Love Struck - Luke Brooks Fanfiction

Chapter 28...

Over the next few weeks most of their time was spent looking after Isobelle as this task took a lot more effort than any of them had planned for, any of them except Luke that is.

"I told you it would take weeks and you didn’t listen." He said to his brothers one day when they were getting annoyed with the speed of Isobelle's recovery.

"I know you did, but we didn’t expect it to be over three weeks!" Jai retaliated.

"It's going to take longer."

"Jesus, really? How long?" Beau questioned, shocked.

Luke thought for a moment whether he should tell his brother why Isobelle was like this. He sighed and made his decision. "At least another week. You don’t understand why she's like this so I guess I'll have to tell you." He said folding himself into the couch.

Beau and Jai said nothing waiting for him to carry on.

"She doesn’t usually get this bad, it's just that they were all right there in her face and she couldn’t get away. She can usually get over it in about a day or two. It depends what upset her though, if it's something to do with just herself it's quicker, but if it's about her family or about me it takes her so long. Especially if it's about me." He continued dropping his head.

"Why does she get this bad Luke? You need to tell us." Jai said trying to ease it out if him.

Again Luke sighed before continuing. "It kills her every time. She told me once - when we were having an argument over whether she was beautiful or not - that it didn’t matter how many times I told her she was, she would never be able to believe it because she's been told too many times that she's not. At first I didn’t understand then she explained it to me; she said that if someone compliments her it stays with her for approximately ten minutes then she forgets it, but if someone insults her or bullies her then it stays with her forever, coming back whenever she feels insecure or is insulted again. She can be the strongest most incredibly confident person when she has got over each incident but each time it takes a little longer because she has to deal with all the past insults and bad memories all over again every time. This time it was too much for her. Not only did she have cussing from all directions at once in that one moment , she also had all those bad memories and past insecurities flying around her head at the same time hitting every single nerve and just turning her into a complete emotional mess. She just can't deal with it. Its only got this bad once before and that was when her dad left them, it took her a month to get into a vaguely normal state of mind and after that she ended up going into counselling for two weeks. She hated it and, if anything, it made it worse; it just brought it all back. It's going to be worse this time I know it. And it's all because of me. It’s the worst when it's about me and this is so bad anyway it will be a miracle if she's moving again within another week. I will not let her go back to that councillor though, no matter what. She will not have to go through that again. I promised her." Luke crunched his hands up into fists in an attempt to control his anger at how incapable he was of helping her.

Both Jai and Beau were stunned to silence that such a beautiful, confident and strong woman could be hiding so much beneath that tough exterior. "Holy crap. What do we do?" Jai asked trying to keep his head from getting all jumbled with all the crazy information he had just consumed.

"Nothing, all we can do is try and help her regain enough confidence that she can look in the mirror again..." Luke replied sadly.

The two boys just nodded unable to say anything that would even vaguely resemble words without the risk of sounding all choked up. With that Luke got up and went to the kitchen to fix Isobelle something that she might actually eat, Beau went to find Gina to fill her in, and Jai picked up his phone and rang Dakota who answered on the first ring, to ask if he could come over, he needed to get away from all these crazy thoughts that were swirling around his brain. Dakota agreed and Jai soon grabbed his backpack and jumped on his penny board and left.

Once Luke had found something for Isobelle, he went over to his room to join her in his bed again to calm her sobs that had started up again in the last few minutes. As he entered the room Isobelle glanced up at him and gave him a weak teary smile.

 "Hey baby, how are you doing?" Luke asked, brushing the hair out of her face.

"Better." Isobelle replied through her sobs.

Luke's heart sunk a little every time he saw her like this, it hurt him to think that she was so upset and he was completely powerless to do anything. He sat down on the bed next to her and held her hand while she slowly mustered up the energy to sit up and take the plate of pretzels and Nutella that Luke had brought for her. As she took a bite she smiled at her fiancé and made a satisfied noise at the taste of the chocolately smush that was falling down her throat. Luke smiled back but all he could think of was how thin she was getting. For the first week she didn’t eat anything, nothing. The second week wasn’t that much better but by the third week she was improving hugely and would even have two 'meals' a day. He was so proud of Isobelle but at the same time, so very scared that he would lose her to her insecurities and what they did to her. They had planned the wedding for a month's time and, although it wasn’t long, everyone was ready for it and even Isobelle seemed to be excited.

Thinking about the wedding made Luke's heart swell, the thought of Isobelle walking towards him in a long flowing white dress with her hair pinned back and a tiara embedded in it, was such an amazing feeling that he couldn’t help but smile.

"What are you grinning at?" Isobelle asked through another mouthful of pretzel.

Luke looked at her. "I'm just thinking about how beautiful you will look in your wedding dress." He said still smiling.

Isobelle blushed and ducked her head in an attempt to hide it from him. The longer time she was in bed for, the more she caught herself thinking about their wedding and exactly how she wanted it. Gina and Dakota had been in a few times to start planning with her and, aside from the time she spent with Luke, it was her most favourite thing. "It's going to be perfect." She said.

Luke rubbed his thumb against her cheek and said "Yeah, it is."

Isobelle placed her dainty hand over his and, putting her plate to one side, leant in and kissed him. As Isobelle was kissing him Luke could taste the chocolate on her lips and smiled again at how much of an improvement she was making.

"You know, I think I might be okay to get out tomorrow. Maybe." Isobelle announced pulling away from the kiss.

"Really? You really think you're ready?" Luke replied, slightly shocked.

Isobelle thought for a second and then said, "Yes. I feel a lot stronger now and I need to get out of this mother fucking room, you never really realise how boring a room is until you're stuck in it for three weeks."

Luke laughed. "Are you sure you will be okay now though? I don’t want you going out and then getting hurt again…"

"I'm sure. As long as I have you with me then I'll be fine."

"You know you will." Luke replied.

"Promise me you won't ever leave." Isobelle said looking into his eyes and holding up her pinky finger.

"I promise." He swore as he linked his finger with hers, pulled her into his arms and kissed her on her forehead. "Forever."