last Hope

Happy Birthday

Lily

I wake up to find myself in Luca’s arms, almost crushed into his chest. I look up to see his sleeping face and can’t help but smile remembering what happened last night. I’m more happy now than I have been in a long time. 

‘He’s so handsome.’ She’s not wrong, Luca has matured a lot since the last time I saw him. But I guess it has been almost ten years since I last saw him. 

 I don’t want this to end, but I really have to use the bathroom. Molly growls at me for this. 

‘I can’t help it,’ I tell her

I try to slip out of his embrace, but he just holds me tighter. This makes me have to go even more, so I try to wake him up. 

I shake his arm a bit and quietly say, “Luca, I need to use the bathroom.” 

He doesn’t seem to hear me or move and when I'm about to try shaking him again he groans before kissing my forehead and letting go, rolling over onto his other side. I get out of the bed and go over to what looks like the bathroom in his huge bedroom. 

I do my business and wash up before looking in the mirror to see my crazy bedhead and tear-stained face. ‘You look like shit.’ Molly says laughing a little. 

‘Well aren’t you nice.’ I say to her sarcastically. 

At least she’s honest though. I think to myself. 

I clean up a bit and go back into the room to find Luca still in bed. Memories of the sleepovers we had when we were young come flooding back to me. He never was much of a morning person. 

I get back into the bed and he immediately embraces me again, his warmth surrounding me and those same tingles causing a shiver to go up my spine as Molly purrs in the back of my mind. It brings a smile to my face and I can’t help but just lay there in his arms, feeling happy that I have him back and that he’s my mate. 

-

After a while, Luca finally wakes up. Most likely due to me continuously poking his cheek and telling him I need to get home before my dad gets any angrier, then I’m sure he already is. Molly agrees with me, having the same memories that I do and all. 

He drives me to where I’m staying about an hour outside the territory while we sit in a comfortable silence listening to the radio, just enjoying each others company in the car, hand in hand with stupid grins on our faces. 

When we finally get there he reminds me that I need to tell him where I got my scars from before letting me out of the car. He gives me a look that tells me he’s worried but dead serious at the same time and it warms my heart and scares me at the same time. 

I kiss his cheek before I try to get out. Emphasis on the ‘try’.

“I’ll tell you eventually.” I send him a sly smile to try and cover the fear and sadness I feel. 

‘He’s not going to fall for that.’ Molly says, a bit angry that I’m even trying to hide anything from him. 

I growl at her. ‘Shut up, he might.’ 

He gives me a knowing look that tells me I’m wrong. No doubt he’s remembering all the times I said that when we were kids. I hardly ever actually followed through with telling him what he wanted to know. So he makes me promise. 

“No, you have to promise you will tell me. I am not joking.” He gives me a dead serious look before I promise to tell him everything he wants to know. 

“I promise I will tell you everything. But not right now.” He seems content and gives me a peck on the lips. I was taken aback at the gesture, but Molly just melts. He’s never kissed me before. (A kiss on the forehead doesn’t count towards those wondering.) 

“And happy birthday.” He sends me a soft smile that could outshine the sun and lets me get out of the car. 

“Thank you.” No one has even remembered my birthday in years so when I turn to go inside another silent tear streams down my cheek. 

I’m smiling as I walk through the door, thinking about Luca and what has happened in only a few short hours. Then I feel it, my father's fist connecting with my jaw. It didn’t hurt quite as much this time, probably because I finally shifted, but it was still pretty painful. 

I landed on the ground, my Dad punching and kicking me the whole way down and screaming something I couldn’t quite make out. He beats me until I finally give in and lose consciousness. 

-

When I wake up again Molly is trying to talk to me to wake me up but I just ignore her noticing Daniel and Andrew are trying to clean up the blood on and around me. Luckily my wounds are already starting to heal because of my shift so I didn’t lose too much blood this time. Dad must have left, or passed out somewhere. 

‘Are you OK?’ Molly asks me, concern laced in her voice. 

‘I will be.’ Is all I say before she sadly retreats to the back of my mind without another word, feeling bad that she couldn’t do anything. 

I slowly, and carefully stand up and tell the boys to finish getting packed. “Come on boys, we need to leave soon. Make sure you have everything ready.” I try to show them a smile in the process, not wanting them to worry any more than they probably do. 

 We were supposed to be leaving to go to the Packhouse in about half an hour, so I encourage them to get the last of our stuff together and get ready to leave, there isn’t much anyway. 

Once the truck is loaded with the little amount of possessions we have, we try to find our Dad. He turned out to have passed out in the yard. Come to find out, he got really drunk when he realized I was gone. He’s a mean drunk and he was already pissed before he started drinking so when I got home and he saw me. That’s why he beat me, not that it’s a good excuse. Luckily the boys weren’t up yet and knew not to come down when he was like this. 

However, he didn’t drink because he was worried about me, he did it because he saw it as a good excuse. He takes every opportunity to get drunk and beat me no matter how small the issue is. 

“You never should’ve been born!”

“It’s your fault she left me!”

Those are a couple of things he usually ends up telling me. Luckily I’m healing faster than normal now that I’ve shifted. I don’t want to worry Luca anymore than he already is or make him angry with me. 

After I finally got him to wake up again he hit me and yelled some more before we finally left for the Packhouse. I made sure to change out of my blood-covered clothes and put on clothes that hid most of my scar covered body before we left. 

Happy birthday to me, is all I can think to myself as we drive to the Packhouse. 

-

Once we get to the Packhouse, dad goes to talk to uncle Liam and I try to find Luca. Sadly, he found me first. 

He snuck up on me and I reacted as though it were my father going to hit me. I flinched, screamed, and got ready for the impact of a fist. 

‘It’s just Luca, calm down.’ When Molly says this, I automatically put my hands shielding my face down. 

“What's wrong?” 

He looks concerned so I try to play it off. “Nothing, you just surprised me.” 

‘He is not going to fall for that. Don’t act stupid!’ She growls and scolds me and I know she’s right. 

Luca proves this with what he says next. “No, you looked really scared.” 

I knew Luca saw right through me, and he could tell through the mate bond that something was wrong. He may not have known anything was wrong when he dropped me off this morning, but that's only because he hasn’t marked me yet. He can perceive my more intense emotions when we’re close enough though. 

Then he noticed what I was wearing. Luca had already seen some of my many scars and I could tell he was getting impatient with me. He wants to know what’s going on. So he takes me up to his room to get some answers and I just know this is going to be a long talk.