Self-Destruction • Luke Hemmings

Chapter 18

"What did he say?" Luke asks, his hands are gripped so tightly onto the steering wheel that his knuckles have turned white.

"He, erm, told me to be careful around you?" I squeak, unsure whether I should have told him that.

"What!" He exclaims, angrily. He parks up the car immediately on the side of the road.

"You've probably heard a lot of rumours about me, a lot." He laughs with no humour to himself. He slowly turns his head to face me, and he looks completely expressionless, except his eyes. They're not the usual sea blue, instead, they are dark, I can still see remnants of blue but they're mostly black.

"Yeah..." I answer as softly as possible. I want to reach out and help calm him down. He looks so conflicted.

"I wanted this to be fun. I didn't want this to happen. Fucking David." Luke says lowly, I don't like him speaking like this, I'd rather him shout and express his feelings that way. At this exact moment, I am unsure if Luke Hemmings will hurt me.

"We can still have fun, ignore him, I'll ignore him, please." I say quickly, reaching out and touching his hand which is still gripped tightly onto the steering wheel. He stiffens when I touch him, and I quickly take my hand off of his.

"No, no put it back." He whines, and I follow suit. He entwined his hand with mine, and we just sit there, staring at each other.

"I am dangerous. I'm not gonna lie, I am, but I won't hurt you, Faith Smith." He says slowly.

"I believe you, Luke Hemmings." After he hears this words, he grins at me.

"Let's go then! I still have lots more to show you!" He exclaims happily, and I laugh quietly, but I can't help but notice his sudden mood change.

"Faith! Get up!" A voice which sounds very close shouts in my ear. I swat at the person, hoping to get them away, but I can still hear the movement around the room.

"I'm gonna chuck water on you." The voice says, I immediately sit up.

"No. No I'm up." I say quickly. Michael fucking Clifford is standing in my room, wearing only a grin and some swimming shorts.

"Where are you going?" I ask, sitting back and stretching, also letting out a very unladylike groan.

"Swimming." He answers simply.

"Where though?" I clarify.

"Your house." He grins, I shake my head.

"Aunt Bess will never let you in our pool." I grin back, his smile gets even wider if that's possible.

"Well that's good, because she's already gone."

"What? When did she go?" I ask in disbelief, she doesn't usually leave till 11 o'clock.

"3 hours ago, it's 2pm, why are you still in bed?" He answers smoothly.

Memories of last night with Luke flash to mind, after he freaked out about what David had said, he took me to a food place, which was his favourite, mainly because it wasn't a chain food restaurant and it was always open.

After this, we went to the park, which had no street lamps so it was quite eventful trying to find the swings, remembering Luke falling over the see-saw almost makes me laugh out loud, luckily I keep it down.

"I don't know, I must've been catching up from where I didn't sleep at all from the party." I lie, fortunately, this lie came out smooth, so Michael just agrees.

"Get dressed, we're going in the pool." Michael says, walking out of my room into the landing, then heading downstairs. I sigh, and reluctantly get up and go get a bikini.

"How did you get in?" I ask Michael, we're both sitting on the edge of the pool, smoking and drinking.

"Bess was here, she said I could wait for you to get up but I got bored." He shrugs, taking a long swig of his beer, I nod and take a drag from my cigarette.

"You look adorable when you sleep." Michael giggled, I blinked at him, firstly for the sound that had came out of him, and for what he had said.

"Adorable?" I huff. I hate people seeing me when I'm asleep, I feel like that when I'm asleep I'm most vulnerable. I hate it.

"Yep. You were sucking your thumb, had a teddy bear...." He continues, this is when I know he is joking.

"Whatever." I reply, hitting him slightly.

"Have you done any of your homework?" Michael asks. I scoff slightly.

"Do I look like I've done my homework?" I laugh, and he shakes his head, but laughs too.