Wednesday One-Shot: Luke

[00:00:01] Welcome to Wednesday One-Shots, the series where we share a bonus story with you to help you get through the week. This time around we have a story by a listener named Gracie. It was New Year's Eve, 2019.

[00:00:25] I had graduated high school the year before, and my best friend and I were at a party that a mutual friend of ours was throwing at his house. We'll call this friend Seth.

[00:00:36] An hour or so into the party, I got a notification from Tinder saying that I had gotten a new message. I opened the app and I saw someone that I recognized from high school that I matched with had messaged me and asked, are you at Seth's party?

[00:00:52] I wasn't really interested in hooking up with anyone at that point, so I ignored the message and continued to hang out with my friends. As the night wore on, midnight came and went. I was fairly drunk.

[00:01:06] I was lying on my friend Seth's bed in his room with my best friend when the guy from Tinder who we'll call Luke walked in. My heart kind of sank because I knew that I had to deal with turning him down. Luke didn't say anything to me though.

[00:01:23] Instead, he slid into Seth's bed behind me and tried to spoon me. I immediately got up and my best friend yelled at Luke, asking him to leave. Luke sheepishly backed up and my best friend asked if I was okay.

[00:01:39] I said that I was fine and we tried to go back to sleep. About an hour or two later, my best friend and I decided that we were ready to leave and I reached for my phone to request an Uber, but my phone wasn't in my pocket.

[00:01:52] I panicked and I looked all over the bed. It wasn't there. I looked under the bed, in the sheets, under the pillows, everywhere. I basically disarmed Seth's bed looking for my phone. My best friend began to call my phone to see if we could hear any vibration.

[00:02:10] We stood there in silence as we listened to a faint buzzing. We walked out of Seth's room where we saw Luke swiftly exiting the kitchen, where the buzzing was even louder. We stopped when we got to the oven.

[00:02:24] Thinking rationally, I assumed that my phone had fallen out of my pocket and was kicked under the oven, so I got onto all fours trying to look for it. Thinking irrationally, I thought I'd get a better view of what was behind the oven if

[00:02:38] I got on top of it. I hopped onto the top of the stove and I was facing the wall on all fours when I heard my friend say, dude, what in the world? I felt a hand sliding down my body.

[00:02:53] I whipped around and saw Luke standing there smiling proudly. I shoved him and yelled at him. That's when I realized that the oven that I was sitting on was warm, hot even. My stomach flipped as I jumped off of the stove and yanked the door open.

[00:03:11] Sure enough, my phone was sitting on the middle rack and the oven was cranked up to the hottest temperature. My friend and I ran out of the house and down the block where we finally requested an Uber to go home.

[00:03:24] Even now, I truly can't comprehend what the thought process was for Luke. My phone was pretty messed up from being cooked in the oven, but it worked for another six months before it finally crashed.

[00:03:37] I found out a week after the party that Luke ran his mom's car into a telephone pole in an attempt to run someone down after they mentioned his ex-girlfriend. I recently saw him on Tinder again and reported his profile, but who knows what that will actually do.

[00:03:54] Luke, I genuinely hope that you get what you deserve and I hope that you never meet me or anyone else again. Thank you to Gracie for sharing your story. If you have a story to share, send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com.

[00:04:09] I'll see you guys next week for a full episode of Let's Not Meet. Stay safe.