savior || luke hemmings

ch. 15

I walk through the doors of CVS and head toward the aisle where they keep the hair dye. I squat down until I reach the last shelf, and grab two boxes of platinum blonde. I hop back up and hurriedly make my way toward the self-checkout, too impatient to wait for some middle-aged lady to ring me up.

I grab the plastic bag off the holder and rush back outside. The winter weather is brutal and I mentally slap myself for not grabbing a scarf and a pair of gloves. My nose is frozen and I can’t feel my fingertips but knowing that I’ll be at Luke’s in a few minutes makes it a bit more tolerable.

As I approach his house, I see that his car is the only one in the driveway and I’m thankful because right now, I don’t need his mother poking at me with questions and advice, or maybe I do. I don’t even know anymore.

His bedroom light is on, and even through the curtains I see him anxiously pacing back and forth. It’s then that I remember I haven’t answered his text messages since I woke up from my fainting spell back in Buffalo. It’s not that I didn’t want to talk to him, clearly I did, it was just I didn’t know how to explain the whole situation. Even now, standing outside his house, my right fist ready to knock on the door, I have no idea how I’m going to tell him the truth behind my dreams.

Luke’s P.O.V.

Pacing back and forth across my bedroom floor, I pull at my hair, my mind replaying the lake house incident over and over again. What the hell did I do to provoke that kind of behavior out of her? Had I touched her the wrong way? Had I said something? Did I move to fast? Of course, that was it. I moved to fast and she wasn’t ready and now I looked like a damn idiot.

She’s been kind of distant these last couple of days as well, you know after the whole death of her grandmother. She was always quiet and reserved, two qualities that drew me to her in the first place, but, this was different. Her text messages were short and simple. And these last two days she hasn’t answered my text messages or phone calls at all. I was beginning to wonder if she regretted this relationship that we had recently started. God, I hope not.

I sat on the edge of my bed, wrapping my fingers on the mattress and going over everything I’ve said to her in the last couple of weeks to see if it was out of the way, it wasn’t, at least I didn’t think so.

There was suddenly loud bang, followed by another and then another, coming from the front door. I rushed out of my room and down the stairs, mind wondering who the hell it was knocking like a maniac on my door this late at night. Unlocking the front door and pulling it open, my mouth fell open.

“Vera?” I asked, confused. Her long, auburn hair was cut extremely short. Her makeup was streaking down her face and she looked like a raccoon. In her hand was a bag full of what looked like hair dye. She stood there; lip quivering due from the near freezing weather and foot tapping from what I assume is nervousness.

“Can I come in?” she simply asked and I nodded, moving out of the way so she could come in. I shut the door behind her and faced her, a million questions now running through my mind.

“What the hell happened?” I asked as I pulled her into a hug, running my fingers through her snow-stained hair. She didn’t answer me; she just simply shrugged before heading toward the bathroom without saying a word.

I followed her to the bathroom, only to find that she had locked the door. I didn’t even bother to ask her to open it because I knew that she wouldn’t. I just slid down the side of the door, sitting there and listening to her sob as she ripped open those cardboard boxes of hair dye.

A half hour later, Vera emerged, her hair wrapped in a towel, the top of her shirt wet from the obvious hair wash. She brushed passed me and toward the kitchen. When I walked into the kitchen, she had a bottle of beer set on the counter and was scouting the drawers for a bottle opener.