Ivy
For someone who was usually not lost for words, this wasn't the first time Ivy had felt speechless this evening.
Luke's attention was on the mostly deserted road ahead. The lack of traffic was the biggest indication they'd left Sydney. Ivy had no idea where they were going but somehow that didn't matter.
"You... you quit the band?" Even saying the words out loud didn't make sense. The band wasn't just Luke's job, it was a part of who he was. "What happened?"
"Exactly what we wanted to happen. All of our dreams came true."
The sadness in Luke's voice made Ivy wish he'd pull the car over, so she could climb onto his lap and kiss him until he couldn't feel anymore pain. It would only be a temporary fix though, Ivy was learning. Tonight had been the biggest wake up call for that. There were some things they actually had to talk about, instead of using one another to forget about their problems.
"And that's a bad thing?"
"It was different to what we thought it would be," Luke sighed. "We didn't know the repercussions that came with being famous. And it's hard, you know. We were just four kids who liked playing music and all of a sudden we had people investing in us and counting on us. The record label and our management, they're all about the numbers, and when those numbers aren't hitting the targets set... It's a lot of pressure. It really turns a band into job, and not everyone copes with the pressure so well." Like Michael.
From the day Ivy first met Luke - on the plane, not in the club, she didn't count that - she'd suspected that he had some darkness hovering just underneath the flesh of his skin. Just the same way she was harbouring some of her own pain, Ivy saw something in Luke that she knew too well. They were both pretending like nothing could touch them, and that maybe if they pretended enough to be okay, then everything would be.
But she never thought that would lead to Luke leaving the band. Not even after Michael's drug overdose did it seem like an option. What would happen? Would the other boys continue on without Luke? Given Michael's current treatment, it seemed unlikely. It's not like Ashton and Calum could carry on just the two of them. You didn't have to be a genius to know that a band needs more than a bassist and a drummer.
"I'm sorry," Luke frowned, sliding his palm over to Ivy's knee. His touch didn't do much for her willpower. All she could think about was his hand on her bare flesh. "I sound like a spoiled rich kid who's complaining about getting a Mercedes instead of a BMW for his sixteenth birthday."
Ivy burst out laughing, and Luke stared at her looking slightly offended. "Sorry, I'm not laughing at you. It's just, I actually grew up with kids like that."
"I kind of forget that you grew up with money. I bet our childhoods were nothing alike."
"I think you know more than most people that money doesn't equal happiness."
Luke nodded as he drove down the next exit on the highway. She put her window down, air gushing into the tiny car and drowning out the sound of her phone vibrating in her purse.
"Are you going to let it ring all night?"
Ivy looked at Luke and then down at her purse again. The usual crayon-scent of the car had been replaced with fresh, sea salt air. Wherever they were, it was somewhere on the coast and as they drove into a small town that didn't seem to have much more than a school, one pub and an old church, Ivy pictured the simple yet happy lives of the people living inside the tiny brick houses.
Maybe the kids in those houses didn't grow up with ski holidays in Japan or birthday trips to Disneyland, and maybe their parents sometimes felt sad for not being able to buy elaborate Christmas gifts or send them to expensive private schools, but Ivy felt confident that those families had more love for one another than she even knew existed.
