Decipher | Watty's 2017

LXI. Awry

Awry

/əˈrī/

adverb

away from the appropriate, planned, or expected course; amiss

As the days passed slowly after that encounter inside of my subconscious, I prevented myself from telling Luke the simplest details, remembering how much the knowledge of my containment had hurt him and not wanting to put him through such misery again. It was not his fault for my reservations concerning speaking to him about the struggles which seemed to still resonate in my being. The fact was that I was incapable of looking into his precious blue eyes and see him slowly fall apart while I tried to recover from the tragedies of my life.

Despite his unyielding efforts to understand what had happened down in the depths of the White Coats' facility, there was no way for him to begin to grasp my depravity. I had been tortured and mutilated, my self worth crumbling in the process as I endured the electrocutions they attempted to use to wipe my memory. Now I was a new person who couldn't even bring herself to look her old friends in the eyes as they scared her far too greatly.

Calum's brown eyes held a resemblance to her mother's, which only made her cower in fear; meanwhile, Michael's were the same shade as his twin's. Ashton reminded me of the past I once had here, as did his sister's, which proved to be helpful on some days, but, on most occasions, they only made me want to lay in bed and cry as I thought of everything I had lost in those months. Luke's eyes though- his were the most beautiful shade of blue, usually only a shade off from the eyes of her father's, but still enough for my mind to recognize the difference.

The only way I could tell the difference was to look closely and remember that Luke's eyes, for some unknown reason, were able to see inside of me. His eyes were the only ones that never lost their effect. While the other boys had to speak in order for my mind to process the fact that they were not my captors, Luke's only had to stare into mine for a moment before all signs of distress melted away.

As I sat at the meeting table, basking in these thoughts, a hand was placed on my shoulder, causing my body to jump before relaxing into the feeling of it. I didn't have to look up to know who it was as I allowed him to sit beside me.

"You know that you can talk to me about it, right?" Luke's voice offered gently, forcing me to look at him and take in his statement.

A sigh made its way through my lips as I looked down at my hands encasing a cup of hot chocolate, the tunnels feeling especially cold due to the winter coming upon us. "It's been three months since you rescued me." I looked back up into his baby blue eyes, mine filling with tears as I attempted to keep all of my emotions at bay. "I shouldn't be like this still," I cried as his arms wrap around my frame, pulling my rolling chair closer to him.

"We can always go back to therapy," he offered, raking his hands through my hair. "We can talk about it." I shook my head at his offer, knowing that he would offer that option up as soon as I had opened my mouth. While I knew it was his way of assuring me that he wanted me to get better, I never saw therapy as getting better. Therapy was like entering one of those rooms again and being held captive as they forced me to speak about my feelings.

I didn't expect Luke to understand the depths of my mental hell, but I thought that maybe after a few weeks of not returning to the mental health professionals within the colony, that he would understand and drop the issue; however, he didn't. 

"Melissa, we didn't even complete the first month before you said that you were done," he tried once more, rubbing my shoulder gentle as he knelt on his knee beside me with a gloomy expression filling his tired features. "You need to give it time." He whispered his last words, but I couldn't help but take offense to the syllables that were meant in the sweetest of ways.