Looking For Now↣l.h

18. Cape Hatteras

"What about you, Luke? Do you have any hidden talents?" I ask taking a grape out of the bowl from our lunch. I just finished telling Luke about my field hockey team.

"Erm, not really." He shrugs his shoulders, but I can tell he's hiding something from the way he refuses to make eye contact.

"Come on, of course you're good at something." I roll my eyes at him.

"Fine. Sometimes I sing a little, but I'm not that good. I'm better at playing the guitar." He admits and his cheeks flush a light pink.

"Aww that's cute, you look embarrassed." I laugh and he tries to glare at me, but the corner of his lip twitches into a half grin.

"Whatever."

"Will you sing a song for me?" I ask jokingly batting my eyelashes at him.

"Nope." He says popping the 'p' and grinning at my annoyed look.

"Why not, asshole?" I frown at him, crossing my arms over my chest.

"I don't wanna. Anyway, it's after lunch, we should probably have our session." He points out and annoyance stirs in my chest. We were almost having a good just chill and playful morning then he has to go and ruin it with this serious shit. It's his job though, I have to remind myself.

"Yeah, let's do it." I say ready to get this over with.

"Alright. How should we start?" He asks raising an eyebrow at me.

"I don't know Luke, you're the counselor here." I sigh picking at my finger nails.

"Alright. So let's start with how you met Elias. Is that okay?"

"Yeah, sure." I close my eyes for a brief second remembering the stupid party Bethany dragged me too where I met the bastard. "My best friend, Bethany, was always trying to get popular, you know like climb her way up the popularity ladder, so she dragged me to this New Years party that one of our friends was throwing. I didn't really like talk to many guys at school, because I was sorta shy I guess. So, when Bethany noticed Elias taking an interest in me, she forced me to go and talk to him, and of course I did. There, that's when I met Elias." I say stubbornly.

"Okay. Can we talk post relationship then, like when stuff started to get bad?" Luke asks somewhat cautiously.

I open my mouth to try and ask if we can talk about something else, when an image flashes through my mind.

"I thought I told you, you can't use your phone when I'm gone!" Elias screams at me. He had forgotten his keys and my phone for once, but when he came back to get them he caught me.

I stare down at my hand holding the phone, my wrist decorated with deep purple bruises. "I-I just wanted to check the time." I stammer my legs shaking in fear.

"There's a fucking clock in our room!" Before I have time to react his hand flies from his side and the back of his hand makes contact with my left cheek, so strongly that the impact knocks me to the ground.

"I tried Luke, I tried so hard." I look up at him, the memory felt so real, and the fact that I couldn't actually get to use my phone makes me feel like I disappointed someone. It felt like I disappointed Luke even though he wasn't in the memory, I didn't even know him at the time.

"Tried to what Cora?" He scoots closer to me, and rests a hand on my knee. I know it was supposed to be there for comfort, but the contact causes me to jump away from him.

I look up in his eyes through my own watering ones, he almost looks hurt that I moved away from his touch. "To get out. I did all I could, but he always stopped me."