Punk & Metal

We Have To Pretend

BLAKE POV

It was five weeks until the big day in December. On the 24th, Julia and what's-his-face would get married. I was at the store looking for a dress, something suitable to wear to my ex-best friend's wedding. But after looking around target for about an hour, I kinda gave up. I decided to just look around for a gift, and picked out one of those spiffy coffee maker things. Apparently this thing made soup too.

High tech shit.

Pushing the practically empty cart around the store got boring after a while, and I finally paid for the stupid gift. Driving home felt quiet. More quiet than it usually is. I mean, sure I live alone, and I drive alone, and I tend to work alone, but it never feels this quiet. Even right now, as I have the radio blasting my favorite songs from The Amity Affliction. When I pulled in to my driveway and unbuckled my seatbelt, I wasn't prepared for a blonde boy to be sitting on my porch.

I grabbed the coffee machine from the passenger seat and got out from the car, eyeing Luke who sat only a few feet away.

"Luke, what are you doing here?"

He looked up and my saliva almost got stuck in my throat. Luke looked like a totally different person. He had on his regular black clothes, but his face looked older. He went from looking like a young, pretty, punk sixteen year old boy and now? Holy shit. Now he looked like a man. A fine man at that. His beard made him look like a minimum of twenty-five, and his blonde hair grew into a dark, dirtier kind of blonde.

"I wanted to come and see you, before it's too late."

I set the wedding gift on the floor and sat next to Luke, "Before it's too late?"

"Michael is probably gonna show up pretty soon."

"Why?"

He began to rub his jaw, showing his anxiety, "I told him I wouldn't screw anything up then ran out of the room and drove here. I shut the door on him screaming at me to come back."

"Oh," I mumbled.

"Yeah, so I need to tell you now."

I looked down at my hands that I held on my knees, "Tell me what Luke?"

"I'm in love with you. I'm so damn in love with you. And I know I shouldn't be saying this and I know that Michael loves you and I know that by saying all of this I'm probably gonna cause some deadly shit or more cliche problems in your life but I'm sorry. And at the same time I'm not that sorry because I have to get it off my chest. It killed me when you left."

I couldn't say anything, so I only gave him a look that I hope he understood as, "What did you want me to do?"

He sighed, and I swear, I could see tears start forming on the brim of his eyes. My guess was proven right when he spoke and his voice cracked, "I love you Wesley."

In one quick motion he grabbed my face and pressed his lips against mine. The first thought in my mind was, shit. I can't go through this again. I can't fall down that horrible rabbit hole that put me in a coma and almost got me killed. With that in mind I picked up my hand and pushed it against his chest and used my other to try to push him by his shoulder. It was no use. He easily grabbed both of my wrists and managed to keep his claim on my lips. I kept trying to fight it, but it wasn't enough.

At one point, maybe after about seven seconds I was able to get him off, and I tried to catch my breath.

"Luke what the fuck?!"

He looked me in the eyes at that moment, his blue, beautiful, pained eyes, and I saw the lust drain from them immediately, "I'm sorry," he whispered. Luke collapsed into a mess of tears and leaned on my shoulder. I held him as he cried, letting go of any fake wall he was trying to put up. That's when I heard another car pull up.

My eyes averted to the sound of an engine switching off, and when I caught the sight of Michael, anger evident in his stormy grey-blue eyes, I panicked.

Luke somehow sensed it, and sat up.

"Michael, wait, I can explain." In less than three second of Luke saying that, Michael stomped over and grabbed him by his shirt and brought him up to eye level. Fear suddenly struck through my body as I began to see a totally different side of Michael. One I don't think I was entirely prepared to see.

"How can you do this to me?" Michael hissed through gritted teeth. "How can you tell me that you'll leave her alone, leave this alone, and come over here to once again screw everything up, again?"

"Michael please," Luke pleaded, "I had to tell her."

"SHE FUCKING KNOWS LUKE. YOU DON'T NEED TO TELL HER SOMETHING SHE ALREADY KNOWS! Hell, everyone fucking knows! Anyone can see that you're madly in love with her!"

I stood up, hoping to get Michael's attention, but it didn't work. Apparently, I'm practically invisible.

In one swift motion, before Luke even had the chance to respond, Michael punched him across the jaw. I could hear the collision of his fist to Luke's face ring in my ear. Luke fell to the ground like a rag doll, and Michael stood over him, looking more intimidating than I had ever thought he could be.

"You fucking asshole," he whispered, as Luke tried to keep consciousness and crawl away to some kind of safety.

That's when I decided to step in front of him, and keep him behind me before Michael Clifford laid one more hand on him.

"What are you doing Blake?"

"Don't you dare touch him."

This emotion, this ugly thing inside of Michael that I'm a hundred percent sure was hiding for the past two and a half years deep within him, suddenly flashed across his face, and made itself known. "Don't tell me you're protecting him now."

"This is fucking assault Michael, and I won't stand for it! Especially at my house!"

"He ruined everything Blake! Everything we had, everything we could've had, everything YOU had. Are you okay with that?"

I took a second to process what he said. But one look at the boy at my feet and I was confident with my answer.

"Yeah, I'm fucking fine with that. If he wouldn't have done what he had done, I wouldn't be where I'm at right now. And I kinda love where I'm at right now. And also, I wouldn't have known how insane my ex-boyfriend's girlfriend was. I wouldn't have found out that my best friend was screwing around with my boyfriend at the time. So you know what, thank god that Luke did what he did. If he didn't, I would've been living a lie."

Michael's steam blew away, and what was left was a distraught guy, standing in my driveway. He opened his mouth to say something, but couldn't seem to muster up anything. He quickly shut it, and walked back to his car.

"I'm sorry Blake. I'm sorry Luke." After that he opened the car door and sat in the driver's seat. The engine came back to life and the car left. Once I saw it turn the corner and leave the street from where I stood at the sidewalk, I rushed back to Luke. I picked him up in my lap and checked his face, which had a cut on his jawline, spilling a little blood that ran over my thumb.

"Wesley, I'm sorry," he uttered, trying to get back on his feet.

"Shut up, I'm going to take you inside." I don't know how, but I was able to life him over my shoulder, and walk through my front entrance. I was going to carry him all the way to the couch, but only made it three feet past my door. I had to drag him the rest of the way, and push him over onto the couch.

I made my way over to my pantry closet and pulled out some alcohol pads to disinfect the cut and a bandaid to cover it.

"Okay Luke, I'm gonna fix your, uh, face. Stay still."

"Okay," he whispered. His eyes were closed, and his mouth was slightly parted. It was so quiet that I could hear his steady breathing as I wiped the blood away, and covered the cut. When I finished and started to pick up the small pieced of trash from the bandaid wrapper I felt his hand on my shoulder.

When I looked up our gazes locked on each other. His hand trailed from my shoulder to my neck, and he began to pull me in. I let myself until his face was a centimeter from mine.

"Luke, I-"

"Please."