alaska • harry styles

Chapter 25

I gasped as her words repeated in my brain and time stood still for a moment. This is my dad? This is my actual father? I stared into his deep blue eyes, pointing out the many similarities between me and him as Luke suddenly squeezed my hand to bring me out of my trance. My eyes landed on Luke as Liz started a conversation with the rest while I was still confused and unsure about the whole situation.

"Do they know?" I asked Luke quietly, referring to his family, kind of my family as well.

"Yeah" he said and relief ran through me. I don't know what I would have done if they didn't know and I'm so glad that I didn't have to find out. I would have ruined everything and honestly I didn't want to break Luke more than he already was.

It's ironic, isn't it? It's so easy to get broken but it takes years of constant fixing to recover.

I hadn't recovered and I definitely wasn't planning on, hell I didn't even know if I wanted to recover again. Recovery scared me, mostly because I was scared of failing and therefore I didn't even try to get better.

Throughout the dinner I barely said a word since I was used to not being cared about. My mom had never intended her time to ask me about school or my day like Liz did and now I didn't know how to react. I don't know if she actually cared about my answers or if she just tried to make a conversation and it confused me because I couldn't stop searching for the bad in everything and I hated myself for it. I couldn't be happy, not even for one moment, because my thoughts were always too brutal and I couldn't stop them. I had no control over them, yet I was so desperate for it.

I cracked my knuckles to be in control over the physical pain I had to deal with and Luke seemed to notice. He looked at me as if he was checking if I was alright and after all this time I still nodded my head reassuringly, even if I wasn't okay. I wasn't okay, not at all. Actually I was pretty far from being okay, but I knew that I shouldn't bother others with my pathetic problems.

I finished my dish quickly and thanked Liz for letting me stay again before Luke took me back to his room upstairs and we sat down on his bed. I crossed my legs as his piercing blue eyes lingered on me and stared right into my soul. Luke seemed to have this ability to always see when something's wrong and the best thing about it is that he never pressured me to talk about it. He just let me know that he's right there and he's willing to listen whenever I'm ready, because he cares. For once, someone cares about me and it feels strange, kind of not right because the last person that actually cared about me was my dad and I don't want him to be replaced. I didn't want to forget him and the thought of him being mad at me for feeling better than I already did after his death scared me.

With a heavy exhale, I fell in Luke's arms and pressed my eyes shut to stop the thinking. His arms wrapped around me tightly and he rubbed my back as I nuzzled my head into the crook of his neck.

"Luke?" I spoke carefully, slowly getting out of the embrace, "thank you for being there."

"Always" he said and smiled at me, something I loved seeing but didn't get to see too often. His smile was beautiful and I could look at it all day whilst when he looked in the mirror, he felt nothing but disgust.

"Now what's bothering you?" he asked as my palms started getting sweaty again. I didn't want to get all emotional again because I knew that once I started telling, I could no longer hold back the emotions.

I shrugged hesitantly and took my eyes off of him. "It's complicated" I said, "I know I should let things go and be happy, but I can't. I feel like I shouldn't be happy and the thought of it scares me. I don't know how to let things go and I don't know how to be happy. Honestly I know nothing at all."