you are in love · luke hemmings

ix

Cierra was lying on her floor, and so was Luke.

Cierra's floor, more specifically — they were lying stomach down in her living room. Notebooks were spread around the floor, along with loose papers. They were attempting — key word, attempting — to do their homework, even though they went to different schools and had different classes. They tried to help each other as much as they could. Luke hated science, so Cierra helped him with that. Cierra hated calculus, but Luke had already taken that class a year before her, and he helped her with that. He was practically a genius in math.

"If you like math so much," She started to ask, "Why do you hate science?"

Luke shrugged. "It's different. I liked chemistry because of all the math, but I hated the rest of it. Especially biology." He practically shuddered.

Cierra laughed, finally finishing up her last calc problem (with a lot of Luke's help.) She was surprised she even managed to get it done —they spent most of their time here goofing around instead of getting much work done.

Luke was running his hands through his messy hair as he groaned over his psych work that'd he been stressing about the whole time. ("I don't even know why I took this class, Cierra," He had whined, "I got a D on my last quiz and everyone else got an A.")

He finally decided to put it away and try it again later, per Cierra's advice. Mostly because she wanted to spend time with him without the topic of school lingering around.

"So-" Cierra started to say, before her mom interrupting her, walking into the room.

"Mail," Her mum said cheerfully, holding out an envelope for Cierra. She felt a rush of excitement, standing up quickly to retrieve the letter from her mum. She mouthed a 'thank you' to her before turning back around and sitting down again with Luke.

"Is this your first one?" Luke asked, looking just as eager as her to open up the letter.

"No," Cierra said, as he struggled to rip it open. "But I've only sent one. Is that sucky? I feel like that's sucky."

"No, it's okay," Luke tried to convince her otherwise.

Vicky's letters were always a few days behind, and she had only gotten about 3 or 4 of them so far even though she had been in the hospital for roughly a week and a half. She read it silently, and Luke peeked over her shoulder to read it along with her. She didn't mind at all.

After she finished reading the letter, (she read it twice, actually) she grabbed her notebook with a smile on her face. She chewed on the back on her pen for a second or two, and then began writing.

Cierra could feel Luke watching her write, but she let him and just kept scribbling down anything that came to mind. It was quite short, but it was to the point, and that's all that mattered.

"Put a P.S.," Luke said, his chin practically on her shoulder at this point.

"What should it say?" She questioned, trying her hardest not to look over at him. If she did, their noses might've touched. And she probably would've went insane.

At this point, Luke's chin actually was on her shoulder, and she could feel him grinning. She could feels his hand hovering right near her waist. Like he wanted to touch her, but he wasn't sure if she should. "Say something about meeting me."

Cierra tapped the pen on the paper. She thought, and then wrote down a sentence.

"...That's perfect," said Luke.

When you get home, there's someone I want you to meet.

x x x x

Luke was still at Cierra's house, even though it was almost 9:30 on a school night.