Outside || Luke Hemmings

Chapter 4

‘Wait, I remember this place’ I said as Luke and I walked through a street. We spent hours walking through the city, just talking about whatever came up in our minds.
‘Really?’ Luke asked surprised.
It’s unbelievable how many times I’ve surprised this guy in just a few hours.
‘Do you live here?’ he continued.
‘I think I do’ I answered as I walked further into the street.
I stood still in front of my house and looked over at Luke.
‘Do you want to come in?’ I asked him, not really wanting him to leave yet.
Luke took a minute to think about my offer, but nodded once he made his decision.
We walked to my front door, which I opened and we walked inside.
A heavy feeling settled in my chest as I walked in the living room, half expecting my parents to be sitting there, worried sick about me because I went outside, but instead there was this emptiness.
There was a complete silence that I didn’t hear before I left the house a few hours ago, and all of a sudden I felt like crying again.
‘Are you okay?’ Luke asked when he noticed I stopped walking in the middle of the room.
I shook my head but swallowed away the tears and changed the subject.
‘Do you want something to drink?’ I asked.
Luke looked at me worriedly but he didn’t answer.
‘We don’t have much, but I’m sure there’s still something left’ I continued, wanting him to answer.
‘No thanks I’m good’ he eventually said.
I nodded and sat down on the couch beside him.
‘Thank you, for helping me find my way back here’ I said after a few minutes of silence.
‘no problem, you looked like you desperately needed the help,’ he smiled. ‘besides, I actually had fun’
I laughed. ‘Well, it’s good to know I’m fun to hang out with’ I said.
‘you are,’ he answered. I smiled and looked down shyly.
‘I still don’t get how you’ve never had an ice cream cone before though’
‘Well, I told you, my parents just never bothered to buy one for me’
‘yeah…but…didn’t you beg your mom for ice cream when you were younger and were forced to go grocery shopping with her?’
I shook my head.
‘Never?’ Luke asked, giving me another one of his surprised expressions.
‘Never,’ I answered. ‘But, to be honest…’ I debated whether I would tell him I’d never been outside before or not, but I already started my sentence so I felt like I had to finish it.
Luke looked at me patiently, waiting for me to continue.
‘until today, I had never been outside before’
Luke was quiet for a minute, letting my words sink in.
‘you mean…like never? You mean to say, you’ve never walked outside until today? Like, seriously never? Not even one sneaky little step out of the door?’ He asked, he sounded completely taken of guard and almost…angry?
‘Not even one step,’ I answered.
‘I tried though. Especially when I was around 10 years old. That was when I realized all parents take their kids outside while mine kept me inside. I knew back then that wasn’t normal, I just couldn’t get out. I tried to randomly run past them, sneaking out at night. I even once tried to climb through an open window. They just always caught me’
Luke looked at me, completely confused now.
‘Did they ever tell you why they did that?’ he asked, trying as hard as he could not to judge my parents.
‘No, every time I asked all they said was that it was too dangerous for me to go outside’ I answered.
‘but they did leave you alone here. To go grocery shopping’ he stated.
‘Yes, but they put extra locks on the doors and windows. Only they had the keys to those locks. Or that’s what they told me, I searched the entire house yesterday and found a spare key of pretty much every lock’
‘so you basically escaped your own house to go find your parents and be locked up again afterwards?’ Luke summed up.
I nodded. ‘My parents are…were weird, but they were still my parents.’
Luke nodded slowly. He opened his mouth to say something else but closed it again without saying anything.
It was quiet again for a while, we both didn’t really know what to say anymore.
‘but then, you’ve also never been to school?’ Luke asked eventually.
‘no, but I can write and read and I can do maths…sort of’ I answered.
‘Did your parents teach you that?’
‘Yes they did’
Luke nodded again and looked up at me.
‘I’m sorry, this is just kind of a weird thing to take in’ he said.
‘It’s okay I get it, it’s just as hard for me to take in that I can’t even survive outside of this house’
Luke smiled. ‘It’s not that hard. You’ll get used to it soon enough’
We sat in the living room for a little while longer, until we realized it was almost 1:30 and Luke had to leave.
We said goodbye and I watched Luke as he walked off of the porch into the darkness of the night.
I closed the door and went back inside. I decided to just go to bed, even though I was probably not going to get any sleep.
I could always try.

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A/N 
i'm back from my Greece! 
i've literally spent every spare second i had on writing this story, meaning i've already written down chapter 10 and i'm so excited for all of you to read it! :D 
Anyways...yeah...that was all i had to say. 
thank you all for reading my story! 
The next chapter will be up...somewhere next week. probably tuesday or wednesday (: