gone ✧*｡ luke a.u.

prologue

hi ok just letting you know that if you read this i love you

~:~

PROLOGUE

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 7TH, 2014

Luke played with his cigarette for a while before he lit it. The distraction was welcome to him. Maybe, if he focused all his energy, everything he had, on that one cigarette, he could forget everything else. Maybe sound would drown out around him, and memories, and all the world would just be Luke and his box of Malboros.

The girl was still sitting at his side, probably cold in the morning air but not complaining. She was young, or younger than him, at least -- seventeen, maybe, compared to his twenty -- and she watched the cigarette between his fingers with the same fascination he did. Luke knew that she hated that he smoked -- she'd already voiced it well enough -- and if he was honest he hated it too, but he couldn't help it. It relaxed him.

He still didn't know her name. They'd gone home together last night after a party which he'd met her at, and lost themselves in a tangle of tongues and teeth and moving limbs. Afterwards they just lay together, talking at times and silent at others, her body lined with silver in the moonlight, until they fell asleep.

And now it was morning, and Luke could feel the familiar cool sting of morning biting at him once more, and he sat on the edge of the bed with his apartment's balcony door open, letting the air in, only wanting to light up.

"Why do you smoke so much?" the girl asked now, still watching. Her voice was quiet, but not fragile. Beneath it all, Luke could tell she was strong. The kind of girl who'd fight for the things she knew were right.

He cleared his throat as he pulled his lighter from his pockets. An old thing, silver, scrawled all over with words in black Sharpie, too faded now to see. He'd had it since high school. "It helps," he said simply.

She raised an eyebrow at him, dissatisfied with his response and wanting more. "With . . .?" she asked, trailing off at the end.

Luke looked up at her then. He stared at her, tried to see through her with his eyes sharp, until she was almost uncomfortable. Then he looked away, through the balcony doors and out at the just-waking city.

"You know, you either think you have it all together when you're seventeen, or you think the world's out to get you," he said finally. He could tell his words weren't what she was expecting, but she didn't say anything. "I did, at least." He rubbed a hand over his face. "I was the second one," he told her. "I mean, life was shit. High school was shit, the kids around me were shit. I stood out. I didn't belong with them. A music kid. Didn't give a shit about what team was at the top of the AFL ladder, or which popular girl fucked which popular guy." He clicked his lighter on and cupped a hand around his mouth as he lit his cigarette. "Then I got to the real world," he continued, "and realised there was so much more. In either direction. The good and the bad. So much shit you think you know but don't."

"Why are you telling me this?" the girl asked softly, a frown creasing her eyebrows. Luke laughed, but there was no humor in it. It was dry and hard and cracked, like the fissured ground of a desert in summer.

"You asked, didn't you?" He put the cigarette between his lips and took a long drag, shutting his eyes. "Do you think you have it all together, party girl?" he asked her, almost mockingly. Smoke rose from his lips and nose with the exhale as he spoke. "The world at your fingertips?"

He saw her swallow and look away, but she didn't respond. It made him feel guilty. He knew he was being an ass to her, and she didn't deserve it. She was good. That was the thing about good people: they never got what they deserved.