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That little red dot was taunting him. Laughing at him. Mocking him, shining bright in all it’s urgency and anger from its place on the mail app at the bottom of his screen. Luke hated notifications - his usual inkling was to get rid of them all as fast as possible to avoid the red that somehow always managed to make his heart speed up and anxiety kick in. But this time it wasn’t as simple as opening it and running from the app again. He couldn’t do it. He locked his phone, stuffing it into his jacket pocket, continuing his steady pace down the street. The phone bored a hole through the pocket by his hip. He swore it physically burnt and suddenly he so desperately wished he’d lose his phone like he’d lost the last.
He could leave it, he guessed. Put it on a bench and turn his back for a second. That’s all it really took on the streets. A blink and then poof gone. He’d lost many things through this method - both things he’d wanted rid of and those he’d desperately wanted to keep - but he couldn’t quite make himself lose this. It was a gift from Theo. The last gift that Theo said she’d ever get him. He hadn’t heard from her since March. Which was fair, he supposed, as the last time he saw her he lied to her, told her he was trying as she dropped him off three streets over. She hadn’t been happy when she saw him the next day. He wouldn’t have been either. He wasn’t proud of that day. But then there's a lot he wasn’t proud of.
A car drove past, drenching him in rain water, effectively snapping him out of his trance on the sidewalk. He’d said he’d wanted this. He’d said he was open to this. Communication, they always said, was vital to recovery. Communication was vital. Communication was- currently non-existent. So he’d said, he’d agreed. But now? The little red dot was haunting him and no counting to seven was going to keep it away.
Luke sighed and collapsed onto a seat in the main area in the most recent shelter he’d managed to snatch a bed in. The hustle and bustle of people shouting, fighting, fading into a buzz of background noise. He tilted his head back, as if moving it further away from the phone would help, and stared at the suspiciously stained roof splashed in, what he despondently hoped, was coffee brown. He knew the roof wasn’t going to help him in his search for an answer to his next steps. In fact it was just throwing up more questions he didn’t want the answers to.
He’d asked for this. He’d asked for this. He had to keep repeating that to himself. He’d. Asked. For. This. But goddamn if he didn’t know what to do next. He’d asked for this, but he didn’t know if he’d ever wanted it. Somehow it made this more confusing. Like his heart was being pulled in two different directions, the pain of him not being there for them and the pain of why the fuck now did he decide to be? Luke was hanging by a string creating a pendulum that only furthered to cement his despair and confusion.
He needed to be brave, but he never had been. Being brave was Nellie’s job. It was Nellie’s job to yell at the bears and stand in front of him. It was Nellie’s job to say no to those who wanted to do them harm. It was Nellie’s job to make him brave. Nellie wasn’t here though. She was living her life. Luke had heard she had a boyfriend now. Arthur. Shelley apparently approved. As did Theo. As did Steven. As did D- That was beside the point. It was Nellie’s job to be brave but she wasn’t here and he couldn’t do it alone.
He felt like he was back in the dumb waiter watching as a corpse crawled towards him, reaching, grabbing, tearing. The torch light flickering, it’s eyes glowing with frosty faded white, the hand cold and sore. His voice screaming. But he wasn’t there. He was silent and staring at the suspicious shit brown stain splashed on the roof, accompanied by the vague sounds of drunk happiness and anger. And that fucking red dot.
In frustration, he ripped his phone out of the pocket hanging limply over the side of the broken plastic chair he had deigned to sit on and stared at the home screen, a thin spindly crack stretching across the bottom left hand corner. From the screen the smiling faces of his teenage siblings stared up at him, along with the time boldly declaring 7:32pm. He swiped up, the phone unlocking instantly. It was a miracle he still had this phone, he mused, it's probably his oldest possession at this point.
There.
There it is.
The little red dot.
Still taunting, laughing, mocking. Haunting.
He pressed on the app and glowered at the name. The red switched to a glowing pale blue that somehow annoyed him just as much. He guessed that it was probably more to do with the name it sat beside. Hugh Crain.
Luke’s heart sped up again, whether from fear or anger he couldn’t tell. He needed to be brave. He needed to press the name. Get it over and done with. He had asked for this. Said that he’d wanted this communication. But the name was staring up at him now and all it had ever done before was disappoint. 23 years of disappointment all compiled into a name and a little fucking dot of red and blue. He couldn’t let himself get his hopes up. He couldn’t. But six year old Luke was still with him calling for his dad and looking for that comfort from his father that he’d longed for ever since. That comfort that had never come.
Here was an offering. An offering from the man he’d needed more than anyone in his childhood but who had willingly turned his back and walked the other direction and said nothing. Here was an offering, a peace treaty.
But what if it wasn’t? What if it was a weak and feeble attempt at a hello. A ball being passed into his court with a shot that barely cleared the net. What if he’d just get let down again?
Luke needed to be brave, but he couldn’t.
He stuffed the phone back in his pocket, letting the momentum of the movement swing his jacket beneath the chair and back.
The little red dot could keep on taunting him. Luke didn’t know if he could give a single fuck.