Skin Deep

Chapter 8

Amanda

            Luke is back, alone this time. I’m feeling kind of disoriented because I just had another round of pain killers. Yet my weakened mind is strong enough to hope that my face has healed substantially because I want to look pretty. I scold myself internally. I barely know this kid, yet I want to look nice for him? Uh oh.

            “Hey there, sleepy head. How do you feel?” Luke’s voice is gentle as he walks slowly towards me. I try to smile and tell him I’m fine, but it comes out as a mumble and I can’t seem to get my lips to curl up. Luke chuckles softly, sitting in my visitor chair and pulling it closer to me. “That bad, huh?”

            I manage to shrug my shoulders. Then we sit in silence. I can tell Luke wants to say something, but he can’t find the words, and I can’t find my voice to encourage him, so we continue to sit.

            “Amanda, I…” he begins suddenly, then drifts off. I prop myself up in my bed so I’m sitting up straight, and I muster enough strength to turn and look at him. He swallows audibly and I think he even blushes a bit. This is going to be important.

            “I have to tell you something.”

            I feel my muscles tense when he says this. Those six words are never good.

            “So, the other day, at your birthday party… um…” Luke is not looking at me. In the time I’ve known him, he has always looked me in the eye. In the time after I woke up, anyway. I’m not really sure about before then.

            I find myself asking, “Luke?” to help him go on, but it’s as if I was hearing another voice.

            Luke sighs heavily and begins his story. He tells me how he was jealous of Mark at my birthday, and he tells me he can’t explain the cause of that feeling. He was over- tired and stressed out and his emotions were all over the place. He says he got overwhelmed and had to leave, and he got in his car when he wasn’t really fit to drive. Then, the boy I have grown to like for company very much breaks my heart.

            “And, I hit someone. I caused a car accident.” By this point, Luke is crying and I am too. I want to reach out to him but I am afraid. He is foreign to me now. He looks up at me with big pleading eyes.

            “But I saved her. I did CPR on her. She’s ok. But her husband… he lost his legs.” Then Luke is crying, and as much as it hurts to see him cry, it hurts worse to think of what he did.

            I am torn. He didn’t kill anyone, but he so could have. I don’t want to feel conflicted. I don’t want to feel like maybe I like this boy, and then not trust him. I nearly laugh at myself. I knew it. I knew what love does, that it always breaks hearts, but I had allowed myself to fall anyway. Stupid, stupid girl.   

            “Mark cheated on me,” I state plainly, suddenly.

            Luke looks truly shocked. “But, I thought-“

            I cut him off, “So no, I don’t like him anymore. I feel nothing for him. But we learned to be friends. His card, it was just his memoirs of the best moments of our relationship. Which, if you were wondering, were not many. The reason I hugged him was because, on the card, he finally apologized for what he did.” Then, just to prove it to him, I reach out and brush his arm so he looks up at me. Then, I use my other hand to cradle the necklace around my neck.

            “Recognize this?” I ask, smiling as best I can manage. He smiles, too.

            “So you liked it?”