A Touch of Luke

9

"Hey lo- what the hell happened?"

I shut my locker and turned to face Luke who had instantly noticed the cut on my left cheekbone.

I put on a forced smile, "Little mishap while playing dress-up with Macy."

Luke's eyebrows pulled together. He did not look like he bought my story though I said it confidently. "That's a pretty bad cut, love..."

I shrugged softly, starting to walk down the hall. "It's not as bad as it looks." That's a lie, it still stings a little. Not to mention the rest of my body that is still bruised from Oliver.

Luke nodded hesitantly, "Okay, well how are you feeling anyways?" Thank God he dropped that subject.

I gave him a soft smile, "I'm okay, Luke."

"Are you sure because you se-"

"I'm good," I nodded firmly. "I'll see you later." I quickly rushed off before he could catch up to me.

"Woah, woah, woah," Remy stepped right in front of me and halted me to a stop by placing her hands on my shoulders. "Slow your roll. What's got your tail on fire and why is there a cut on your cheek?"

I sighed, knowing this was coming. Remy fell into pace with me as the two of us continued walking down the hall, "I am avoiding Luke because I hate lying to him and the cut is courtesy of Mateo Celestino."

Remy grabbed my arm causing me to wince. "Sorry," she halted me to a stop on the side of the hallway. "You saw your dad?"

"He decided to pay a drunken visit home," I told her, glancing around to make sure nobody would overhear anything.

Remy frowned, her eyebrows pulling together. "Are you okay? What happened and what about the others, are they okay?"

"The kids didn't see anything, they were asleep. Mario is... a mess but he doesn't talk about it like usual."

"Are you okay?"

I shrugged nonchalantly, "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Mar," Remy tried to stop me as I started walking again. "Come on, talk to me, girl."

"Talk to you about what?" Luke somehow spotted us and caught up to us. "Why are you dashing away from me, love? You know we have the same class together so there was no point in ditching me."

I inhaled deeply, feeling panic start to rise in me. I clenched my fists.

Remy noticed me tense and quickly stepped right in front of Luke, halting him to a stop. "Hey Luke, mind letting me borrow your notes?"

I shot Remy a thankful look before rushing away from that and dashing into the bathroom to scramble around in my bag to find my medications.

"You're late," Luke whispered, leaning over to me when I took my seat beside him in class. It took me a good ten minutes to calm my nerves down. The last thing I needed was to have a panic attack in the middle of class.

I shot him a forced smile, "I just had to check on Macy. She was feeling a little under the weather this morning."

Guilt wracked through my body as more lies spurred out of my mouth.

Again, Luke shot me an unsure look but nodded and let it go.

"Hey man, we got practice after school right? I lost my practice schedule." Mario was walking behind us when we all left class and Luke took the opportunity to ask him.

"Yup," Mario mumbled, staring down at his phone screen before turning and heading the other way.

Remy sent me a concerned look.

"Uh..." Luke could sense something was off. "Is he okay?"

"Yup," I nodded. "Just didn't get a lot of sleep so he's cranky." That one wasn't a complete lie.

Luke looked at me skeptically, "Are you sure you guys are okay? Did something happen, love? Is it those guys from Heith-Stone again?"

I shook my head frantically, "What? No, of course not. I mean, we're fine. I'm just worried about Mace because if she gets sick I'm going to have to stay home with her and Mario is just cranky when he hasn't slept. Maybe it's the weather changing."

I rambled like an i***t but at this point, I just needed Luke to stop asking so many questions because spilling the beans on what was really going on at home was unnecessary and probably going to cause more problems because knowing Luke, he would be enraged if he found out what happened a few nights ago.

Luke blinked, taken aback by my sudden outburst.

Remy looked between the two of us, a little baffled and lost on what to do herself.

"Why would you have to stay home? Can't your parents take the day off?"

Fuck.

I dug my own grave on that one.

I opened my mouth but only ended up looking like a fish. I was fresh out of lies and didn't know how to pull my way back up from this way.

"They're both out of state for a conference," Remy spoke calmly, both mine and Luke's attention turning to her. She smiled softly, "So if Mace got sick right now, Marie would have to stay home since her parents aren't available to do so."

"Oh," Luke mused.

That was a good save but it killed me knowing that here my friend was lying to cover for me.

I shot her a thankful look which she just smiled to.

"Well, I got to get to second period so I will see you later." Luke shot us a cheeky grin before walking off.

"You can breath now," Remy shook my shoulders to pull me back into reality.

I exhaled deeply, not even having noticed I was holding my breath. "Thank you, Rem. I'm so sorry you had to lie like that."

Remy shrugged, "Don't be. I get where you're coming from when you hide this from Luke but you won't be able to forever, Mar. You got to be careful because you really don't want this secret to go out of hand and ruin a good friendship."

I nodded slowly, "I know."

And hell yes, I knew that but what I didn't know was what the hell I was even doing.