Sunshine || l.h. {complete}

Thirty Four

my poor baby belle cheese :-( i'm so mean to her, ugh. everything will just be bad for a little bit, but isn't that how all stories go??? bUT okay so luke's rage kinda comes out in this chapter so i tried to find a gif of angry luke and this is as good as it gets

Monday

3:24 p.m.

"Hey," Luke says curtly, pushing off of the hood of her car.

Belle turns towards him, her stomach churning. She cried the whole way to the nurse's office where Elaine insisted that the older woman checked her over. Elaine might have started yelling, but Belle hardly noticed.

She remembers lying about where the raw red marks on her wrists and the bruises on her hips and thighs and shoulders came from, not that the woman cared anyways. Thankfully they're not noticeable enough yet that she'll have to cover them up any more than shrugging on her jacket.

"Hello?" Luke repeats himself gruffly, standing directly in front of her. "Why weren't you in sixth period?"

Belle shakes her head, feeling tears pool in her eyelids again, "N-No reason. I was in a different teacher's room."

She opens her trunk and tosses her things in, wishing she could just run away. Luke crosses his arms over his chest and stares her down, trying to uncover whatever it is that's making her fingertips shake.

"Yeah right," his jaw is tense, his position firm.

Belle shoves the heels of her palms into her eyes and releases a shaky breath, "It's nothing, Luke!"

His entire façade falls, jaw slackening, "Oh God, I did this..."

Luke rushes across the few feet that separates them and pulls her into his chest. Immediately she recoils, feeling a different set of arms locking her in. She pants, squeezing her eyes shut and willing the blackness to take her under so she won't have to deal with this.

"I'm," she steps back from him and she's sweating, her hair sticking to her neck and it only reminds her of Wesley's tongue on her skin, "I-I'm fine."

Luke grabs at her again, trying to reel her in. His touch is desperate, fingertips burning with an ache to make everything okay again. He's willing his voice not to shake, his hands not to tremble, but it's hard when she looks so wounded and he's only trying to help but she won't let him near her.

"How was your day?"

His eyebrows knit together. She doesn't sound like herself, her voice so forced to sound pleasant, her smile robotic. Luke shakes his head, "What?"

Belle gulps, repeating herself. Luke scrubs his face with his palms, "What do you mean? My day was sh—crap. I screwed up by making such an issue about those bruises and all I can think about is the stupid lie I told you to get you to stay the night with me. I-I just have to apologize..."

With everything she can muster, Belle pushes herself up on her tip-toes and presses her lips to his once, squarely, "It's fine. I'm fine. We're fine."

Luke looks down at his feet, a blush covering his ivory cheeks, "Sunshine, that was kind of forward."

Normally she would giggle and hide from him and he'd try and pull her out of herself, kissing her forehead or something, but this time she just stands still.

"Anyways," she brushes off his comment, still desiring to run away and hide.

"Um," he looks up brushing his hand through his hair, "well, Friday is a planning day and it's the day of my, uh, my fight so I was wondering if, maybe, yeah if you'd...would stay with me Thursday?"