ten years. [lrh]

twenty-five.

"I have something of yours," Amanda said. They had taken a walk out from Amanda's street and had ended up sitting on a bench in the middle of nowhere.

"Yeah?" Luke dug his hands in the pockets of his coat.

"Yeah." Amanda placed her head forward in her hands out of embarrassment. "Your phone. It's at home... you left it there."

"I left it there?" Luke smirked. "Would've remembered if I left it there."

"I may have taken it. For safekeeping."

Luke laughed, but Amanda could tell it was forced.

"Well, what did you find?"

"Nothing." Amanda shrugged. "Password."

"Ah."

Amanda still had the polaroid in her hand. She didn't know what to say. She couldn't imagine him, Luke, with a boy. How do you approach this sort of situation?

"What happened?" asked Amanda.

Luke twisted his body and threw his legs onto the bench, crossing them towards Amanda. The sheer greatness of the space Luke took up made Amanda (and the bench too, she thought) feel small, inferior.

"Riordon doesn't know," he said. Amanda cocked her head to the side.

"Huh?"

"He doesn't know that we're his parents," explained Luke. "Clara had him when we had just turned eighteen. She had this big future in front of her, and I had this big future in front of me. Neither of us knew how to handle a child."

"Considering you had just been one," Amanda murmured under her breath.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Right. Anyway, yeah- he lives with Lillian, Clara's sister. We visit him every now and then but not as his parents. He thinks Lillian's his mother."

"That's terrible," said Amanda.

"Yeah." Luke stared at his knees.

He was right, Amanda realised. Well, he wasn't, but she wished he hadn't told her that specific piece of information. Why couldn't it have been Hey, Amanda, I killed a person! and not Hey, Amanda, I have a son! And he's not yours!

When they were together, Amanda had always dreamed of starting a family with Luke. They were going to have no kids, plenty of dogs, and goats. Neither of them liked children. They weren't children people, you know? But a family was still a family, and Amanda used to believe that she'd have that.

"Why did you keep it from him?"she asked.

"Because we knew he wasn't gonna understand. No one wants to know their parents ditched them. They don't wanna know why, either. We go to Connecticut every year."

"But Luke..." Amanda trailed off, looking over the details of the picture once more. "He looks so much like you."

"He hasn't picked up on that yet." Luke nervously scratched his head. "I want to tell him before he realises himself."

"Why don't you?" Amanda couldn't stop herself from asking questions- one after the other after the other. She thought that if she kept responding, kept talking, the distraction of coming up with words would keep her from whatever she was really feeling.

And she didn't know what she felt. Not pain- no, it was much too late for that. But she felt something. She hated it.

Luke huffed. "Clara wants nothing to do with him. And the thing is, he loves her. Her loves her to death and she doesn't give a shit. Or maybe she does, you know? Deep down."

"Deep, deep... deep down."

"Ha."

"Is that really the reason you never came back?" God, Amanda, stop. The questions, they were flowing out from her as if she was some sort of broken fountain.

Huh. Maybe that's what she felt. Some sort of broken.

Luke hesitated. He checked his wrist, before realising he didn't have a watch. Amanda showed him the time from her phone; it really was getting late.

"It wasn't just that. I don't know, Mandy, I fell into some sort of spiral after Clara told me she was pregnant. She roped me into this huge new lifestyle- rightfully, I guess; it was my fault after all- but I didn't know how to handle it. I had my band with me before, right? The band hated Clara. They hated who I became after I got with her and shit got real bad, Mandy. Shit got real bad. I got real bad, the rumours got real bad, and the rest of the boys were sick of it."

Luke let out a shaky breath. Amanda was afraid he'd start crying. She didn't want him to cry. Not on her terms. Luke quickly shook his head as if he was clearing it, and continued to speak.

"I left the band and I just got worse. And I remember thinking to myself, people believing in the magazines just gives me free shots, right? So that's just what I did."

"Stop," said Amanda.

"No, Amanda-"

"STOP."

Amanda didn't want to hear it. Not straight away- she wasn't sure if she wanted to hear it at all. It was too much for her and it was clearly too much for Luke.

"You- you need to know everything," said Luke, his voice strained. When Amanda couldn't avoid his gaze any further, she looked up and saw his once blue eyes turning a dark grey, welling up with tears.

"Not now," she replied, pushing the polaroid of his son into his hands. He took the picture back gratefully, gripping Amanda's fingers along with it. They sat like that, desperately holding on to each other's hands.

"Are you being waited for?" Luke asked after a while, his voice still shaking.

Amanda shrugged. "Henry never waits," she said. "What about you?"

"I think my parents are sick of waiting."

As a car flashed by, Amanda caught a sad smile creep across Luke's face. Before he could continue to say anything further, she repositioned herself on the bench, before pushing Luke's legs off the bench with her own and sliding closer to him. He got the memo quickly, throwing a free arm behind Amanda's shoulders and pulling her close.

It didn't mean anything, but the both of them needed it. At that moment in time, Luke's secrets didn't matter. Everybody had them.

"Amanda, I have to tell you-" Luke was cut off before he could finish his sentence.

"Shh."  Amanda shook her head lightly. "Just sit here. With me. Don't say a word."

"I just-"

"No, Luke."

"I just wanted to say I'm sorry," he said.

Amanda shifted. She felt Luke's arm tense around her, so she stroked it with her free arm until he began to relax. The polaroid was still poking through the holes of their intertwined hands. The more she thought about it, the more it burned under her palm. A reminder, she thought. A reminder that it was there. And it was Luke's.

______________

short lil chapter for u all sorry if it's boring but HEY look at me update

planning on releasing the first part of my new short story right about now too so check it if u wanna xo

thank u for reading! don't forget to vote n comment <3

- epihphany