Haunted

Chapter 3

My blood runs cold and I can already feel the tears welling up in my eyes. Luke catches on quickly and asks what's wrong.

"Nothing," I say just below a whisper. "Can we go? Now."

"Uh, yeah. Of course." He says worriedly.

I try to make it out unnoticed, but with my luck, he spots me.

"Chrissy! Long time no see." He says while grabbing my arm lightly, causing me to turn in his direction.

I pull my arm away a little more forcefully than I needed to, but I couldn't stand his skin on mine for one more second. "Don't call me that." I say, just barely audible.

"What's that Chrissy?" He says, knowing exactly what I said, but trying to get a rise out of me. It worked.

"I said, don't call me that!" I answered, now shouting.

"What's going on?" Luke says behind me, very confused.

"Nothing, we're leaving." I say, grabbing his hand and pulling him to the car.

I get in quickly and instantly burst into a waterfall of tears. It's been months since I've seen Parker. He moved out of state for college, so I thought I wouldn't see him ever again. Apparently I was mistaken.

I didn't notice Luke had gotten into the car until I felt his hand rubbing my back soothingly. I just met this guy a couple hours ago and for some reason all I want to do it curl up and cry on his chest.

"Hey, I don't know who that was or what that was even, but it's okay. He's still in there and we're in here. I'm not going to ask questions because I'm sure you don't want to open up to a stranger, but I'm here if you need it."

"Thank you," I say wiping tears from my eyes. "I'm sorry for that. It's a really long story that I'm sure you don't want to hear and I'm not sure I want to tell."

"I'm all ears when and if you're ever ready. Maybe we'll have a story time day sometime and we can tell each other all our deepest darkest secrets!"

The way Luke said that made me giggle. He sounded like he was trying to make me smile but he also seemed a bit excited about it as well. He has definitely been a lot different than I thought he'd be. I guess the saying, "Don't judge a book by it's cover" is true, because Luke is nothing like his 'cover'.

We got back to the school and went to the rest of our classes, which were all conveniently together. I tried to focus as best I could, but Luke kept making faces at me throughout the day. I'm kind of glad Luke showed up. He's making things different, but in a good way and he's definitely made this overly shitty day not so shitty.

Before I knew it the final bell rang, and it was like music to my ears. As much fun as I was having talking to Luke today and showing him around, I was ready to go home and lay in my bed. Seeing Parker today brought back so many memories and emotions and I'm completely drained from all of it.

"Hey, thank you so much for showing me around today and taking me to that bomb ass diner. I appreciate it more than you know." Luke said to me as we were walking out of the school.

"Of course. Thank you for being there for me at lunch. I needed it."

"Anytime," He responded while handing me a piece of paper. "If you need anything here's my number. I'll see you tomorrow. Bye, Chris!"

I quickly put his number in my phone and drove home, ready to lay down. However, as soon as I walked in the door my mom and dad were sitting at the kitchen table ready to talk to me about whatever my mom was talking about this morning.

"Hey, Chris," Dad said "Could you sit and talk with us for a couple minutes?"

"Do I have to? I've had such a bad day and all I want to do is just lay down." I ask extremely exhausted.

"Yes, this is super important, baby."

Did mom just call me baby? She hasn't called me that in forever. Maybe I should stay and see what's going on.

I sit down and wait for one of them to talk but they just keep looking at me with these sympathetic looks.

"It's about Parker..." My dad says looking down, obviously uncomfortable.

"He's back in town? Yeah, believe me, I know. I ran into him at the diner." I say getting upset just by hearing his name.

"Did he say anything to you?" Mom asks worriedly.

"Not really, he just said 'long time, no see' that's it. But I had a friend with me so it was okay. It just really shook me up. I thought he was gone for good, but I should've known better." I say getting a bit choked up.

"I'm so sorry, baby. We should've told you when we first found out. We just didn't want to worry you. Things were finally starting to settle down again, we didn't want to ruin that." Mom said while grabbing my hand to hold it.

"Oh well, I know now. Just please keep him away from me. I can't have a repeat of last year."

"Of course, sweetie. We love you and want you to be happy. You can go lay down now if you'd like. We can talk more tomorrow."

"Alright, I love you guys too." I say while getting up from the table and heading upstairs to my room to finally lay down. Today has been way too much for me. From meeting Luke, to seeing Parker after months of being a thousand miles away from him, I'm just ready to put some music on and clear my head.

I go over to my radio and turn on my favorite station. Soon enough I lay down and fall asleep quickly, letting me forget about what's going on for a while.