Stockholm Syndrome

45: He Knows

45: He Knows

I woke up right next to the edge of the bed. I had moved during the night. Luke was snoring softly on the other side of the bed, not as close to the edge as I had been. Seeing that he was not awake, I groaned in agitation that I was up. Then, having nothing better to do, pushed my face back into the pillows.

Later in the morning, probably closer to nine, Luke and I were down in the kitchen, making breakfast. He had given me a look when suggesting we make food as if saying he was going to make sure I ate it. I had agreed, giving him a look to match the one he threw at me, letting him know it would be a battle. When I did that he had sighed. But here we were, making eggs and toast. While standing on the stool, trying to reach a pan that Luke had pointed out to me, I spoke.

"Can we please just start over?" I asked. "Like, we don't have to pretend we don't know anything about each other, just..." I trailed off, looking for the right words. "Pretend I'm not here because you threw me in the back of a van and I, for some reason, forgave you for that." I explained. Luke came to my side, rested a hand on my waist as I groped for the pan, looked up, and grabbed it without even standing on his toes. I huffed, blowing hair out of my face. "Show off." I grumbled playfully. Luke laughed.

"Yeah, we can do that." He decided. "So, how do you want to have ended up here?" He asked quietly. I shrugged.

"Something along the lines of I'm the poor cousin, you're the rich cousin." I suggested playfully. Luke grinned.

"Great."

"What's wrong with it?" I asked, sensing something off in his voice.

"You'll find it ironic someday." It amazes me, looking back, that I let that go straight over my head.

"Alright, I want to know about you as much as you know about me." I bargained. Luke smiled and shook his head while standing over the stove. It was more like he towered above it. I rolled my eyes at how tall he was before hopping off the stool and searching out jam for the bread. After Luke threw the eggs in in a way that they would come out fried, he went to the pantry and grabbed two packages of tea. Putting them into cups, he responded.

"You want to know about me as much as I know about you." He repeated. "I can tell you some." He decided. This was good because it would give me a better idea of how much he knew about me.

"I'm male, straight, and I'm nineteen." He started. "My favorite color is yellow." Luke bit his lip, thinking. "I live in North Carolina but I was born in California. My favorite meal is chicken parmesan."

"Hold up. How did you even figure out what my favorite meal is?" I asked incredulously. He grinned.

"I guess I'm just that good."

"Ok, what's my favorite meal?" I tested.

"Spaghetti." I bit my lip. "You have a teddy bear that you still sleep with and you call him Vincent."

"Did you stalk me?"

"For a couple hours before I took you... But you post a lot of stuff about yourself on social media."

"What didn't I post on social media that you know?" I asked. The way his eyes dug into mine as he stood over me told me that I was in for a hard answer.

"I know that you're mother is dead." But I remember telling him that. "She died from cancer when you were six." I didn't tell him that part... "Your father – they divorced a year before she died – used to be great. He had remarried to a lady with one son. But when your mom started getting worse in her last few months... He started drinking. And when your mom died, he didn't stop." He replayed the story in my mind and I refused to let the tears slip down my cheek. "He was an alcoholic. An addict. Then he started becoming harmful. He hurt his new wife once. That was a mistake that he apologized so much for. And he never did it again. But when he hurt you... He may have apologized but it didn't stop. Eventually the apologies did though."

"How do you know all of this?" I whimpered. But Luke didn't stop, I didn't expect him to.

"He was abusive all through elementary and to junior high. All through that time, he kept you separated from his wife and step son in fear that you would tell them the truth about him." I nodded, crying now. I had tried to tell people so many times but I was either shut up or not believed. Everyone had known my father as a 'nice guy.' "You don't even know what your step brother looked like. When you were fourteen, you snuck out and went to live with your grandmother. Somehow you got her to keep you without asking your dad. But when you were sixteen, and your grandma had to go to assisted living and eventually passed away in her sleep, you were on your own. There was no way you were going back to your father's house." I shook my head. I had downright refused to have anything to do with him. "So you found a way to stay on your feet and most of your grandmother's will was to you." While he spoke, my head went down and I came closer to Luke, needing to feel his warmth if he was going to keep going. "But no matter how well you were getting along, you were still scarred. I know that's when your anorexia started. When you were living on your own and you couldn't eat because you were already sick to your stomach at the thought that your father would find you. I know your self – harm had started when you were in fifth grade and had continued all the way to when you were seventeen." I tugged at the sleeve on my wrists, covering the old, and newer, scars. "And you also preferred staying in and that's why the new people you met always tried to get you to come out and socialize. You only gave into them every now and then. The Friday night I found you was one of those times... That's not something you posted on social media." Luke turned to the pan with eggs in them and flipped them before returning to make the tea.

"How- how did you know that?" I asked, not leaving my stance, head down, standing in the middle of the kitchen.

"It's doesn't matter how." He told me. "What matters is that you made it through all of that." Luke pulled the bread out of the toaster before checking on me. He stood in front of me and I stared at his brown shoes before he tilted my head up, pushing his fingers under my chin. "Tell me what's going on up here." He pressed on my temple a couple times.

"It's just embarrassing that you know all that." I explained. "I'm just waiting for you to make fun of it." Luke's hand tensed.

"Hey, someone's story is never anything that is ok to make fun of. Including yours. Everyone has issues in life. That isn't something that should be looked down upon." He protested strongly. "Never be embarrassed by what you've gone through that's made you, you, scars and all." He instructed. I nodded. "Now, you're going to eat some food and we're going to play a board game." I guess, with his hand still on my chin, he noticed me gulp. "Sweetie, you have to eat." I shook my head.

"I don't want to. You were just talking about embracing the things that made us ourselves."

"If you give in to the anorexia and don't eat, there won't be any 'you.' There will be a headstone with your name on it. I'm not going to wait around until that day. I don't want it to come until you're well over eighty." I nodded, reluctantly grabbing two plates from the cupboard.