fight club • luke hemmings

chapter one

roller skates and chevys.

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Bubblegum. Roller skates. Red lipstick. It was the three tangible things he had wholly associated with her. The mere fusion of soft pinks and pastel blends had belonged to her, spirited and reclaimed by her aura. Now the slightest glance at an orchid or a dahlia plant was all he needed to revitalise the events of summer '69 and take him right back to the same lake their nocturnal spirits had spent nights after nights. All he had to do was pick up a plant—sweet peas, he preferred—a sharp inhale of the blush stained petals, a quick second of clamped eyelids and the black canvas of psychedelic patterns is submerged with her sweet face.

The roller skates he was never a fan of. She'd be quick of her feet, slip past and glide away in a blink of an eye. Especially the days she felt ballsy enough to whisper a risqué one-liner in his ear, puff out her cheeks to blow air into her bubblegum and spin away on her wheels with a sharp pop all while he shamelessly grew hard. She'd skate backwards, lower her heart-shaped sunglasses to the tip of her nose and look at him with fiery eyes that screamed bad news.

The red lipstick started after a while, though when she claimed it with her bold looks she pulled it off as though she had worn it for years. He picked up on a trend, tainted her full cherry lips on the days she felt rage. Whether it be at him or the mishaps of her adolescent world. She'd shade her eyes on those days, never let him read her hazel irises because even she knew he'd studied her so deeply and attentively that he was able to read her as easy as the music sheets he'd learned all his life. He studied the way she'd dress, learned the way she'd talk, became so invested in breaking down each layer of her soul until she was raw, naked enough for him to be sure she had loved him as he loved her.

Cigarettes. '65 Chevy. Harrington Jackets. She picked up on these three things quickly, it simply became Luke. He'd smoke as though his lungs were sheltered from turning inky, puffed his stress out in a ball off merged nitrogen and carbon cloud. At times he was buying three packets a week, the cigarette dangling on his ears as if it were part of his anatomy but the distasteful stench of tobacco had grown on her. When she'd walk through towns, she'd be able to tell which stranger was using the same brand as him. She'd mindlessly inhale the second-hand smoke and her mind would fill up with him, parked outside her house while leaned up against his jet black '65 Chevrolet Malibu with a black Harrington jacket hanging off one of his shoulders.

The Chevy got him through a lot, it was given as a gift from his father the year he started college at the University of Pennsylvania in 1965. The car got him through the road trips that he would take with his friends at the end of each to a state that was pumped with adrenaline for the upcoming New Years. It had also got him through the broken narrow roads of the countrysides to the lake in North A during 1969. She had grown to love it as well, felt as sentimental to her as it were to him. The days he'd take her for a drive, a hand firmly gripping the steering wheel so tightly that the thin skin around his knuckles blended to a pale white, his other hand trembling while occupied with a flared cigarette. Those types of days his mind was numb, had a stomach clogged with anxiety and dirty secrets, all she could do was place a comforting hand on his thigh. Prayed one day he'd trust her enough to let her know the unsettling worries that had his blood pressure so high. She opened her heart for him, hoped it becomes a place he could pour out his troubles. A stress relief, prayed deeply she'd become conducive, just like his cigarettes was to him.

That summer she'd picked up a part-time job, could do with the extra money so she spent most days of the week in that diner on Main Street, propped just ahead of the beach, the clashes of the ocean visible as she'd watch with a miserable smile. "Welcome to Rosie's Grill & Bar. Buy a bucket of chicken and have a barrel of fun," she repeated once again, her tone borderline robotic. She hadn't even bothered to look at the group who took their places by the window booth, waited for them to give their orders but once a stiff muteness surrounds her she awkwardly gazed up from her notepad.