outlines ✰ l.h.

chapter thirty-one

I had Luke in the night, but not during mid-morning.

I searched around the dim room for any sign of him. He made himself appear through a slam in his bedroom door. I flinched as he threw my t-shirt from the night before directly at me.

"Luke," I harshly scoffed, gripping tighter onto the sheets around my bare chest. "What the fuck it up?" I asked in frustration, annoyance seeping through my words.

He glared at me, not afraid to make eye contact with me in this tense situation. His eye was painted with purple and yellow watercolors and a slit that was a deep maroon plastered itself over his left eyebrow.

"I don't want you here." 

"Then why did you ask me to come over?" I asked in utter confusion. He paced around his room which only made me nervous. I watched as he winced while rubbing his temples. 

"Because I was drunk, Andy. I missed you for weeks on end. I wanted to see you and kiss you again and drunk me couldn't stop my emotions and couldn't think straight."

"So was everything we said and did last night just bullshit then?"

"No," he plainly replied. I saw him fight for words to come out before he huffed in frustration. His face scrunched the way a five year olds would in anger. "Just-Just leave. I'm bad for you, and you're bad for me."

My eyes trailed slowly to the messy bedroom floor of his. I couldn't find it in me to argue back with him. I shifted my body away from him as the sheet fell from my chest and my loose shirt was now draped over me. My stomach seemed to knot up tighter after every passing second.

I stood up quickly, gathering my things slowly as he watched me. I lingered as I bent down to grab my shoes from last night. I didn't know what I was waiting for. Maybe kinder words, maybe an apology (even though I didn't deserve one). Perhaps another scene of him confessing his love to me. I realized these weren't coming and the heavy blanket of silence only was weighed down more. I was sweating underneath this heavy sheet. 

I met his dark demeanor once more. For all I knew, it was the last time. His furrowed eyebrows softened at my glance, and soon his eyes were burning through my back. He shut the door behind us as we left. We were as silent as mice as we tiptoed down the steps. Any sound was just as uncomfortable as the silence we sat in. 

I peered around the dimmed hallway as I headed towards the front door. My cold, barefoot tapped lightly on the dark wood underneath me. Luke walked in sync with me. His clunky converse echoed through his almost empty home.

I grabbed my keys off of the hook without looking back at him. It was only when I felt the door abruptly stop before I shut it. I gulped, letting go of the brass and slowly meeting the peeking eyes in the crack. His fingers wrapped around the door firmly. I watched as his knuckles slowly lost their color. 

"What?" I whispered, gently shaking my head at the frustrated boy in front of me. The door swung open, revealing him in a state calmer than I expected. 

"I changed myself for you and let you in. I opened up to you, Andy. I fell in love with you. And for what? For you to treat me just like how I used to treat you?"

I listened intently to him. I even waited for more sentences to fall from his quivering lips. As the silence pushed our time together longer, I spoke. 

"I never asked you to change."

"Well, I wanted to. For you," he said. "Because you made me want to be better." 

Luke left me speechless. I didn't know what he wanted out of me. I loved him, cared about him, and wanted the best for him. I wanted to be with him, but he wanted me out. All I could do was listen to him and try to understand him. It was hard when he was so up and down. He was always in a grey area; never black or white. Never a yes or no. He was always a maybe. We were always a maybe. A could've been. A once was. 

"What do you want from me, Luke?" I asked, pleading for an answer. I shifted my body to face him. He could tell I was tired.

He shrugged his shoulders, opening his mouth then shutting it quickly. He looked down at the ground to my bare feet then back up to me.

"Honestly?" He asked. I nodded.

"Honestly."

"I want you to go back upstairs and lay in my bed with me. I want you to call me everyday. I want you to babble on to me about how annoying your physical science is. I want you to tell me you love me and assure me everything is going to be okay. I want you to be you, Andy Emerson. And, God, I just want you, but it feels like I can't have you anymore."

My heart crumbled under the weight of his words. I stayed stone cold as I tried my best to be. Luke was hurting because of me. Who was I to keeping pulling him on this unnecessary rollercoaster?

I inhaled sharply, taking a large step forward to him. I stood on my tiptoes to reach his face, placing a long lingering kiss on his cheek. As I stepped back I began to turn away, glancing back at him once more.

 "I've always been yours," I whispered.

I expected the silence as I trotted down his steps. Luke wasn't one for confrontation or conflict. His honesty was surprising to me. As was my own. 

I stayed tense as I climbed into my car. Only once did I look up for him after starting my engine. He was already gone behind that large wooden door, the one I had entered and exited so many times. The one with a dozen memories tucked behind.

I cried the whole way home. I spent only a few short months with him, but they say it takes only eight seconds to fall in love. I was unsure who "they" were, but I believed them. Comfortability is not easy to create, so when is comes smoothly it's almost alarming. It was my fault for not taking it as seriously as Luke did in the end. It was my fault for listening to everyone else say that Luke was taking it as a joke, that he still had Kat, that he wasn't serious about me.

This was all my fault.

-

A/N:

thank you guys for holding on while it took me 50 years to update this! the holidays murdered me

i hope you guys had an amazing holiday season! i will see you all in the new year, thank you SO MUCH for supporting me as i came back this year! 

I LOVE YOU