Souvenir [Complete]

Thirty-five. Amputation

Luke couldn't go home. He remembered the promise he made to himself not to turn back around. But how could he help it? He couldn't. It wasn't his fault.

Or maybe it was.

He couldn't bring himself to tell the kids about what happened. So he didn't say anything at dinner. He'd brought something home. Cause he didn't feel like cooking. He was to exhausted to clean, and he was too heartbroken to do anything other than chew and swallow.

This was his fault. Maybe Ashton was right. But he couldn't accept it. Not now, and not ever. Luke definitely couldn't handle being responsible for this grief.

At work, his boss made him sing for this young boy's death. Luke made a habit of not looking into any open casket. He mostly noticed it when he saw the family that had gathered looked suspiciously young. Then he'd looked at the program. And laying in the open casket, Luke thought that the twelve-year-old in the box kind of looked like Harry.

He broke down during the performance. It was all too much. The flowers, the quiet sobs of a family, the recent sting of his own issues and upheaval. Seeing this blond boy made Luke cry for numerous reasons.

He'd thought he was over being sad at funerals now. He was so wrong. The family came over and rubbed his back and cried with him. Luke felt more communion with these strangers than he had in months with his own boyfriend.

They told him that the boy's name was Shawn, and that he'd wanted to be a composer someday. They told him that the only reason they agreed to having a funeral singer is because Shawn had wanted to be something similar—he'd had said that's where the money is. And their nostalgic laugher broke Luke.

Luke sobbed in the funeral home bathroom. He curled up on one of the toilets. He didn't think he'd ever smell lilies the same way ever again, since it's sweet smell filled the whole bathroom from the bouquet on the counter. The smell would always make him think of this boy now. This young musical boy, who happened to die at the precise time where Luke felt the most alone.

He wondered, while he was sobbing, how many people would come to his own funeral. His town definitely would. They'd talk about how nice he was, how pretty. How he always sang at church. There probably wouldn't be a funeral singer for him, it would be too fresh. His family wasn't as strong as Shawn's.

Then he wondered if would Ashton be there. Probably not.

And then the thought was so unbearable and so awful that it shoved its way to the forefront of his mind. And it stayed like all bad thoughts do for Lukes fixation. If Ashton died there would be four people there, including himself. Four.

Luke hated Ashton for thinking of himself as so dangerous that he couldn't have friends. Or a big family. Or a real lover.

Had that been what the fight was about? It felt like a million years ago. It felt like it had simultaneously happened to someone else, and cut him to the core when he is kind wandered back to it.

Luke knew he was being dramatic. He'd almost expected a break up. Almost. But why had he been the one to do it? Why was he the one who always had to make the bad choices? Ashton had even told him not to. And here he was.

He didn't deserve to cry over their breakup. He didn't deserve to feel pity for himself. He fell in love with a criminal. He was really stupid to think he could ever be loved in return.

He jumped from one relationship to another. So in a way, to lose the second is like losing both. But they were both Luke's fault. And he couldn't even feel sad without being guilty.

In the first breakup—the one with Brian—he hadn't wanted the love he'd been given. And the second, he wanted a love that was never gonna come.

He consoled himself in the mirror as he washed his hands. The almond scent from the pink soap mixed with the lilies filled Luke's nose as he reminded his puffy eyed, exhausted reflection that he couldn't lose something he never really had.