Take Me

Chapter Seventeen

A.N. Bobby gets a little more personal in this chapter, so I decided to cast him. Evan Peters, bitches. Evan fucking Peters. That's all. Keep reading and voting, and I'll see you all next time. ENJOY! Xoxo, Clay.

"I'm interested in the gorgeous side of life, but also familiar with the dark side of it too."

- Lana Del Rey

♔ Chapter Seventeen ♔

I'd stayed locked up in my bedroom for the rest of the day. After therapy, I just needed to get away from all of this bullshit. But my specific kind of bullshit followed me everywhere, so that I couldn't ever escape it.

"I like what you've done to the room," Luke smiled.

When I trudged through the door, Luke had already been there, sitting on my bed with his legs crossed. I drew out a long and winded breath when I saw him, kicking off my shoes lazily and collapsing down onto my bed beside him.

"Hey," I whispered to him.

He shuffled in his position so that I could rest my head in his lap. I felt his phantom fingers tracing lightly over my forehead, playing with strands of my hair. I'd closed my eyes, but I knew Luke was looking at me. I could feel his stare, irking me, sending weird chills down my spine. I had to keep reminding myself that it wasn't actually Luke, it was just me and my crazy.

But it was hard to remember that. Sometimes, I'd just take one look at his dead ghost and I'd relax and I'd forget about the whole world, because it felt like I had him back.

It was so easy for me to slip back into my memories of him. I wanted him back so badly, and when he came back, I felt like my life had gone back to normal, even though it just made everything more fucked up. It felt like it did before he died: it felt good and happy, like we'd be kids forever, toying around and teasing, laughing like the world was at our feet.

"Why did you tell her?" he puffed. "That therapist woman. Why did you tell her about me?"

My eyes batted open, to find him staring me down intensely, deadly. His stare unnerved me. "I don't know."

His voice was the softest and gentlest I'd ever heard it, tickling at his throat as he spoke, "They'll make me go away again, leave you again. I don't want to." He paused. I wasn't sure if he was crying, seen as how his entire face was wet and dripping. "I wish I could be with you forever, Tom."

"I wish you'd never died," I confessed. I didn't know where it came from, probably the deepest, darkest, most depressing folds of my mind. And it was nothing but the honest truth.

His death didn't just sadden me, it didn't just disrupt my life for a few weeks until I got over it, like most people seemed to. His death had traumatised me, it had completely destroyed the person that I was. It left me feeling as dead as Luke was, an empty shell, frigid and stupid. He was my whole life, and when he died, a part of me died with him. My happiness. Any hope of happiness I had drowned with Luke at the bottom of the English Channel, and trying to find it with Isaac or with anyone else was just unthinkable. To even try and be happy without him was a bruise on his memory.

"But I did die."

The buzzing of my phone, sitting on the edge of my bed, struck me back, and when I looked up, Luke wasn't there anymore. I pushed thoughts of Luke away and grabbed it, answering quickly. "Hello?"

"Can you come and help me?" The voice sounded urgent, panicked, unhinged. Barely recognisable.

"Sorry, who is this?" I asked, confused. I recognised the voice briefly, but it was muffled and static by the phone.