me anything. 

    "Carson, listen," Luke spoke. 

   "I don't want to listen unless you're going to answer my question," I whispered, wiping my eyes. 

   "Please don't cry." He set his hand on my shoulder, but I shrugged it off.

   "You know how I've been feeling Luke. You know how absolutely terrified I've been because of what happened with Dave. You know all of this, and you still won't just put my mind at ease."

    "My problems are my problems, and my mistakes are my mistakes. I don't want to put that burden on you. I don't want you to be scared or worry about your safety or my own."

    "So you're saying that if you told me what happened, I'd be worried."

    "Carson."

    "Oh yeah, that makes me so much less worried to hear that."

    "Carson." 

    I stood up, not wanting to deal with the situation anymore. I was done. This wasn't fair to me. My heart was pounding, my stomach was in knots, and I didn't deserve this. I hadn't done anything wrong at all, and yet he was torturing me. In what world would telling someone they'd be worried if they heard what happened make them worry less? 

    I was sure I was imagining way worse than what had actually happened, but I had no way to be sure. All I knew was that Dave had been arrested, and for all I knew, Luke could have done the same thing to some other girl and been arrested for the same thing. 

   "Where are you going?" He called out, scrambling to his feet as I started walking back to the car.

    I was crying at this point. "I want to go home."

   "Carson!"

    "Take me home, Luke." I kept my voice even and direct. I tried to show as little emotion as possible. 

     He didn't fight me on that. He bent down, folding up the blanket and grabbing the picnic supplies nearby. We walked back to the car in silence, and my hand felt empty without his against it. I wasn't sure where we stood at that moment, and I really didn't care to figure it out. I knew that Luke and I were close enough to work things out at some point in the near future, but I was mad and hurt and had no interest in working it out now. It was twenty long and uncomfortable minutes as we traveled down the hill we had climbed on the way there.  

    I pulled open my own door when we reached the car; it was the first time I had done that since I had started seeing Luke. I climbed in, knowing I should say something -- anything -- but no words came to mind. I stared out the window the entire drive home. That one, single hour felt like days, and I felt the urge to flip on the radio and sing like we had on the way up there. There was such a contrast. The laughter that had once filled the air was gone. When Luke pulled into my driveway, we both just sat there for a moment staring forward.

    Was he going to say something? Was he going to kiss me goodbye? 

    He took a deep breath, letting out a sigh, but he didn't say anything or make any sort of movement toward me. There was no hug or kiss. There wasn't even a wave. 

    I pushed the door open, grabbing my purse from the floor in front of me and swinging it over my shoulder. I didn't look back at Luke as I closed the door behind me and headed up the driveway to the front porch. It was awkward, silence filling the air. I heard his car begin to shift backward, and I moved inside quickly, closing the door behind me. 

    It closed with a loud thud. The silence was gone, but the emptiness I felt wasn't.