vanilla // lrh

twenty six

"Ellie, I think I love you."

My breath was slowly taken from me with each word.

"You what?" I managed, feeling like the scene was ripped out of a fantasy.

"I think I love you."

"What do you mean you think you love me? What the fuck?" I asked, my body urging to pace.

Luke stood from his seat at the barstool, and began to walk back and forth, combing his hand through his hair.

"Luke!" I yelled, frustrated, and confused.

"Eloise I fucking love you!" He swore, breaking his stride and turning to face me, a single curl falling onto his forehead.

"You make me want to do all that fucking stupid shit. I want to buy you flowers and kiss you goodnight, I want to hold your hand and play with your hair. I want to grab you any time I want and be able to have you any way you want-"

"You're drunk," I shook my head, tears forming in my eyes.

I never thought a boy would tell me those things and mean it, I'd never trust them.

"Yes I am and all I want to do is fucking kiss you." He said, with crinkles in his forehead and a longingly hope in his eyes.

"You always want to kiss me when you're drunk," I protested, which was true. Luke never seemed to make the move when he was sober, but for some reason when his body was intoxicated, so was his thoughts.

"I want to kiss you all of the time," He mumbled, shoving his hands in his pockets and diverting his eyes to the floor.

"You don't even know me."

His glare immediately retreated back to me with a look of offense.

"What's my mother's name? Do I have any siblings? When did I have my first kiss?" I blurted, and I realized I was furious.

He didn't love me, he couldn't. He barely knew who I was.

I didn't know if what I felt for him was love, but it was more than I could ever imagine him feeling for me.

He didn't love me.

Luke reached his arms to his hair, slightly pulling on it.

"I want to fucking know those things, El-"

The loud crash of what sounded like a gunshot hollared like a dog in heat, as both Luke and I's heads turned to the window, the midnight street vacant.

"Something is wrong," I heard him whisper, whether it was to himself or to me, I'd never know.

Luke rushed over to me, wrapping his hand around my arm, and dragged me back into the kitchen, and nudged for the both of us to crouch underneath the height of the refrigerator.

"It was probably just-"

He pressed his finger against my lips, and in the darkness I could faintly see his lips pushing together to make a 'sh' gesture.

We sat in silence leaning against the back of the refrigerator, and as time grew I felt my breathing grow heavier and heavier.

Slowly, and quiet enough to barely be audible, I heard the footsteps enter the diner.

"Ellie, baby?"

My skin crawled with thousands of spiders and I felt the urge to scream, to run, to escape.

Luke raised his hand to my mouth, and pushed his lips against my ear.

"I've got you," He spoke, his lips touching my lobe with each syllable.

"Ellie, darling, I hope you're not hiding from me."

I felt hot tears drip down my face and onto Luke's hand that was gently hovering over my mouth, his forehead resting against me.

"Oh, my. This register looks certainly full. Wouldn't it be a shame if all of the money disappeared on your shift? Then you'd lose your cute little day job?"

I heard the opening of the register, and I knew exactly what he was trying to do.

"You could always come work for me, sweetie, just like old times. Let's see, One hundred, two hundred- Damn! There is nearly six hundred dollars in here!"

My initial reaction was to jump up and run, but Luke made sure that was definitely not happening.

The air filled with silence for a few minutes and I felt my anxiety worsening.

Luke grabbed my hand and squeezed it every few seconds to secure me, and I was so thankful he was there with me.

"Al! There's a party at that neighbor of hers tonight, she must be there. This place is empty."

The voice sounded eerily similar, but in a much less engaging tone as I typically heard it.

There was no microphone to enhance his voice, Eric.

"Great idea," I heard the cold voice of Alec reply, and two sets of footsteps bombarded out the door.

Luke and I sat in silence for what seemed like an eternity, until he stood, and walked out alone, before calling for me out in the diner.

I wiped the remainder of tears from my eyes, but could feel the stickiness of the dried water droplets glueing to my cheeks.

"He took it all, All of it." He said, standing over the open and empty register.

"Eloise, tell me what is going on," Luke demand, closing the register shut.

"He wrote you a letter," I said, swallowing the lump of tears waiting to be released.

"He wrote you a lot of fucking letters and you never told me!"

Luke's eyebrows pressed together as he thought for a second, before I notcied a flash of recognition.

"That was Alec who wrote me those letters." He said, astonished. He almost said it as if he was having a hard time convincing himself what had happened.

"It was always him," Luke gasped, shaking his head in confusion.

"Eloise, we need to run."

"Run?" I questioned, thinking the action to run away from a problem instead of confronting it head on was so unlike Luke.

"He was with fucking Eric," Luke swore, once again gripping at his curls.

"Everything is a fucking lie. This is all a fucking set up-"

"Luke-"

"Are you in on it too?" He hissed. "Is this all a fucking scam? What the fuck do you want from me? You've already taken everything I have!"

"Luke! I'm with you, okay?" I assured, taking a step closer to him.

"What more do you want from me? You made me nearly kill my own mother and force the separation of myself from my entire family- Is this some sick joke to break my heart again?"

"Luke, fucking look at me!" I shouted, reaching out and holding his hesd in the palms of my hands.

"I would never do anything to hurt you."

He looked at me with his same wondering stare, it always looked as if he was expecting the answers he was looking for to reveal themselves through my eyes.

"We're getting out of here, now," He said with full confidence, holding me in the fragile grip of his eyes.