The Pull of Destiny (83 page)

Shaking my head,
I cut in. “You’ve already told me. The least you can do is embellish.”

Rubbing his
temples, Ahmed sighed deeply. The look on his face said it all- he was busted
and he damn well knew it.

“Luke's dad is
sending him to finish school in England,” he said in a rush. “I thought you
knew otherwise I wouldn’t have-.”

I stood up,
pulling down my creased PJ bottoms. “Can you do me a huge favor, Ahmed?” I
asked, my whole body suddenly shaking. How could this be true?

“Sure,” Ahmed
said immediately, obviously seeking to make things right.

Shrugging into
my hoodie, I said “Can you please drive me to Luke's hospital? I need to know
if this is true.”

“Of course,”
Ahmed said.

I followed him
out of the lounge as behind me, Robyn yelled, “Shotgun!”

The ride to
Mount Sinai was relatively quiet, apart from the vibration of Robyn’s phone and
the constant growling of Shazia’s stomach.

“Hey, I made
that popcorn for a reason, okay?” she said defensively the umpteenth time her
stomach rumbled and I shot her a side eye.

It wasn’t like
I had any reason to doubt Ahmed, but I needed to find out for myself. I’d been
to visit Luke faithfully every single day since he woke up and not
once
had he dropped a hint about his dad sending him away.
What’s going on?
Why did he feel the need to keep something this huge from me? Did he just want
to leave in the still of the night then call me from across the pond to tell me
where he was? Didn’t he think that I had the right to know? Haven’t we been
through enough for me to deserve to find out something like this from him?

Once we arrived
at the hospital, I slipped out of the car and trudged up the staircase to
Luke's room alone, my feet feeling heavier with each step. There was a huge
lump in my throat, making it hard for me to breath. I didn’t know what to
think. Part of me was hoping that Ahmed had just reverted to being his old jerk
self and was lying about Luke leaving, but a small, niggling feeling told me
that it was the truth. If it was the truth, how was I supposed to deal with
that? I would only be gone for two months; Luke would be gone for a full year!

I found Luke in
his room, playing solitaire with a deck of cards on the floor. He looked up as
I opened the door and stepped in, his eyes lighting up.

“Hey,
beautiful,” he smiled, getting to his feet with a wince as I crossed my arms
over my chest, staring at him and trying to pick out any awkward body language
from him.
Is he hiding something?
It didn’t seem like it, he was acting
like his normal self as he came over to me and pecked me on the lips. Did that
mean Ahmed was lying or was Luke just really good at hiding things? “What are
you doing here so late? Everything okay?”

My voice shook
with emotion as I stared him directly in his gorgeous dark green eyes and
asked, “Is it true you’re going to school in the UK for a year?”

CHAPTER 34

thanks, that
was fun.

“Who told you?”

I shook my head as Luke
spoke, deciding to ignore his question for now. My mind was filled with
unanswered questions, things I needed to find out from him, and I didn’t intend
on letting him sidetrack me before he told me what I needed to know.

“Never mind that now,” I
replied, perching myself abruptly onto the edge of Luke's bed and staring up at
him as he stood in front of me. “Just-
please
tell me the truth. Are you
going to the UK next week?”

Biting his lip, Luke ran a
hand though his hair, a nervous air surrounding him. “CiCi- I can explain.”

“I’m
sure
you can
explain, Luke,” I replied, my voice thick with sarcasm as I spoke. “You can
explain to me that you’re going away easily. But I
don’t
think you can
explain why you didn’t tell me anything. Why I had to hear it from someone
else.”

And that someone else has to
be Ahmed, of all people.

I knew that I was acting like
a jerk, especially since Luke was still getting better and didn’t need his
girlfriend barging into his room to accuse him of keeping secrets, but I
couldn’t help it. My shoulders slumped. It was
always
something with us,
something or someone keeping us from being happy together. Was it a sign that
we just weren’t meant to be?

 
But why does it seem so
right, though?

Plopping down next to me,
Luke hesitantly slid his hand onto my knee, the simple touch bringing sudden
tears to my eyes. I blinked them back, not wanting to look at him, knowing that
if I looked into those deep, dark green eyes, I would start crying. And the
last
thing I wanted to do was look all blotchy when Ahmed, Shazia and Robyn were
lying in wait downstairs. “Okay, yeah.” He let out a deep breath, squeezing my
knee. “I’m going to the UK for school next week.”

Why couldn’t Ahmed just be
wrong?

Swallowing past a sudden lump
in my throat, I finally turned to look at him, a scathing scowl on my face.
Hey,
it’s better than crying!
“So were you going to
call
me when you
arrived in London and tell me? Or maybe you were just going to disappear from
my life without even having the decency to break up with me.” I nodded as he
opened his mouth to say no, to deny, deny, deny. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s
exactly what you planned to do.”

“CiCi, stop it,” Luke said,
his voice breaking with emotion as he slipped his arm around me, hugging me
towards him. I rested my head on his shoulder, snuggling closer to him as he
stroked back my hair. God, I felt so safe in his arms.
Why
did he have
to leave? “I’m not breaking up with you, okay? I just- I’m sorry I didn’t tell
you sooner. I didn’t know how to break the news to you.” He held me tighter,
kissing my forehead. “Don’t you understand that this is hurting me too? You
really think that I wanna go? That I wanna leave you?”

His voice rang with
sincerity. Even if I had been the most cynical human being in the world, I’d
have a hard time saying that Luke didn’t sound a hundred percent genuine at
that moment. Raising my head up from his shoulder, I gazed into his sad,
worried eyes.
Jeeze, some girlfriend you are, Celsi.

The guy was sick and all I
could harp on was the fact that he didn’t tell me he was leaving? Sure, it was
a big deal, but he needed me right now. He needed me to get better and my being
mad at him wasn’t helping at all. But unfortunately, I wasn’t done being
selfish. He needed me, right? I needed him too, maybe even more.

I sighed, blowing a gust of
air over his neck. “Then don’t,” I said, my voice small and hopeful.

“I have to,” Luke replied, a
rueful grin turning up his lips at my selfish plea. “My dad doesn’t want me to
stay here because of the negative influences I supposedly have around me.”

Obviously, this had Mr. Astor
written all over it.
I should have known.
Mr. Astor definitely had
something against seeing his only son happy, didn’t he?

My lips tightened. “He still
doesn’t see that you’ve changed, does he?”

“Nope.” Luke let out a
humorless laugh and he shrugged, rubbing his forehead resignedly. “He doesn’t
trust me not to slander the all-important Astor name again.”

“And he doesn’t care that
he’s ruining our relationship either,” I said bitterly, staring down at my
hands. Although he hadn’t left yet, I knew that this signaled the beginning of
the end. I’d lost Luke for good. He was going to be living on another
continent. What made me think that having a long distance relationship would
work? I hated the pessimistic thoughts that kept swirling in my head, but I
couldn’t stop myself from listening to them.

Separated for a year?

Luke would definitely find
someone else. I loved him and I knew he loved me, but I also knew that a year
was a very long time for a just established couple to be apart.

Gently, Luke tucked his
finger under my chin, forcing my head up. “Please don’t hate me for this,” he
whispered, eyes piercing into mine.

“I would never hate you,
Luke,” I replied, my lower lip trembling as tears filled my eyes. It was true.
He meant so much to me and I knew it wasn’t his fault that he had to leave.

He bent his head to kiss me softly,
our noses bumping from the difficult angle. I kissed him back slowly, trying to
memorize the way his lips moved over mine, the way our breath intermingled, the
way he sighed as we pulled apart.

Just one more thing about him
to miss.

“We still have a week,” he
murmured against my lips, hot forehead touching mine. “Let’s make the most of
it.”

***

And make the most of it we
did. During the next few days, when I wasn’t at school or work, I was helping
Luke pack and just hanging out, spending quality time. We were both trying to
ignore the elephant in the room as best we could, going to dinner with Hope,
Faith and Vanessa, (Mr. Astor was conspicuously absent) enjoying the fresh
spring weather by taking walks outside and doing plenty of boyfriend/ girlfriend
stuff. I won’t go into detail, suffice to say that it involved a whole lot of
kissing.

Who’s gonna complain about
that? Not me!

We hardly talked about Luke's
impending departure, trying to sweep it under the rug as much as possible
because if we didn’t talk about it, then maybe it wouldn’t happen, right?

Dr. Khan wasn’t pleased with
Mr. Astor's decision to send Luke away so soon because it meant cutting his
recovery time substantially. Although Luke was recuperating far quicker than
anyone would have thought, Dr. Khan didn’t think it was a good idea to move
Luke to a totally unfamiliar location so soon after his aneurysm rupture. But
Mr. Astor was stubborn, to say the least. Finally, a defeated Dr. Khan gave
Luke a full physical evaluation and had to concede that Luke was fit for
travel.

“But I still think that you
should wait a while, Mr. Astor,” he pleaded after he told us the results of
Luke's checkup. “Although Luke seems well on the surface, neurological damage
can surface after a period of time. It would be wise for him to go to the UK
perhaps in September, when the time for danger has passed.”

Obviously, Mr. Astor wouldn’t
hear of it. Once he found out that Luke was talking to Ahmed again and that
Denise, Wendy and Joanna had come to visit him, he was immovable in his resolve
to remove Luke from his so-called ‘bad influences.’

Sorry, Dr. Khan, you tried.

Apart from the day that I had
taken Faith to the daycare for the first time, my dealings with Mr. Astor were
few and far between. I was happy to keep it that way. He had made it clear that
he didn’t approve of my relationship with Luke, even though the rest of his
family seemed to embrace it. Vanessa had even invited me to visit them for
Christmas, once Luke got settled in. I wasn’t sure what Aunt Kelly would say
about that, since we had spent every Christmas since my mom had abandoned me
together, but I was hoping for a positive answer from her when I finally got
around to asking her permission.

Absolutely no pressure.

***

Now that Luke was better, Mr.
Astor rarely showed up at the hospital, so imagine my surprise when I went to
meet Luke so that we could fulfill an important entry in his bucket list and
found Mr. Astor pacing outside Luke's room.

I stopped short as soon as I
saw him, twisting my hands together nervously as Mr. Astor spotted me out of
the corner of his eye.

Damned peripheral movement.

His eyebrows drew together in
a frown as he turned to face me and I quaked, suddenly wondering if everything
was okay. Mr. Astor had barely visited Luke since he woke up, so seeing him
right outside Luke's hospital room with a scowl on his face sent me into panic
mode. First and foremost in my mind was the thought- had something happened to
Luke?

He had sounded perfectly
chipper when he called me earlier, asking if I wanted to accompany him to
Shane’s grave for him to say goodbye to his best friend. My heart sank as
negative thoughts ran rampant through my head. Was Luke okay? And if he
was
,
why was his dad here? Was he going to drive us to the cemetery?

That won’t be fun.

“Miss Sawyer.” Mr. Astor
sounded out my last name in his haughty drawl, his lips curling with a smirk.
“What a nice surprise.”

It didn’t sound like he
thought
it was a nice surprise, seeing me here and I sniffed internally.