Impermanent Perfection - jatp/luke

1.15

after the party died down, ray ordered pizza for the group to have a quick dinner.

"i can't say this enough, that was incredible." flynn gushes, turning to the girls sitting beside her. "but epic fail on that eye contact thing." she looked at jade who chuckled awkwardly, turning away from her.

"so how do you do those holograms?" carlos asks, causing the three girls to turn to him, none of them sure what to say.

"oh, don't try to understand it carlos. i dont." ray tells the boy with a small smile.

"that's because you're old." carlos states, matter-of-factly, making the three girls laugh slightly.

"ha-ha, funny guy!" ray jokes sarcastically. "i'd send you to your room but then who's going to clean up this mess?" he points to the empty paper plates on the counter and carlos let out a sigh, gathering the garbage quickly.

"don't poke the bear." julie reminds him as jade and flynn tut at him beside her.

"so what are the boys doing right now?" ray turns to the girls and jade and julie look to each other quickly.

"hanging out, i guess." jade shrugs, unsure of what else to say.

"you know, or whatever you do when you're from where they're from." julie continues awkwardly. "hey so, um, what cameras did you use out there?" she asks, changing the conversation away from hard to answer questions about their 'hologram' band.

"you're interested in my work?" ray questions, sliding into the chair across from them. they nod, though none of them really do, and he begins discussing his and his colleagues cameras and their purposes. the girls subtly fist bump before resting their head in their hands, nodding along to his camera nonsense until it was time for bed.

~*~

the next night, julie and jade were supposed to stay over at flynn's for the night, since it was a saturday and they didn't have to worry about school the next morning. jade claimed she wasn't feeling well so she didn't want to go, though really she just wanted to work on her songs, hopefully with luke.

none of the boys were in the studio, which confused jade slightly but she wasn't too upset, she kind of wanted to work on the song she had started the morning after the dance. she never really felt like her songs were good enough, she always worked on them too much.

except for the songs she wrote with luke, she always felt good about how they turned out. she wasn't sure why, but it was like when her and luke were together the music just flooded out of them, mixing with each other's melodies and lyrics in the perfect way.

she knew she should be listening to flynn and julie and not be spending so much time with him. she shouldn't be letting herself get this attached to a ghost, but she couldn't help it. he just came into her life, completely unexpectedly and flipped her world upside down, in the best way.

she sat at the piano and lifted the lid, setting her book down in front of her and opening to the page of the song. she wasn't sure exactly what she wanted to do with it yet.

re-reading over the lyrics reminded her of that morning and how she felt. she was still wondering if leaving home was the right choice. she knew her dad loved her at one point, but she wasn't sure if it was true anymore. she didn't know if he still loved her now, or if he even knew how to love someone who was something he despised so much.

even though she didn't have her dad anymore, she had luke to help her through. since she'd told him about what happened, he had always been around to talk to her if she needed to. he was so sweet about all of it and she knew it was because he knew how it felt to be in that situation.