"Stuck In The Friend-Zone Again and Again"

"Seen It Before"

Sure enough, the next day when Luke and I went out to get groceries for Liz, multiple magazines on the rack had our faces plastered across the covers.

"Told ya so!" I told Luke, pointing to the magazines while in line to check out.
Luke cringed, but laughed all the same.

I snagged every magazine that had mention of us on the front cover off of the rack.
"I wanna see what garbage they're publishing," I told Luke, pulling a $20 bill out of my pocket.

I slammed the few magazines I had held onto the checkout strip, and handed the lady my money after she scanned them.

Immediately after she handed me my changed I scooped the magazines back up, waiting as Luke got the groceries.

I grabbed a couple of the bags and we headed back to the car, my curiosity growing by the minute.

Once we were inside the car again, I hurriedly flipped through one of the magazines as Luke started the car.

"Let's see this bullshit," I said vaguely, finding the page.

" 'Luke's New Girl?' " I read out. "Oh Lord, this should be good."
" ' Does 5 Seconds of Summer lead singer Luke Hemmings have a new girl?
" 'Friend of the band, 16 year old Paris Hadley has always been rumoured to be romantically involved with the 20 year old musician, but apparently had found a boyfriend in her small town high school soon after Paris befriended Luke.
" 'The pair were apparently a happy couple, according to the band and Paris and her boyfriend's social media posts, even going as far as love, up until about 2 weeks ago, when the pair apparently split. The break up is assumed to be messy, going by the band's tweets last night. The tweets were as follows:
" '@Michael5SOS: I'm having a strong urge to beat up a particular man, and I'm using the term man loosely. Douche is a better term.
@Ashton5SOS: Having some powerful feelings of anger towards someone certain who hurt her. You know who you are😒
@Calum5SOS: People who hurt wonderful people disgust me. @jakejakejake"
@Luke5SOS: When you hurt her you hurt me. Seeing her hurting makes me want to cry and beat him up at the same time. Not very happy with him right now tbh.
" 'Luke's seems to be the most personal, and that, paired with the old rumours that are still floating and the flirty pictures taken of them at Bondi Beach not long ago(see below), are leading everyone to believe that the two are dating for real now.' "

I finished reading and took a deep breath before laughing drily.

"What trash," I chuckled humourlessly . "It's not their jurisdiction to say whether or not my- my breakup, was messy, or if we were a couple now unless we confirmed it."
"Why did you buy them?" Luke asked, eyes focused on the road. "They just make you angry."
"Because if they're gonna talk about me I've gotta know what they're saying," I told him. "It's better to be out of the dark, don't you think?"
Luke nodded reluctantly. "I guess so. I just don't like seeing you upset."
I smiled at his words, before becoming serious again. "It's just that the press making up rumours about people's personal lives really bugs me. If it's true, then I don't care, unless it's something personal the person doesn't want to get out. Basically, if it's true, and they don't care, then I don't care. Hollywood and fame seems like the stereotypical high school experience."
"It kind of is," Luke agreed with a nod.
"Well," I sighed, looking at the magazines in my lap. "We might as well see what other sort of garbage people are publishing."
Luke laughed, causing me to start, and our combined laughs filled the small space of the car with sounds of joy.

------------------------

When we were back home, well Luke's home anyway, we dropped the bags in the kitchen and raced upstairs. I wanted to read and Luke wanted to work on a new song he had been writing, but was refusing to let me read.

His argument was: "If you let me read one of your songs, I'll let you read one of mine".

And of course I want about to let him read the songs I had written, so I was out of luck.

I was rereading Kill Me Softly by Sarah Cross, which was an amazing and totally underrated book by the way (seriously read it, it's amazing).

As I got more and more into the story, which was sort of like The Lunar Chronicles in the way that it had a modern twist on fairy tales but not in an overdone way, I began to think that the start of my relationship with Jake had been like a fairy tale, but had crashed and burned.

So I stuck my bookmark in between the pages, pulled out my binder and a pen and began to write furiously.

By the time I was done, tears stained the pages, but I had a complete song that I was proud of.

I dubbed it: Unhappy Endings.

A/N: HAPPY BIRTHDAY LUKE!
My little baby is 19 years old today!

If you guys don't mind, I have a poem I wrote on my Tumblr for Luke that I'm going to insert below:

I love you more than the life that I live and the air that I breathe
More than the calm summer wind that blows through the trees
Even more still than a cool ocean breeze.
Because if it was not for you I would not be me.
~Mia Hobson (Hemmings)

Also, side note, in the next chapter I may include an audio of Unhappy Endings that I recorded but I'm not sure if I want to because you guys may be like "OH GOD NO GO AWAY AND GET ON WITH THE STORY" so idk what do you guys think?

BUT YEAH HAPPY BIRTHDAY PENGUIN!!!!!!!!!