Ready for the 1st part of the grand finale?
Grab your kleenex.
Again, thanks to Lady MacBeth for everything.
And thanks to all you for taking your time in reading this little piece of crazyness. I know I haven't updated as periodically as I should but well, writing a story takes a lot of time...if not, ask Luka and Abby
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CHAPTER 8: WRITING THE STORYAlarmed, Abby opened the door to see her daughter standing right in front of her. Minutes earlier, her eyes had fluttered open, as though maternal instinct she had developed had pushed her to do so. She panicked when she saw Lily’s empty bed in the middle of the night. The girl was nowhere to be found.
“Where the hell have you been?!” Abby almost had a break down. She pulled her close, inspecting her…
“I…I’m sorry…” Lily didn’t know what to say, she had never seen her mother that way, white as a paper and trembling terrified.
“You are sorry? You are sorry?!” Abby wiped a tear off her face “I was about to call the police! Don’t you ever do this to me, ever again!”
“She was safe, Abby” Luka walked in revelaing his presence. “She was with me”
Abby almost jumped in surprise. “What…?” She was puzzled, perplexed. “With…How?”
He couldn’t help but to look around the small apartment.
“I found his name in the directory…” Lily tried to explain as Abby’s eyes were still on Luka.
“Lily!” Abby turned to reprimand her. “How could you do this?! Have you lost your mind?”
“It’s alright. She knows that she was wrong. She was lucky not run into any bad guys.” Luka smiled. “She won’t do it again, right Lily?”
Lily nodded. “I’m sorry mom…It won’t happen again. I promise.”
Abby closed her eyes for a short moment, trying to get back into her senses. “Go to bed, Lily.”
Lily’s eyes flashed from her to Luka. “Night, Luka.”
He winked an eye at her, as if reassuring that the punishment wasn’t going to be that harsh.
Abby stayed in silence as her daughter left the room.
“She is very smart.” He said closing the door behind him. “We had an interesting chat.”
Abby felt an awkward environment surround them. “She is…”
“You know?” He turned to give another look around the place. “When I left…When I left you here, years ago, it took me months to try to focus on anything but you.” He turned to face her. “But no matter what I did until now, I couldn’t. You were always there. Your scent, your laugher, your jokes…For so long I wished I had stayed. I wished we could’ve forgotten about the world. About the fact that you were only 15 and I had to go to back to Croatia…”
Abby shook her head “We were just kids, Luka. At least, I was.”
“Tell me…” He stepped closer to her, cupping her cheek in his warm hand. She instinctively leaned her head to the side, into his palm, eyes closed. “Tell me if you thought for one second… if we would have been unhappy?”
Abby looked down, a strange sensation of pain forming in her chest. “I don’t know…”
“Were you happy?” He ran a hand through her hair as he moved even closer, his breath on her face. “Were you happy all these years?”
Abby felt a lump forming in her throat as his lips hovered just over hers. “Luka,” she breathed. “This is crazy.” She stepped back a little, looking at her bare feet.
“Would you have been happy if I had stayed here with you?” He stepped towards her again. “If we had been crazy kids with no money, no place to live…”
Abby didn’t know why but something inside her was pushing her to the border of tears.
She met his gaze and saw the emotion in his eyes…the same emotion she had seen that night, so long ago, when they’d made love…made a child. Softly, he brushed her hair off her face. “If we had run away together…found a way to survive…found a way to be a family.” His voice wavered a little. “With our daughter.”
It was hard for her to hold back the tears. She nodded without looking at him. “I missed you so much…I needed you. Lily needed you. It was so hard…” A tear slid down her face.
“I’m so sorry.” Luka’s hand tilted her head up to look at him. “I would have been there, helped you both.”
She shook her head. “It’s not that…we were okay. I think it made me stronger, even, having to raise her alone.” Her voice shook. “But I thought I’d never see you again…that she’d never meet her father.”
Luka’s arms wrapped around her, pulling her against him. “I thought about you every day…wondered what you were doing.” He kissed the top of her head. “I never stopped loving you, Abby.”
She looked up at him, eyes shining with tears. “Me neither.”
He leaned down, holding her face in his hands, resting his forehead against hers. They stayed silent for what seemed like an eternity before he moved slightly, just enough for his lips to gently touch hers. She gasped a little in surprise as he rested his mouth there, not quite kissing her, then smiled a little. “What now?” She mumbled into his mouth.
“Now…” His thumb stroked her cheek. “We kiss.”
She giggled. “And then?”
“And then,” he sighed, nuzzling her cheek, “we continue to write our story.”