and then you left // cth

chapter 28: senses

alexis

"You wanna know what happened, don't you? Is that why you brought me here?" Sighing at Luke, my words are filled with honestly. We're sitting under the tree in the park in Passion Street, just like we did a few days ago. It seems an eternity has passed since then. I different, somehow. Older maybe.

So much has already changed since then, and so much more is going to change. I can feel it. Even the moon looks different, as it glimmers and watches us converse under its light.

It's just before midnight, and the sky is cloudless as we sit up against a big oak tree with its branches shielding us from the rest of the world; If only it were that simple. Luke's arms are more or less wrapped around my body as we stare up at the sky. I would protest this affection, but I am trying to make him believe I can let people in. Or maybe deep down inside, in a place I'd never admit this to myself, I enjoy his company.

Luke nods and picks at the dirt with his finger tips, flinging a rock across the grass. We are the only ones here, in the dead of the night. The crickets were silent now, along with the birds. Only the occasional car zoomed by, but for the most part we are tucked away. I like the peacefulness, the moonlight.

"It had crossed my mind. But I mean, I understand-"

"I'll tell you what happened after." I compromise, and he looks at me, and I can see his blue eyes twinkling faintly in the moonlight. He looks at me with his soft gaze and doesn't look away.

"After he broke my heart," I stare out at the music store that's across the street from the park. It seems likely this is one of the only places in the world that never shuts down for the night. The shops and restaurants and bars remain open, with an occasional group of people flowing through the doors, during all hours of the night. Business has slowed down of course, but not nearly as much as you would expect. It seems people will continue to come all night long. And perhaps that is how long we will have to be here in order for me to break and tell Luke what he wants to hear, for once. For once maybe it is time to give in, to think of what someone else wants.

The circumstances have made me quite selfish.

"Are you sure?" He asks quietly, though all he wants in the world is for me to explain what has happened. We don't need to talk loud; we're sitting right next to each other, and the only noise is some faint vibrations of a bass somewhere. It reminds me of Calum, and the countless nights spent at his house where we wouldn't even speak. We didn't need words.

I suck in a deep breath, and scoot closer to Luke, leaning on him both physically and metaphorically. His arms tighten around my torso, making me feel warm and safe. I love the way the moon looks tonight and so I try to avert my focus on that. You can just barely see it, only a silver sliver of it is shining. We can't see the stars because of all the city lights. That's one of the things I miss about home, is the stars. I used to always lay on my roof with my earbuds in and stare at the stars for hours on end, my headphones on full blast. It was my happy place, especially after Calum left.

"So basically after he broke my heart, he disappeared. Before last night, the last time I saw him he was running out of his house, on the night everything went down.

After that, he disappeared. He didn't call me or text me, definitely didn't visit me. I was hurting too much to even want to talk to anyone, let alone to him. But even so, I called him. I really don't know why I even tried- I knew somehow that I would never see him again. That almost hurt as much as what happened. But when I finally worked up the courage to call, maybe a week after he left, he had disconnected the number. He'd cut off everything from me. He'd left me no way to contact him, and that hurt so much more than what he'd initially done to me. It was like he was giving up on everything, especially us.